STORY TOWN: Barrington

THE VOGUE THEATRE

Wilson’s Barrington Pharmacy, one of the oldest independently owned pharmacies in Christchurch, was once a much-loved cinema (or ‘picture theatre’ as they used to say).

Poet Victoria Broome went there as a child and later wrote this poem.

The Vogue Theatre

When I was thirteen a neighbour took me to see Dr Zhivago.

In the upstairs circle of the Vogue Theatre in Barrington Street,

the red velvet Austrian pleats fell into themselves

as they rose to the darkening ceiling.

Then there were flowers and the frozen face

of a woman in a coffin and sparkling snow.

I felt surrounded by shining gold,

a dark child in a mystical icon.

Later, Omar Sharif walked out of the summer house.

His breath came in great plumes, his dark eyes searched the distance.

Wolves howled. It went quiet. He clapped his hands

and I jumped almost out of my skin.

I had become the courage in the whiteness, the despair of the cold fields,

the unforgiving space between the house, the silvered trees, the man and silence.

I understood death had come and must soon go home.

Victoria Broome

Landfall 233, Autumn 2017, edited by David Eggleton, Otago University Press.

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