THE NORWICH PAGEANT
Fon years I have seen them ; the coming of the Romans, trouble with the Druids, the inevitable arrival of Elizabeth on a white palfrey, a hospital bestowed on a too pressing mistress by Charles II., all this is the standard formula of the average pageant. Alivays there had been enterprise and industry, sometimes beauty, but I have never come away with any lasting feeling except . that of astonishment at the incomprehensible desire of the English (so self-conscious in other respects) to dress up. In Norwich, for the first time, I have seen a pageant produced and performed as it should be. Norwich is fortunate to own as one of her citizens Mr. Nugent Monck, the director of the Maddermarket Theatre in the centre of the town. This enterprise is one of the most interesting experiments in the modern English theaae. I shall have more to say about it in the autumn. Wisely, busy Mr. Monck was invited to prepare for the city of Norwich a spectacle worthy of her civic history, and nobly he tackled the job. I do not know where Mr. Monck served his apprenticeship. Was it in the German theatre ? His glorious mediaeval scenes had, I thought, the Reinhardt touch. Or was it with Mr. Granville Barker ? Sufficient, perhaps, to say that where most pageant- masters are just good showmen, Mr. Monck brought to his work the genius of a master-mind of the theatre. Nor is this all Mr. Monck must be a man of serene courage, for he defied all precedent by the production of a " book," consisting not of the usual nonsense in blank verse, but rich in poetry, full of literary quality and nicely salted with witty dialogue, of which—I want to emphasize the point—I was able to hear every word, in spite of a stiff breeze. To take one instance only. The episode of the Black Death was not merely " pageant Staff " ; it was real drama, admirably acted and produced. To the girl who took the part of Joan in this scene and the young man who took the part of Harry I must single out the acting honours of the afternoon. Eleven hundred persons, drawn from all classes of the town, played in this beautiful pageant. Eleven hundred jobs can seldom have been so well done, nor with such spirited contempt for the English climate. Meanwhile, Mr. Monck must be watched. Are we in the presence of, the historical dramatist for whom the English stage is waiting ? Twice during the afternoon I thought so.
lE. S. A.
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