Early
Valley Entertainment
The
Trumpeting Elephant
Vol. 4
No. 3
August
2001
It is very fitting that Vivienne Gruskin should
have written the evocative and fascinating article on early Valley
entertainment. Not only was Vivienne the secretary of the Play-reading Society but
also chose the plays, cast the players and did the stage décor for more years
than she cares to admit.
Memories
of Early Valley Entertainment
Recalled
by VIVIENNE GRUSKIN, assisted by PETER BURTON
When the pioneer settlers began arriving
from the United Kingdom in the early 1920’s, the Valley must have presented a
desolate scene. Having left behind the greener shores of the British Isles,
bushes, dust storms, relentless heat and an almost permanent scarcity of water.
They must have longed for some form of entertainment to brighten their lives.
Cut off from Port Elizabeth by bad roads, insufficient transport, and an
understandable lack of funds, it is easy to see how they were thrown back to
their own resources for entertainment.
In his account of the early days, Johnny
Briggs recalled how his father, Kit, and Uncle Arthur, used to gravitate to the
home of Eric and Kathleen Swann for musical evenings round the piano. Eric
Swann was a prime mover in Valley entertainment in those days, also John and
Nan Champion, and the Arthur Filmer’s, whose daughter later married the
actor-playwright, Emlyn Williams. One can imagine the settlers inspanning their
carts and horses, with a hanging lantern to light the way, or cranking their
Model-T Fords, to travel the bad roads to these gatherings. Love of theatre is
traditional to the English way of life, so it was natural that evenings where
no doubt the ever-popular Gilbert and Sullivan operettas predominated, should
branch out into theatrical discussions, concerts, and eventually into staging
plays.
The first play, produced in 1925, was
“TILLY OF BLOOMSBURY” by Ian Hay. An adventurous choice since it was presented
at the Irrigation Board Hall, which possessed no stage or curtain. A wide
variety of 15 characters ranged from clergymen to cockney bailiffs, with an
Indian, an old lady and a 15 year old girl thrown in for good measure. The mind
boggles as to how they achieved it especially with two changes of set from
country house to Bloomsbury. Produced by Eric Swann, the cast included
well-known names from the past like Arthur Clutton, Alice Elliott and Eric
Swann.
This play was followed by others in the
1920’s, namely “Charley’s Aunt”, in which John Vincent took the title role.
Also in the 1920’s, this adventurous group staged “Mr. Pym Passes By” at the
Opera House as a festival benefit for the retiring city organist, Roger
Ascombe.
A play “On Approval” by Frederick Lonsdale
was put on at the Irrigation Board Hall with a cast of four – Arthur Clutton,
John Vincent, Jane Bengough and Andora Toms. Arthur Clutton used to tell the
story of how they took the play “on tour” to Uitenhage in the pouring rain over
shocking roads, just managing to get there in Major Reddie’s farm truck, only
to find they were playing to an audience of about 10, of whom three were Addo
Supporters! Also in the early 1930’s, Noel Crawford’s “Private Lives” was
produced at the Irrigation Board Hall and then in Port Elizabeth with the same
cast of inspired actors – John Vincent, Andora Toms, Jane Bengough and Arthur
Briggs.
By 1931 a Play reading Circle had been
firmly established, due largely to the efforts of Nan Champion, Dr. Max Klaas
and Jumbo Erskine, with about 30 members gathering at houses in the district.
In the beginning, plays were not acted, but read sitting in a circle. Voices
from those early days 1931-39 were John and Nan Champion, John Vincent, Arthur
Briggs, Arthur and Joy Clutton, Mrs. Phyllis Rogers and her daughter, Andora,
Eric and Kathleen Swann, Jane Bengough, Alice Wilkie, Bill and Peggy McIlleron,
Nancy Boustead, Jumbo Erskine.
After the Valentine Hall was built by the
Sundays River Women’s Institute in the late 1920’s, it was also used for plays
and concerts – Theatrical personality, the late Taubie Kuschlik, used to relate
how she played Queen Elizabeth at the Valentine Hall, with the dressing rooms
in a tent pitched alongside. In later years, of course, the hall was gradually
improved and adequate dressing rooms and toilet facilities provided.
The Play reading Society flourished until
the war years, 1939-45, when most of the men folk left and the women were too
busy coping with farming in those difficult years.
At the close of the war, the society was
revived in 1945 with Joan Dowling as secretary. Among the returned soldiers was
John Vincent who had, while a prisoner of war, been involved to a great extent
in staging plays in the POW camp, making props and costumes out of virtually
nothing. He brought his considerable theatrical experience to bear on the newly
formed group. The first post-war play reading, “Gaslight”, was read behind a
white curtain at the Vincent’s home, with a sort of black and white silhouette
effect. Apart from the established readers, newly acquired readers in the years
1945 to the 1950’s, were Mollie Sullivan, Arthur and Joy Knight, Philip and
Lucille Kirby, Vivienne Murphy, Denys and Oonagh Parkin. The year 1950 with
“Blythe Spirit” and all the technical difficulties it presented – pictures
dancing on the walls and so on – marked the year in which the society tackled
just about everything. After that, there was no difficulty our technical men,
John Vincent and Arthur Knight, could not overcome. There was no backdrop our chairman,
John Vincent, could not paint, no prop he could not manufacture.
