"HE THAT SHOULD COME"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 25, 15 December 1939, Page 11

"HE THAT SHOULD COME"

| Dorothy Sayers’ Nativity Play for Radio | *

temporaries? This is the question Dorothy Sayers, the well-known novelist and dramatist and creator of "Lord Peter Wimsey" attempts to answer in her Nativity Play, "He That Should Come." It is the question that Anatole France raises in one of his novels, but Miss Sayers raises it earnestly and not cynically. In "He That Should Come" she portrays the political and social background of the old, familiar Christmas story. To do this, she throws a spotlight on the inn at Bethlehem. Here we see an interesting cross-section of the people of Judea. Here are characters representing every shade of political opinion in the land. There is the old-fashioned Pharisee, puritanical, bigoted, and loathing the new culture of the Romans; there is the progressive young Jew who has been educated at Rome; the inquisitive, foreign traveller; the merchant whose motto is " business first"; and the common people going quietly about their daily work. Standing aloof from them all, vigilant and proud, are the Roman soldiers, representing the might of Rome, keeping the peace and making sure that the taxes are paid. Against this background, Miss Sayers tells in a sincere and moving fashion the story of Christ’s birth. While the story is a simple one, it offers difficulties for the dramatist, For instance, there is’ a lack of the element of surprise in the story — the audience already knows what is going to happen. Further, the main action of the story can in no way be directly represented. Perhaps this is why, as Miss Sayers says, " Nativity plays are, generally speaking, remarkable for their twaddling triviality of form and content." Too often they have only the prettiness of a Christmas card with kneeling figures, tinsel and stars. But in "He That Should Come" we feel that the people who were close at hand when He was born are real people, people living in a. H'=: did the birth of Christ appear to His con-

world that had its problems which are curiously like our own. The play has a Prologue and an Epilogue in which we hear the voices of the Three Wise Men, each asking whether He That Should Come has at last arrived. Listeners will find that the broadcast of this Nativity Play is something out of the ordinary in dramatic fare, just as it is something rather out of the ordinary for Miss Sayers to have written. It will be-heard from 2YA at 9.25 p.m. on Christmas Eve (Sunday, December 24),