THEATRE
Bronze cast
HILARY SPURLING
Soldiers (New Theatre) Rolf Hochhuth's Soldiers belongs to that for- midable German tradition of playwriting which depends for its effect less on character or plot than on the graver virtues, the moral and intellectual pleasures of stern argument; and Herr Hochhuth's argument—concerning, on the one hand, the indefensibility of civilian bombing; on the other, Churchill's reactions to the breach in 1943 between Poland and Russia—inevitably raises a number of in- triguing questions.
Chief among these is his handling of the character and sudden death of General Sikorski, the Polish Prime Minister in exile. Sikorski, generally agreed to be the most moderate and liberal of Poles, is here por- trayed as implacably, indeed fanatically, de- voted to maintaining Poland's prewar frontiers (a question not in fact discussed until some months after Sikorski's death). This leads in turn to other factual distortions and com- pressions—the abandonment of an offensive on the Italian front, for instance, and the 'libera- tion' of Poland by the Red Army, both here freely bandied about, though neither could have been envisaged, perhaps least of all by Churchill, at this stage in the war. They are presumably necessary to support Hochhuth's otherwise intrinsically implausible case, that Churchill murdered Sikorski; though, again, it is not clear why Churchill should have pre- ferred to deal with Sikorski's infinitely more intransigent successors, rather than with the one Polish leader who might well have agreed to settle for a frontier on the Curzon line. These and other points, some comparatively minor but cumulatively damaging, are, of course, largely immaterial to the dramatic im- pact of what, at any rate on the page (the text, translated by Robert David MacDonald, is published by Andre Deutsch at 30s), is a powerful and singularly persuasive piece.
So that one can only marvel at, and earnestly admire, the perspicacity and devotion with which Messrs Michael White, Norman Granz and Kenneth Tynan (who present the play) have so long and doggedly pursued their goal. For Soldiers has a strenuous intensity, a kind of massive seriousness which, though its some- what bleak and graceless style is no match for the brilliant precision of Churchill's own, save it from pomposity; also an intelligence and, especially in the bitter conflict between the Prime Minister and Bishop Bell in the last act, a grave passion which, in the contemporary theatre, are all too rare. Its very excellence, of course, makes it in a sense the more per- nicious, raising those questions—of taste, tech- nique, creative licence and so forth—which have plagued the relationship between art and life since civilisation began. Or so one might have supposed until last week, when Clifford Williams's astonishing production opened at last in the West End.
And here one must confess that it is hard to fathom Mr Tynan and his colleagues in their capacity as theatre management. For this pro- duction is to say the least archaic; the im- pression is not so much of grim and weighty matters in debate, as of a cross between Neville Shute and In Which We Serve. The production gives off an overwhelming cosiness, that dreary combination of sentimentality and self-congratulation which still seems indis- solubly associated, at any rate in English literature, with the last war. Take, for instance, the procession of minor characters, all ludicrously familiar from innumerable 'B' features and cheap novelettes: the RAF pilot retailing daring doings over Hanover, with a self-deprecating mock modesty which barely conceals an inordinate conceit; the buxom lovely safely buttoned up inside WREN'S cloth- ing; the self-important and woefully self- conscious cos.
It is not simply that the effect is absurd, even grotesque: the distinction is no doubt a nice one between these dismally trite stereo- types and the quite different `types'— abstractions or convenient figments—required for Hochhuth's argument. What is extra- ordinary is that, with a play which demands a highly formal and stylised approach, where the playwright specifies settings which 'should emphasise rather than conceal the fact that we are in a theatre,' and emphatically repudi- ates 'the petty naturalism of the Churchill monuments with bow ties and replaceable bronze cigars'—that, given such explicit instruc- tions, the production should so firmly settle for precisely this level of banality. If we are not in fact treated to bronze cigars, we come perilously close with the unctuous flatulence of Alec Clunes's Bishop Bell, and at moments with John Colicos as Churchill.
`If a performer brings out the comic aspects of [Churchill's minor eccentricities] he must not thereby conceal the awe-inspiring quality displayed by such a man in his every remark even in moments of cheerfulness,' writes Hoch- huth; and it is perhaps a demand no playwright should make and few actors could fulfil. Mr Colicos gives a startling, at times an uncannily.,
lifelike, imitation of Churchill's mannerisms: the stance, the rubbery lips and pouchy cheeks, even the stentorian delivery. If the magnetism, the imagination and authority, let alon'e the mythical grandeur, of the part escape him, that is perhaps not his fault. But at least he need not have concentrated quite so exclusively on the comic aspects against which Hochhuth warns; the impression is of a cuddly old baggage, by turns lovable, mischievous and sulky, bundling in and out of bed, snuffling and chortling, nannied by his orderly, fondly indulged by his adoring general staff. Mr Colicos, in short, plays shamelessly on the false piety, the synthetic sentiment and odious com- placency which have made the heroism of the last war so distasteful to the generation which escaped it.
Hence the atmosphere of self-adulation which hopelessly distorts and cheapens Hoch- huth's text—and I am not concerned here with the literal inaccuracies, the fact, for instance, that Sikorski and Churchill always spoke French, or that Bishop Bell and Churchill probably never met; nor with the graver mis- representation of Sikorski's character or Churchill's actions. I am concerned rather with the fact that Hochhuth's play, however mis- leading its arguments or wrong its facts, is plainly not the play presented here. Vestiges of the original remain in the conflict between Ralph Koltai's handsome sets—a vast, pale disc suspended between metal struts—and the hack- neyed artificiality of the acting beneath these glaring floods, against an abstract, or perhaps symbolic, blackness. Presumably the sets were designed within the framework of the play- within-a-play, which has been effectively de- stroyed by the omission of prologue and epilogue.
Set in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral in 1968, presided over by an ageing ex- bomber pilot now stricken with remorse, these deal respectively with his attempts at repara- tion and with the stony indifference of modern youth. Admittedly the writing is clumsy, even mawkish, but at least they redress the balance of the play: without them, the curtain falls hard on the heels of Sikorski's death, with Churchill's condolences publicly spurned, in what is now the emotional climax of the play, by a Pole who takes him to be a treacherous and cold-blooded murderer. It makes a vicious ending to what is otherwise a uniformly tedious evening. Curious to find this disturb- ing and potentially explosive text transformed into such a monumental tribute to the ingratiating vapidity, the vulgarity, in short to the commercial standards which, in the bad old days, once ruled our stage.
Previous page
