Drama | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

The Royal Hunt of the Sun by Peter Shaffer

I first saw this in the Oxford Playhouse 26 years ago–so long ago that in my memory it was Cortez and Montezuma in Mexico, not Pizzaro and Atahualpa in Peru. Fortunately, my family’s listening abilities are imperfect–and no one called me on my error.

The play has luscious stage directions–“They cross the Andes” and was supposed to be unstageable. However, it was the first British play staged at the National Theatre. The Oxford student group staging it today, the Acorn group, used a brilliant set–steel chains descending to signify mist and frost; brilliant gold crowns, gold ornaments and jewellery at Atahualpa’s court.

The play was a bit talky, lots of exploration of Pizarro’s psyche to present him as more than a man driven by greed and glory. I guess he was also a prototype of today’s travellers, of which I am one, impelled by unconquerable travel lust to see and experience new places. Unfortunately, Pizarro was also a poster boy for the spoof US Army poster, “Join the Army! Travel the World, Meet Interesting People, and Kill Them”

The play accurately presents the unimaginable wealth the conquest of Latin America brought Spain that is heart-breakingly presented in Eduardo Galeano’s Century of Wind for instance, as well as the tragedy of priceless intricate gold artwork being melted down for easier transport.

All in all, gripping, through the dialogue could be tedious and repetitive. This was Shaffer’s second play. History evidently proved a rich mother lode for him, for he later wrote Amadeus.

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PARTIE DE CAMPAGNE by JEAN RENOIR

I did enjoy this charming film by Jean Renoir (who also acted in it, a good deal changed from the adorable little boy, subject of paintings and photographs in Les Collettes, August Renoir’s farmhouse in the South of France, which we visited this spring.

It is a close and faithful rendition of Maupassant short story Une Partie de Campagne, available online in English translation, though not without typos, alas.

Though it is the tale of a lyrical, country interlude, it is also heartbreaking. A working class 18 year old Parisian, Henriette, spends a day in the country. Two youngsters, of a higher social class, see her and her mother, and decide to seduce them.

Henri seduces Henriette, they have a sweet, intense sexual encounter. And part.

Henriette married a slow lout.”Years passed with Sundays as bleak as Mondays. Anatole married Henriette.” I think of Yeats’ line on Helen of Troy “Helen being chosen found life flat and dull. And later had much trouble from a fool.”

One Sunday, a couple of years later, Henriette takes Anatole to the bower where she had her sweet, secret encounter with Henri. Henri goes there too, coincidentally. He tells her that he has never forgotten that afternoon. It was the happiest day of his life. She says that she thinks of it every night.

So, in the characteristic Maupassant twist, the tragic seduction of an innocent young girl ends up having unexpected emotional repercussions for the seducer as well.

The film also reminded me of Chekhov’s “The Seagull”, which I have seen several times, but which is so sad that I doubt I will ever see it again. Nina, loved by clever Konstantin whom she has no romantic feelings for, falls in love with a famous though mediocre writer.

He sees a plot for a short story. “ “A young girl lives all her life on the shore of a lake. She loves the lake, like a seagull, and she’s happy and free, like a seagull. But a man arrives by chance, and when he sees her, he destroys her, out of sheer boredom.” Meanwhile, Nina, in an excess of young devotion, tells him in chilling words, ““If you should ever need my life, come and take it.”

He does. He tires of her, discards her, her life is ruined. She no longer feels worthy of a good man’s love.

The foreknowledge of this fate hanging over Henriette spoilt the otherwise charming and idyllic film for me. It’s wonderful to be young–but, fortunately, one is only young and innocent once. It’s safer not to so.

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