|Peking O Peking Opera, in brief, is i the music, with its traditional instruments, the Chin bals and tympani, and the speech, the seemingly miracu skill. e @ pera to visit ae HE PEKING OPERA, China’s T foremost company of enter- tainers, will make its first North American appearance at the Van- couver Festival on August 10, 11, 12 and 13. to the convention of movement, place and emotion. The recent The a synthesis of folk theatre. s stant demand since it made its European debut at the Inter- ‘national Festival of Dramatic Art in Paris in 1955. One of its most sels World Fair. It also performed at the Vienna Youth Festival last summer. many popular aspects of Chinese folk drama—acrobatics and tum- bling, folk songs, folk tales, ballad singers’ stories—and has absorbed many distinctive forms and fea- tures from all parts of China. It was a peasant art, and was intro- duced. to Peking in the middle of the 18th century, where it caught the fancy of the emperor’s family and court circle. Later it came to be called Peking Opera. It is highly stylized, from ese two-stringed fiddle, cym- lous tumbling and acrobatics, All is done with consummate Vancouver company has been in con- triumphs was at the Brus- Peking Opera _ includes +'This I did not enjoy. Sapphire ' a crime picture with an honest race angle SAPPHIRE. A Universal-In- ternational release of a J. Arthur Rank production. Orig- inalscreenplay by Janet Green. Produced by Michael Relph. Directed by Basil Dearden. When you have an imagi- Native murder mystery, in- geniously worked out and maintaining considerable sus- pense, and when you add to it a racial angle that .proceeds from an obvious respect for the problems involved in race prej- udice, you have something out of the ordinary. Such a film is Sapphire, which takes it title from the name of its heroine — who is seen momentarily before the titles appear on the screen; as her dead body is deposited on Hampstead Heath. j ; _ Sapphire was a_ beautiful girl, a student and an artist, full of the joy of life. There was a young man (Paul Mas- sie) she was going to marry, and she was pregnant at her ~ death. ; _ But the boy (who had just won a fellowship in architec- ture, whose stipend covered only one person — not a man and wife) knew she was preg- nant; his parents knew it and promised the girl that he would marry her — and the family also knew something else about the girl: that she Was a Negro, “passing” as a “white.” There were therefore sev- eral people who had a “mo- tive” for getting rid of her; and there were others in her past — Negro men ‘(and lov- ers) — whom she had rejected when she found that she could “pass.” This mystery is unraveled step by step (and you will not find out its solution here), and your interest is maintained throughout the narrative. Also, there is much to be learned by white audiences from the variety of attitudes exhibited by Negroes in the film. They are both men and women who knew Sapphire before she abandoned them, and some of them display a cold disdain. One notable example, for in- stance, is the wealthy young man who is questioned; he said he once cared for the girl but would never have married her as his parents wouldn’t let her in the house. (Gordon Heath does a notable acting job here). “Why not?” asks the inspec- tor (Nigel Patrick) who is working on the case. “She was part white,’ says the young man, with. contempt. The audience is led to fur- ther understanding at several points in the film; through the obvious prejudice of one of the detectives (Michael Craig) on the assignment; through the “Uncle Tomming” of various Negro characters who are questioned — and who put on an act for the white “boss” de- tective —- a sort of inverted se]f-satire whose roots are ob- vious to all. The two themes ~— race prejudice and the solution of a hideous crime — are beautiful- ly integrated throughout and a final word (with a double- meaning) is stated by the in- spector. ‘We have solved nothing,” he says. “We have merely picked up the pieces.” While Patrick (the inspec- tor) and the young lover of Sapphire (Massie) give cred- itable performances, the best characterizations in this su- perior drama are created by the Negro actors, such as Earl Cameron (Sapphire’s brother, who is a physician), Robert Adams (as “Horace Big See- gar’), and Harry Baird as a momentary suspect (he used to dance with the girl), who overacts—or was overdirected. The Rank Organization de- serves credit for this film, even if jt should not pay-off at the box-office; for Janet Green (who wrote the- story and screenplay) and Michael Relph and Basil Deardon (producer and director) have tackled ticklish material with honesty and courage and a notable im- munity to that international disease that was directly re- sponsible for the death of Sapphire herself. DAVID ORDWAY Soviet broadcast O.B., Vancouver, B.C.: Along with many other people, I wel- comed the announcement by radio station CHQM that it would carry a 10-minute uncen- sored Moscow newscast each Sunday at 6:30 p.m. ; On February 28 I listened to the Moscow broadcast, deg!- ing with the Soviet position on disarmament, and enjoyed it very much. The following night, how- ever, a commenator named David C. Catton “analyzed” the broadcast in what I con- sidered a derogatory manner. In announcing the broadcasts the radio station said it would leave it to the judgment of listeners to determine whether the content was true or false —or words to that effect. Well, why doesn’t CHQM leave it at that? Lena Horne J. A. W., Vancouver, B.C.: Local papers carried headline stories about Lena Horne re- cently. It seems she threw some ashtrays at. a diner in the swank Beverly Hills Luau restaurant for alleged insults to her race. The full story appeared in The Pittsburgh Courier, 4 Negro newspaper. Someone at the next table (seperated by a bamboo screen) remarked that “Lena OPEN FORUM — Horna ‘is here.” Then, Lena told the Courier reporter, the man at the table replied, ‘“‘That lousy n—*-. I do not like n s. I don’t care who they are. That n b— shouldn’t be here.” Lena stood up, boiling mad, and demanded an apology. The man refused to stop his in- sults so she grabbed an ash- tray and threw it at him. “It would have been better if my battleground would have been centred around a place like Little Rock, but still, I get fighting mad when someone insults my race,” said Lena. LENA HORNE “J have no intention of apol- ogizing to him,” said Lena. “I could sue him, also, for de- famation of character. He is anti-Negro. My only anger. is* directed against something that is wrong. Really, I don’t like to make scenes like this, but at times people push too far. Wallace ORONTO university — stu- dents have become bet- ter acquainted with Joe Wal- lace, Canada’s working-class poet. The acquaintance came via Varsity, the student news- paper, which recently publish- ed a feature arti¢le based on an interview with Wallace. Titled “Joe ‘Wallace,