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The Spike or Victoria University College Review 1933

The Extravaganza

page 60

The Extravaganza.

Let me apologise first of all for what I feel will be the egotistical trend of this article. I propose to record my personal reactions to the Extravaganza. I speak for myself. I disclaim responsibility for anybody else. I do not hand down a judgment raised on the immoveable foundation of dramatic law. I am no Aristotle, no Dryden; I do not even write about the pictures for the Evening Post. Let me misquote a recent lecture by A. E. Housman:

"But the course of these remarks has now brought us to a point where another and perhaps greater difficulty awaits us in determining the competence or incompetence of the judge, that is the sensibility or insensibility of the percipient. Am I capable of recognising an extravaganza if I come across it? Do I possess the organ by which an extravaganza is perceived? The majority of civilised mankind notoriously and in-disputably do not; who has certified me that I am one of the minority who do? I may know what I like and admire it intensely; but what makes me think that it is an extravaganza?"

I put in all this preliminary matter, refined and educated reader, to protect myself; for on the only other occasion I reviewed an extravaganza, I was, I think, threatened with a libel action. But now I have sufficiently explained that any-thing I say doesn't matter anyhow, and we can go ahead.

Three things I definitely liked about the Extravaganza: (1) the Programme, (2) the Orchestra, (3) the Ballet. (I put them in order of appearance and not necessarily of merit.) (1) The Programme was the best thing in Capping Programmes I have seen, though I admit my memory only goes back to 1919 and I have missed several; but there was something about the pointless asininity of this particular programme which touched the point of high art—I do not say genius, but anyhow, high art. The man or woman or committee who wrote it out of his or her or their own heads or with scissors and paste deserve a crown of some classical vegetable. That is to say, my sense of humour is like that. (2) The Orchestra seemed to me to play not only with enthusiasm but together. To say that, and to think of other capping orchestras that have been heard, Is a tribute to its conductor beyond which words can scarcely carry one. The chorus on the stage no doubt at times diverged somewhat from the course proposed by the orchestra in front of it, but not much. (3) The Ballet made me think that Mr. Ziegfeld's young ladies, or the Tiller Girls, might consider going out of business. It made me think also, somewhat sadly, that perhaps some of the owners of these flashing limbs, in embarking on the academic life, had missed their vocation. Can one sacrifice at once at the altars of Minerva and of Terpsichore? Possibly in the first term it doesn't matter. Any-how, I had no objection to make to the Ballet.

I come now to more particular criticism. "Three Sheets in the Wind," like all extravaganzas, was too long——each of the constituent sheets would have been all the better for being lopped by a third. It must be very difficult for dramatic authors to learn this, but the lesson would be worth learning. How pleasant it would be if some day the curtain came down and left one clamouring for more! But so far the curtain has stayed grimly up. (I admit in this connection that extravaganzas are not really written for the audience at all, but for the performers; but all the same, the artistic point holds, and is perhaps worth labouring.) Take "The Gully Trap," for instance, the first of the skits on this occasion. The best thing about it was undoubtedly the posters on the walls, and they, alas! were genuine Russian; but there were funny moments, the acting was good, and the get-up was very good. Yet did the play itself need to straggle so much? How much better it would have been for tightening up, elimination of the loose edges, a swifter movement! I really began to wonder now and again if it truly was Something Frightfully Earnest. But no, it wasn't; we saw that at the end. But did the end have the cutting-edge which could alone have justified that lengthy leading-up, that gazing over the steppes, that elaborate flood of emotion? In other words, was it funny enough? I thought not.

"Great Caesar" was undoubtedly the most amusing part of the evening. The first speech had not been half spoken when I thought —"Ah! my old friend P. J. Smith!" It was the authentic style. The stage was too big for this piece, and the piece itself was certainly too long. Nevertheless we were never in doubt that it was a farce, and a farce that frequently got us, to use one of the immortal phrases of Mr. Smith page 61 himself, "where the pie goes home." In a good cast, Caesar and Taranakus, that impressive chief of the Caucocii, deserve special mention, while I still chuckle now and again over the "which things having been done" of Caesar's dictation. The vein of which "Great Caesar" is a specimen would probably repay further working; but let it be worked with speed and slickness.

"Mister Gaiahad," the third piece, was, I gather, the piece of resistance. I liked it very much in spots, but on the whole it beat me. There is, of course, no reason why an extravaganza should be about anything, yet this one seemed to be about something and I couldn't for the life of me figure it out. There was no inner coherence; there did not seem to be any logic even in the madness. It was not till I read the guide to understanding in the programme after-wards that I realised that it was a skit on Everything. That should have been made plain, I think, in the thing itself. "Mister Galahad" suffered on the whole as all student undertakings suffer which take for their model the feebler type of modern "musical comedy." They simply won't do. They're neither student, like "The Gully Trap" or "Great Caesar," or professional leg-show; and the cabaret scenes are dreadful. This particular one seemed merely an excuse for getting everybody on to the stage, which it did successfully, but did it have any other point?

So much by way of hostility—to which should be added perhaps a note on the startlingly ugly colour-scheme adopted for the dresses in the first act. Putting all these things on one side, it is possible to praise a good deal of the production, and of the individual performances, though for lack of space I do not particularise. Perhaps it would be ungrateful not to record the beauty, manly as well as feminine, of the large chorus; to the ballet I have already paid tribute. The musical part of the show was one of its brightest spots, as it was certainly the most popular.

I hope there is not about this notice too much of the damnation of faint praise. The evening's entertainment was entertaining, no doubt of that. But (those deadly but's) in the family conference of Spike it seems more necessary to emphasise traditional faults which may yet be avoided than to burst into a paean of undiscriminating enthusiasm. I regret once again the intrusion of the egotistic; I put off the garments of dogma. Should I add, that though I watched for it with horrid excitement, I missed in the whole extravaganza any trace of the deadly slime of Moscow, and was able to go home feeling that the University was sound at heart? But perhaps that was because professors and lecturers are remorselessly excluded from participation in the performance.

Junius Brutus.