THEATRE

Royal Hunt’ has magnificence
and bigness of epic theatre

In the early 16th century,
Francisco Pizarro conquered

Peru on behalf of the King of.

Spain. ——s

Tt is the old story of empire
builders, in Africa, in Asia, in
America — a hunger for gold,
an appetite for territories, a
greed for slave labor. -

The methods followed a pat-
tern — the overwhelming show
of arms, the deceitful propagan-
da, the treachery, the slaughter.

To this day, nearly four and a
half centuries later, the Indians
of Peru are paying the price of

defeat — Peru’s Indians and all

the Indians of the Americas. '

Peter Shaffer’s play, The
Royal Hunt of the Sun, is about
the conquest’ of Peru. But so
baldly to describe it hardly does
justice to the great canvas cre-
ated by the playwrite, for he
has shown us, entirely in drama-
tic terms, Spain’s ambition and

its realization by the agents of

her establishment.

These agents — soldiers, poli-
ticians and churchmen — are
brought to life both as types and
_ as individuals. Among them are
the cynic, the moralist, the

schemer, the mercenary and the.

occasional honest man. But as a
group they are in Peru to
achieve that country’s downfall.
They may show occasional
grudging admiration for their
victims, they express concern
for the souls of the heathen, but

_ they all agree that if the dark
natives do. not submit readily,
they must be forced.

And force means killing. And
all, decent men and scoundrels
alike, agree that killing is neces-
sary—the general, the politico,
the chaplain.

“Rip, tear, scream — in the

name of Christ!’ Pizarro cries
out.

(At about the time Toronto
O’Keefe Centre audiences saw

this angry play, this bitter “j’ac-.

cuse,” this condemnation’ of a

16th Century crime, the hierar-

chy. of the Catholic Church in
the United States endorsed the
L.B.J. war against Vietnam, as
did the convention of 2,000 dele-
gates from the Union of Ortho-
dox Jewish Congregations).

The Royal Hunt of the Sun
has the magnificence and the
historic bigness of epic theatre.
It revives the ceremonial splen-
dors of an ancient society and
the conflict. between its Inca
sun-god civilization and Spain’s
Christian _civilization. | And
though we realize the Inca’s so-
ciety’s fallacies and its wrongs,
we must protest its destruction
by the wanton European mercen-
aries.

The strength of Mr. Shaffer’s

play is that it can compel our.

indigation some 450 years after
the event.
Apart from the large number

=o Soe :
—Freie Welt (Berlin)

“She loves, me, she loves
me hot . .. id

of Spaniards and Indians of vari-
ous occupations involved, the
play’s conflict centres in the re-
lationship between two men, Pi-
zarro, the Spanish conqueror,
played by W. B. Brydon, and the
Peruvian king-god, Atahuallpa,
played, by Clayton | Corbin.
(There is logic that Mr. Corbin,
a Negro, should portray the
leader of a vanquished race).

Mr. Brydon (seen in many
Crest Theatre and CBC TV roles)
makes Pizarro a rough, coarse,

mentally sick general, a cynic ~

who has nothing but contempt
for his king and his church, a
career killer embittered because

he has not been socially accept-

ed or political rewarded. He de-
velops a kind of friendship for
his prisoner king, but duty and

ambition and venality egg him*

on. to murder.. Pizarro; is prob-
ably one of Mr. Brydon’s most
effective characterizations.

Mr. Corbin, as the Inca, is a
heroic figure who seriously be-
lieves himself to be a god, but
who is nevertheless human, with
a sense of humor, a feeling of
identity with his country, a love
of humanity, and a strong sense
of social duty. Mr. Corbin’s
highly-stylized speech, far from
erecting audience barriers,

evokes the rhythms and the
colors of another time in his-

tory.

The cast, on the whole, whe-
ther in traditional
forms of expression, or in imagi-

native mimed sequences, is gra-'

phically deployed.

It is too bad that the audien-
ces were not larger and that the
production was seen for only
one week.

—Martin Stone

Yevtushenko a ‘hit’ in U.S.

By G. BOROVIK
NEW YORK
IS not a very frequent occa-
sion when New — Yorkers
would look at a passer-by

__ with an expectant and pleading

expression in their eyes addres-
sing him with the question:
“Have you an extra ticket?”
Nor is it often that one can
see groups of those hunting for
a ticket standing half a block
from. the concert hall. And it is
_ the least frequent case when
_ this takes place not a night of a

concert of some stunning musi-
cal, but of a poet reciting his

But all those rules were com-
pletely broken on the two nights
when Soviet poet Yevgeny Yev-
tushenko, now visiting in the
United States on the invitation
of Hutchins College, recited his

poems,

The hall was filled to over-

flowing on both nights, with
standing against the

walls, crowding the passages
and sitting on the steps. Just
as in Moscow, passers-by would
be buttonholed at rather distant
approaches to the concert-hall
with the invariable question
about an “extra ticket.”

