THEATRE
Holy terrors
KENNETH HURREN
Council of Love (Criterion) A month or so ago I broke bread, if the term may be validly applied to a scotch egg and bitter, with an aspiring dramatist whose latest work had been curtly rejected by every management in town. Not unreasonably, either—since he had written 120 pages of preposterous balderdash (an opinion I cravenly withheld) and had called, moreover, for a cast of thirty players, which is an instant discouragement to any impresario not lavishly subsidised by the Arts Council.
There seemed, at the time, no way in which I might assuage his despair; but if he can get there before the wells run dry, the people he is looking for could be 'William Donaldson and Jean Leyris (for Fir Theatre Ltd.) in association with Hemdale Prow motions Ltd. and Fairlodge Ltd.' I cannot guess how many investors in total are covered by these names, but they are, jointly and severally, the backers of Council of Love, and I don't think they know beans about plays.
The item at the Criterion is adapted from a German satire, Das Liebeskonzil, written by one Oscar Panizza in 1895, which offered a roguish explanation for the epidemic of syphilis that swept Europe at the end of the fifteenth century. Panizza's fancy was that the virulent little spirochete was devised by Satan at the instigation of God, who took a fairly peevish view of the libidinous excesses of the day, especially the Vatican orgies presided over by the Borgia pope, and was looking around for a punishment to fit the sin. This is a vivacious notion, but I'm sorry to say that it is glumly handled by the English adapter, John Bird, who admits in a programme note that, while the subject matter and the sequence of scenes are largely Panizza's, the 'content, characterisations and the words' are all his own.
My assumption from this is that it is Mr Bird who is responsible for the portrayal of God as a tatterdemalion dotard, a sort of flyblown Lear, as much heaven-weary as world-weary; of Jesus as a whimpering simpleton, still wearing bloodstained band- ages over the stigmata (`The old wounds Playing you up again, are they?') and worry- ing about the debilitating effects of having his body and blood eaten so often by so many; of the Virgin Mary as a cheerful matron, susceptible to flattery, apt to'forget that she isn't actually in the Trinity, but con- tentedly knitting away Defarges-fashion; and of Satan as a dapper, frock-coated Mr Fixit. None of this is likely to bring in block bookings from the Sunday Schools, of course, and I'm afraid the remorseless faceti- ousness of the jokes will hardly commend
the enterprise to grown-up free-thinkers. More relevantly, the religious scepticism dis- plays an airy disregard for sense. If your aim is to ridicule flat-earthers, you don't postu- late a flat earth; and a play that depends essentially on the power of biblical deities is the wrong context in which to send them up. Mr Bird seems as oblivious to this simple logic as is Warren Mitchell to the implica- tions of playing Satan with a vaudeville repertoire of Jewish mannerisms.
The production is extravagantly costumed and prodigal of personnel. Apart from Peter Bayliss as the seedy head man, and Lally Bowers, who is sometimes engaging as Mary. they don't achieve any great distinction in their acting performances, but they don't have much time to be picking their teeth in the wings, either: when not on duty as angels in the celestial scenes, most of them are required to double as profligates and courte- sans in the Vatican orgy. This latter is an inevitable disappointment. Though I am far from averse to ravishing women (that's an adjective there, not a verb), and the female participants are comely enough and not shy, the essence of a satisfactory orgy is an unin- hibited spontaneity. A carefully rehearsed set of postures is unlikely to accelerate any- one's juices, and this earthbound sequence is, in fact, so inordinately protracted that I feared, to filch a famous and appropriate phrase, it might impinge upon eternity.
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