Education by Wireless

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 40, 19 April 1929, Page 25

Education by Wireless

WE:A. Lectures: The Play and the People

THE Workers’ Education Association of New Zealand is extending its work by wireless lecturettes. In order: to get the best results from these lectures, notes will be published regularly before the lectures. The Otago centre provides the following notes for a lecture on "The Play and_ the People" to be given by Mr. Lloyd Ross, M.A., LL.B.. from Dunedin, on Tuesday, April 23, at 7.30. { Why go to the Theatre? A MAN was on his way to commit suicide by throwing himself over Waterloo Bridge and happened to come into a theatre for a © w minutes, not knowing what sort entertainment was being given thi". It happened to be "Everyman" and he found in it something which gave him enough co-irage to live. That is one story. In a recent English inquest of a man who had shot himself in a London hotel, it came vut that he had gone to see Shakespeare’s tragedy "Othello" the night before. The Coroner conimented: "Oh, I know it-a most distressing play, with ‘a suicide at the end." That is another story. Is a great play likely to have a depressing or stimulating effect? What does the public want? . Why do we go to plays? Such questions can be approached from two points of view. First, we could carry out an investigation of actual playgoers and of those who do not think the drama worth bothering about, or secondly .we could give an account. of the audiences who have gone to plays in the past. Listeners-in are invited to give their opinions. Here it is proposed to outline the history of the -audience. From Greece to Sussex. At Epidaurus there are the ruins of an ancient Greek theatre, which had accommodation for at least 16,000 people. Erected in a valley, the stone seats rose tier upon tier around the stage, so admirably that a person speaking in an ordinary tone from the stuge can still be heard perfectly in all parts of the auditorium. Here were performed the Greck plays-mostly tiagedies of the life and death, treméndous passions, dreadful deeds of gods ‘and powerful men. ‘"Agaimemnon," for instance, depicts the return of King Agamemnon from the sack of Troy, and his murder by his wife-a sordid domestic tragedy! Although the plays abound in™ such incidents, these were not enacted on the stage, but were described in long lyrical choruses. A. typical modern criticism might be not that the plays were too exciting, but.that they were too dullno action and long speeches. Yet the Greeks flocked to the. plays, and we po

remember that these Greeks produced magnificent buildings and _ statuary which are still the glory of the world. What did they see in these plays? Then we jump across the centuries to Sussex, and there we find villagers performing Greek plays, spending hours in preparation, going to the performances almost as part of a religious rite, enjoying themselves: as did the ancient Greeks. Says one witness: "People saw in the plays ideas which they had felt, but had never been able to express, The blacksmith’s wife always came in her bath chair and had never yet missed a performance, although she was delicate." It might be worth while to read a Greek play to see whether it has any appeal for our picture-going age. Shakespeare. JHILE the BSHlizabethans liked scenes of madness, drunkenness, yice, and brutality, they were prepared to stand for three hours or more in the pit of the Globe Theatre and fisten to the stirring poetry of Shakespeare, watch the tragedies of "Hamlet," "King Lear," and "Othello," unassisted by the scenery and mechanieal devices of our day. Shakespeare was a best-seller then, and if we accept the verdict of the "Old Vic" Theatre in modern London, we again feel that given the opportunity at a low price, the masses of the peuple will flock to the great plays as enthusiastically as did the Elizabethan apprentice. Miss Lilian Bayliss, the organiser of the "Old Vic," declared that the drama had a wonderful effect on tired minds and she thought that it had kept people sane during the war. © She remembered one boy who had been blinded in the war; no one could get him to take any interest in life until he was brought one day to the "Old Vic" to a performance of "Mignon." From that time he had quite changed.’ lEverywhere in England. in rural districts as well as in the large towns, in private homes and factories. people are reading plays, and finding in this dramatic work something that makes life fuller and more enjoyable. Some of the expermients will be described in the lecture by Mr. Ross, It would be an interesting adventure to analyse the audiences, past and _ present. Books and Discussion: "Drama," Ashley Dukes (Home University Library) ; "Huripides and His Age," Gilbert Mur- ray: "Drama." J. R. Williams (W.E.A. outline); "Modern Drama," Otago W.E.A. Correspondence Course. Discussion. | ey this lecture we are trying to suggest that the reading, hearing, studying, acting and writing of plays

is a most satisfying recreation whose influence permeates every side of our daily lives. In later lectures we will discuss different aspects of the drama itself. There we are interested in the audience. How do you account for the opposition that until recently was shown to the stage? When there is go much unhappiness in the world, why do people go to tragedies? What do you get out of Shakespeare? Which anecdote at the head of these notes would seem to you the more probable? How do the personnel, the emotions roused, the influence, the social results, the sense of enjoyment vary at a football match, cricket game, bridge party, wireless concert, moving pictures, vaudeville entertainment, plays by A.. A. Milne and Shakespeare? See if you can analyse your own feelings. Address all questions or points of discussion to "Secretary, W.E.A., University of Otago," and mark the envelope "Radio, Talks."