Play readings in those years were performed
in private houses, which explains the advice on notice cards, “Please bring
your own cup and cushion”! Hostesses might well remember moving out furniture
and bringing in lug boxes to seat audiences. In those days citrus was not
transported in bulk trailers or pallets, but in those useful and very
accommodating lug boxes. While reading in private homes were very enjoyable and
intimate, it soon became evident that there were only a limited number of
houses with the necessary large interleading rooms, and audiences were
beginning to complain of discomfort. In 1950 the Women’s Institute took the
play reading society firmly under its wing and granted the use of the Valentine
Hall at minimal cost. Society subscriptions in those days were five shillings
(50 cents) a year, and ‘a couple of bob’ for tea served at interval. It was
also the year Vivienne Gruskin became general secretary where she has remained
ever since.
The first play read at the Valentine Hall
was “The Dover Road” by A.A. Milne. With the help of Arthur Knight the stage
was reconstructed with interchangeable stage flats, which he designed, and built,
making it, as a visiting dramatic society once described it, “one of the finest
small stages in the Eastern Cape”. Arthur always told the story of how he
designed the central light fitting using his old Morris car’s hub cap!
Play readings became an integral part of
Valley entertainment. Operating in the cooler months, plays were put on once a
month, the most popular times being school leave-outs and vacations. There was
always the noisy front row of small children who produced unexpected laughs
when a child would recognise a reader with a loud shout, “There’s my Daddy!” or
a small boy yell during a tense thriller, “Mind! He’s behind you!” On another
occasion when we had produced a wonderful man-made tropical bird in a cage, as
essential stage prop, a small voice piped, “Huh! That’s not a real bird!” (A
youthful Peter Slement, of course!).
Apart from the noisy front row, the more
sedate centre rows, there were always the back rows where teenagers, more
interested in one another that the play, launched their assorted holiday
romances. Nevertheless, it was gratifying just how many of the front row and
the back row graduated into becoming fully-fledged readers. There is no doubt,
apart from filling a need for entertainment, the play readings fostered a love
of live theatre and were extremely popular monthly gatherings. The plays were
obtained from the ever helpful and efficient Drama Library in Bloemfontein. The
rehearsals were great fun, trying to make the necessary gestures or passionate
embrace with a book and a drink in one hand and sometimes a revolver in the
other. The crew behind the scenes had to man the “Thunder Machine”, a sheet of corrugated
iron, or roll an ancient “Bushman Stone” along the floor for deep rumbles, ring
a telephone bell on cue or make the appropriate off-stage noises.
During the years, 1950’s to 1970’s, many
dramatic societies presented plays at the Hall for local charities,
particularly Uitenhage and Port Elizabeth. Bookings were done at Gruskin’s
store – the ever-present order book with pencil attached, which went on the
delivery rounds, often saw more seats being booked, than grocery orders placed!
The cast members were always treated to a sumptuous meal beforehand –
traditional Valley hospitality being a tremendous draw. In similar fashion the
play reading presented plays to other groups – I recall evenings at what was
then Sandflats, and also at the Port Elizabeth Women’s Club.
1951 Was also the vintage year in which the
Addo Play reading produced a play, “Murder Out of Tune”. Apart from two
performances at the Valentine Hall, we toured Sandflats, Redhouse, Uitenhage
and Port Elizabeth. In the play, a thriller, two shots had to be fired. Our
noises-off “gun” was unreliable and sometimes only one shot went off. A runner
was always dispatched to the dressing room to warn the actress off-stage, “one
shot went off” or “we got two shots”. When she came on-stage, Mollie Sullivan
would then know she had to say, “I heard one shot” (or “two” as the case may
be!). In this successful play, which produced so much hilarity for us
backstage, the cast consisted of Philip and Lucille Kirby, Valaine Murphy, Anthony
Swann, Mollie Sullivan, Denys Parkin, Alice Elliott, John Vincent and Vivienne
Gruskin – the latter also produced the play.
1952 Onwards were good years for the play
reading – a nucleus of enthusiastic and experienced readers, as well as new
faces and voices – Rosemary Elliott, Stella Austen, Aileen Grier, Eve Pike,
Florence Stein, Michael Richardson-Berl, Geraldine Walton, Margaret Walton,
Philipp and Tienie Maske, Joan Stretch, Norman and Charmian Slement, Ian Moore,
Oonagh and Denys Parkin. We were able to put on plays with large casts like
Dear Octopus, Worm’s Eye View, and The Happiest Days of Your Life, and not turn
a hair.
The future of the play reading, like that
of all amateur groups throughout the country, became threatened with the advent
of television from 1975 onwards. People no longer needed to leave the warmth
and comfort of their homes to sit in a hall on a cold winter’s night. For the
first time in the Valley’s entertainment history, the theatre was there, on
tap, or rather, at a touch of the on-switch. Friday night, instead of play
reading night, became “Bonanza” night! The history of organised entertainment
came to a voluntary end. No one declared it over – it just folded for lack of
support. We rung down the final Curtain and the play readings carried on by
presenting the annual play at the Institute’s December Founders’ Day meeting –
one-act plays with all-women casts always the most difficult genre to obtain.
So many faces gone – and yet remembered.
The fun we had – the side-splitting things that went wrong backstage, the
welding together of the cast, the spirit of comradeship, almost like soldiers
going into battle, the feeling of achievement when a difficult play went off
well – all these were the rich rewards of many years of entertainment. Things
have come a long way since those early settlers had singsongs round the piano.
Who knows – the days of live theatrical presentations might come again as the
pendulum swings. It only needs a few theatrical enthusiasts with sufficient energy
and dedication.
Editor
Margaret Walton
Sub-Editor: Helga Fraser
Typesetting and layout by Janine Briggs
& Margie Tarr
