Cirrus@Austlit

The curtain-raiser for the 1935 St Corantyn season was The Curious Herbal, a rhyming fantasy of old Chelsea days from the repertoirs of the Green Leaf Players.

The season was initially planned for two nights (1-2 March). A third performance was added due to the enthusiastic response of the public.

Author's note:

"The following amplifies somewhat the information about "Archway Motif" given in the programme. the ballroom at "St Corantyn, " the residence of Mr. & Mrs. Lavington Bonython (later Sir Lavington and Lady Bonython), was divided at one end by an archway. The latter was a restriction; but at the same time a challenge. A way had to be found to make it visually significant. Moreover, the cast needed to be large enough to provide parts to members and friends who had worked with the Ab-intra Studio in other productions. After all, this was a "Farewell Performance"!

As preparations, including the writing of the play, had to be done in rather a hurry, I seized the possibility of combing the archway with some elements from the enduring master-piece, "The Snow Queen" by Hans Anderson. This accorded with the Studio's assumption that fairytales and folklore were basic and timeless sources of real theatre material. 

Those who have treasured "The Snow Queen" from their childhood will remember how the young girl, Gerda, left her humble, sheltered background and wandered out into the world to seek the boy, Kay, her lost playmate. He had been stolen from her by the Snow Queen, and set to work in her frozen, northern palace on mathematical and geometrical problems. 

After a sequence of adventures, when humans as well as animals either tried to help her onwards or persuade her to stay with them, Gerda at last finds Kay, as we had anxiously hoped she would. But he dies not respond to her – not until her warm tears falling on him thaw the splinter of ice in his heart, and his old love for Gerda surged back to him. 

What the audiences were able to make of "Archway Motif" I would have greatly liked to know. Some of South Australia's most discerning people were present, as the newspaper reports show. Their applause indicated that what they saw and heard had at least held them. Afterwards, however, when some of them – even those who had attended all three performances – asked me if I could not help them to arrive at an interpretation, I could only answer that I myself could not say exactly, adding that the important thing was not what it meant to me; but to them, for whom it was written. 

"Archway Motif" had no further performances, thus making it the last play which the Ab-intra studio ever produced in Australia. But later in London it came to the attention of Michael St. Denis of the famous French group, "La Compagnie de Quinz." At that time he was intent on forming an English-speaking company somewhat along the same lines, I understood, as the original French one. It was reported to me by Antonia White (notable for her book "Frost in May") that St. Denis had been highly complimentary about "Archway Motif." Antonia White, who had been looking out for new material for St. Denis, could, of course, have been exaggerating. Anyway, St. Denis subsequently invited Alan Harkness and myself to work with him. Unfortunately, we were not free just then to give him more than some spare time. But that is another story."

K.B.