‘Passion’ for theatre keeps the (spot)lights on for 75 years

Since the Marlborough Repertory Society was formed in 1948, a committee has met up nearly every month to make sure Marlburians get their “drama buzz”. That’s “love and commitment”.

“It was in the Masonic Rooms,” Rosemary Clark said with rising intonation, indicating she meant it as a question.

“I wasn’t there Rosemary,” Anne McAuley jokingly reminded her.

The pair laughed and continued flicking through old photographs in the archives room of the Marlborough Museum as they discussed the foundation meeting of the Marlborough Repertory Society, back in 1948.

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Clark, who was at the meeting, turned the page of a faded but well-looked after album, and happened upon a picture of Norma Townley. She recognised the face instantly.

“She was sat behind us,” Clark said, surprised to stumble across the photo as she reminisced on that night in August, 75 years ago.

And while Clark doesn’t remember a lot from the meeting, mostly because it was quite uneventful, she does remember the Masonic Hall, on the corner of Charles and Seymour St, next to where the Blue Door op-shop is today.

She remembers the “huge” foyer lined with pictures of Masonic leaders, and the sprung floor in the main hall for dancing.

Clark and a friend, sixth formers with a passion for drama, sat “two rows back, on the left”. But they weren’t there to take part, they just wanted to know – in the absence of theatre at school – where they were going to get their “drama buzz” from.

They were simply “excited onlookers”, as “schoolgirls were seen but not heard” back then, Clark said. “I can’t remember much else, other than it was well run.”

Clark was buoyed by the meeting though. It was attended by 72 people, with 24 apologies.

“It wasn’t long after the war … but things were starting to look up.”

The meeting was chaired by the Mayor of Blenheim, Bill Girling, and a motion was put forward by Carl Irving to establish a local amateur dramatics group. It was seconded by Etta Watters, and subscriptions were set at 10 shillings and sixpence per year.

A book put together for the 50th anniversary of the Marlborough Repertory Society said the “business of bringing live theatre to the people of Marlborough was off to a vibrant start”.

McAuley, who’s in charge of organising the 75th celebrations, agreed.

“It was an encouraging meeting … in the depth of winter too.”

As McAuley and Clark, both life members of the society, continued to flick through the old photo albums in the archives room, more memories came to light; some “not for print”, one that would make Clark’s son “curl up with embarrassment”, but all of them fond.

McAuley was president when the society celebrated 50 years in showbiz, and helped put the book together. According to Clark, however, the book had one glaring omission, and needless to say, Clark’s sister would get a mention this time around.

During that 50th anniversary year, the society also celebrated 25 years of calling the Boathouse Theatre home. They bought the old storage shed, at the confluence of the Taylor and Ōpaoa rivers, off the Blenheim Rowing Club in 1971, for $1800.

Clark was on the committee in 1971 and remembered going to suss it out one night after it got dark.

“It was all hush hush, because [we] didn’t want another group, the Marlborough Operatic Society, to know this was an option as a future theatre.”

The Boathouse had since become one of the more “unique” and “precious” theatres in New Zealand, with more than 200 productions staged there, McAuley said.

“There’s nowhere else like it in New Zealand,” she said.

But it had also become home to committee meetings, normally once a month, and often in the foyer as actors rehearsed in the auditorium.

Current president Peter Morice, on a night off from rehearsing The Mousetrap, said they got through a “truckload” of stuff at the last meeting – but it was all “admin”, stuff like fire regulations.

But someone had to do it, he said, otherwise it would be like telling the people from that “inaugural meeting … [we] couldn’t be bothered any more”. Not on his watch.

“That weighs on you a bit. How dare you fail? Fail those people who are no longer with us.”

But there was no reason to think someone wouldn’t be sitting down in 25 years to organise the centenary.

“Who knows, it might be me,” Morice joked, realising he would be 90-years-old then.

But, really, he knew the region’s “love and commitment” for theatre, shown by those in the Masonic Hall in 1948 and continued down through the years, would “maintain the tradition of it all”.

As McAuley put it, with boxes of photos beside her, “there will always be people involved in theatre”.

The 75th celebrations kick off with The Mousetrap, by Agatha Christie, at the Boathouse Theatre from Wednesday to April 6. An anniversary celebration will be held in September, when an honours board for life members will be unveiled in the Boathouse foyer.