At his first performance the
Soviet poet was introduced by
the well-known American au-
thors Arthur Miller and John
Updike. At the second recitation
an introductory speech was
made by the remarkable Ameri-
can poet Robert Lowell, the
same Robert Lowell who re-
fused to take part in a concert
held in the White House as a
protest against the war in Viet-
nam. :

The first recitation by Yevtu-
shenko was attended by Ameri-
can writer John Steinbeck, which
fact was immediately used by
some newspapers like The World
Journal Tribune, which hinted
that: the friendly meeting be-
tween the American author

and the Soviet poet meant that
the latter has changed his view-
point on the war in Vietnam.

Yevtushenko sent the editor-
ial board of that newspaper a
denial, saying that he has always
felt a sincere friendship for John
Steinbeck both as a man and as
a writer. However, he added,
their views on the war in Viet-
nam were quite different.

The halls where Yevgeny Yev-
tushenko recited his poems seat
from 1,000 to 2,000 persons. He
is going to conclude his visit in
the United States-by reciting on
Dec. 19 a series of his verses in
Lincoln Centre, one of New
York’s largest halls.

During his trip across the
United States Yevtushenko is
scheduled to recite poems in
many cities before student audi-
ences in a number of univer-
sities.

He may extend his previously

scheduled route by visiting Alas-

ka, Alabama and Texas.

theatrical.

J. $. Wallace

When I remember all
The friends thus joined together .

—TOM MOORE
SOFIA

HAD the tail end of a convivial evening with two Geor-
gian poets and their wives, Geoffrey Dutton, an Aus-
tralian poet, and his wife, and Yevgeny Yevtushenko, the
Soviet poet, who has orbitted the earth like a sputnik.
Keeping up with all poets everywhere, he asked if I'd
- be offended if he called me the Canadian Robert Frost. To
be polite, I assented. Frost, but only in his last hour, recog-
nied the Soviet Union — to the horror of the U.S. State

Department. They tried to mistranslate him until Freda
Laurie stepped in. Frost said: “Oh, I know I should be sent
to hell.” (That ain’t where he is now.)

On reflection: Wilson MacDonald should be called the
Canadian Robert Frost. No, Frost should be called the Amer-—

ican Wilson MacDonald .

I had many meals with Philip Bonofsky, who wrote an
outstanding novel about workers in the States. A couple I
fell in love with: Lee Golden, a motion picture producer, and
his wife. Then I shared rooms with James Aldridge, who

wrote The Diplomat. Rooms and opinions .

. So much so

‘that I fought with him against Yevtushenko.
Best of all was a quiet evening with Phoebe Singer
(Mrs. Pat Forkin) side by side on a sofa looking over Italian

prints.

One of the byproducts of being a member of the Com-
munist movement is the friends you make and the way they

stay with we

FOR ALL MY CHILDREN
_ In Moscow I got an English-speaking school class in
Moscow to say: Isle of View. Slowly they realized that
meant “I love you.” I hope they did — but why should they?

Film of Finnish epic
on cross-Canada tou

Sampo, a Finnish film pro-
duced jointly by Soviet and Fin-
nish film studios, has just ar-
rived into Canada for a 100-day
tour of showings across the
country.

The film is based on Finland’s s.

national literary epic, Kalevala,
the collection of poems by the
famed national poet Elias Lon-
nrot.

The film has been brought to
this country by the Finnish Or-
ganization of Canada by special
arrangement as one means of
presenting the cultural tradi-

_ tions of Finland in Canada’s cen-

tennial program. It is planned to
show the film in every Canadian
locality where there is a hall

owned by the Finnish Organi
tion or wherever there is a F
nish community and a hall
school will be available.
Immediate premiere showi
have been scheduled in the
head region as follows:
SILVER MOUNTAIN &
LALU — Saturday, Nov.
7.30 p.m. in the Silver Mount
Community School Hall.
PORT ARTHUR — Sund
Nov. 27 at 1.30 p.m. in the
nish Hall, 316 Bay St.
KAMINISTIQUIA — Sun
Nov. 27 at 7.30 p.m. in the
jola Hall,
Further showings will bes
nounced.