Mildred Robley-Brown (nee Peters)

Christchurch Press, 1 September 1922

Irene Mawer’s influence reached right over to the other side of the world. In New Zealand, Mildred Peters (later, Mildred Robley-Browne) opened her own school of dancing, dramatic art, and mime.

Having trained at Ginner-Mawer, Mildred knew the importance of mime as the underpinning of Ginner’s method of Classical Greek Dance and ensured that mime was taught in her schools both in New Zealand and later in England.

The King of the Happy Wood was a play for children that had been written by Irene Mawer.

This newspaper article gives an excellent description of the play’s content, which encompassed dancing and speech. It also shows how the play could include a large number of children, either in named parts, or in small group scenes. There is the inclusion of a nature rhythm whereby children became the woodland shodows. This variety of characters allowed for every child to participate, those with less acting or dancing ability could still happily join in.

Mildred knew both Ruby Ginner and Irene Mawer very well, and she would have had an innate sense of how Miss Mawer would have envisioned the setting of the play,

The description given in the review helps to paint a picture of Miss Mawer’s intentions: “The opening scene disclosed a leafy glade in a forest, the abode of the fairly king, who found in it all that he longed for.”

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