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James K. Baxter Complete Prose Volume 1

The Axe – a preview

The Axe – a preview

When a group that has done as much as any other in the country to develop dramatic taste announces its intention to perform a play by one of New Zealand’s most important living poets, it is an event of interest to anyone following the labour pains of a home-grown culture.

The play is Curnow’s The Axe; the producers, fully fledged after Ngaio Marsh’s tutelage and last year’s experience of six one-acters and the Congreve comedy, no less than the Canterbury University College’s Drama Society.

The Axe is important, if only because of the few N.Z. plays, this is the first to be staged. Again, its author is a Christchurch man, and wrote it especially for the Little Theatre, which will receive it for a full-dress airing.

The play is a two-act tragedy in verse. Its subject is an unsuccessful revolt by the pagan Ngativara tribe against the Christian king of Mangaia in the Cook Islands in 1824. It was from a course of lectures by Dr Peter Buck that Curnow first got his idea; patient research amplified his knowledge of the event. The theme is the disappearance of an old culture, the emergence of a new. Thus it is plain that the interpretation can communicate modern meanings. It reflects Curnow’s preoccupation with islands and the sea:

Out of the sea
Comes danger, comes change.

The setting of the play and the technical innovations have set problems for the staging of the play. The Cook Island casting alone calls for expert make- up. The setting of the actors against the background of the sea dispenses with the usual stage-properties; the open-air colour is achieved by playing against a cyclorama. For the chorus two platforms project from the stage onto the floor, effecting an intimate contact between audience and players, an effect that only in a Little Theatre a playwright can put faith in. The device of the chorus commenting on the play and intensifying its emotional meaning is a resurrection that students of classical and modern drama alike will watch with great interest.

The performance of The Axe will be preceded by a series of mime exercisespage 25 by the Drama Classes organised by Keith Thomson.

The dates are not finalised, but those interested are advised to keep a night free about April 20. There will be three performances. Freshers are reminded that friends are welcome.

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