"THE MAN BORN TO BE KING"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 249, 31 March 1944, Page 8

"THE MAN BORN TO BE KING"

Famous Religious Plays By Dorothy Sayers For New Zealand Listeners

EW ZEALAND radio §listeners are now to have the opportunity of hearing Dorothy Sayers’s series of religious plays, The Man Born to Be King, which aroused a vigorous controversy in England when the BBC first broadcast them. Recordings made by the BBC have arrived here, in time for the first play to be broadcast on Easter Sunday, April 9, at 5 p.m., from 2YA. The time at which they will be on the air will be a constant reminder to. listeners of an important aspect of these plays-they were commissioned and written for the Children’s Hour, and though it would be absurd to suggest that the possibility had not occurred to their author that adults also might take a keen interest, yet it should be remembered that they were written for listeners who would be assumed to approach them with a mind more or less free of preconceived notions of Christ the human being, and free also of the sort of inhibitions that might make it difficult for them to accept an Englishman’s microphone voice as the voice of Christ. Author’s Three Conditions The point in dispute in Great Britain was the question of what constitutes blasphemy. Miss Sayers accepted the BBC’s invitation to do the series on three conditions: (1) She must introduce the character of Our Lord. (2) She must be allowed to use the same kind of realism as she had used in "He That Should Come" (a Nativity play which the NBS has broadcast here). (3) The plays must be in modern speech. When these conditions were put before Dr. J. W. Welch, the BBC Director of Religious Broadcasting, he replied that they were not only acceptable but exactly what he had wanted and had hoped for. The work was done in 1940 and 1941, and as Dr. Welch testifies in his foreword to the published plays, it was aided by "great Biblical and theological knowledge." Miss Sayers sent in the twelfth and last play with a note that she had "worn out one Greek testament and amassed a considerable theological library." Some Strong Opposition Then, 10 days before the first broadcast (the Sunday before Christmas, 1941), Miss Sayers attended a Press conference to discuss the difficulties she had faced, and some of the solutions she had adopted. As Dr. Welch says, "the storm broke" when the nature of the projected plays was made known; but he seems to dispose of the whole argument at one blow when he points out the remarkable similarity between the terms of abuse thrown at Miss Sayers and the terms of abuse thrown at the central figure of her plays in His own lifetime. Inaccurate reports originating at the Press conference were partly to blame. Newspaper correspondence columns had letters condemning plays which the writers had not heard

as "blasphemous," or "vulgar," or "irreverent." Nevertheless, the BBC was bound to take notice of protests from licenceholders and of a question asked in the House of Commons. There was no time to call a meeting of the BBC Central Religious Advisory Committee before the first broadcast, but copies of the second and third plays were sent out to its members (who are leading representatives of every important denomination in England; all ordained, and having an average age of 60). Telegrams came back showing their

enthusiastic approval: only one member was doubtful, and he subsequently came round. Much of the opposition came from people who objected to the so-called "impersonation" of Christ, and who cried out about the blasphemy of the project before they had heard or read a line of a play. Not only that, when the broadcasting time arrived, they refused to listen to the Gospel preached in an unfamiliar way, and even organised opposition to prevent others from doing so. The"Legal Position This state of affairs was partly the effect of the English laws forbidding the representation on the stage of any Person of the Holy Trinity. People had come to think that all such representations were intrinsically wicked, and so their minds were already closed when this new project came to light. The

powers at the disposal of the Lord Chamberlain are very limited-a licence once granted means that the play is available to any group of persons who like to use it. It may be carefully and artistically handled by one _ producer but sensationally exploited by another, so in the case of the personality of Christ, the risk is normally not taken. The difficulty could be overcome by granting a limited licence to cover one production only, the play to come up for re-licence on each subsequent occasion when permission is sought to produce it.

Film companies have treated . this problem in various ways in pictures dealing» with the New Testament era. Sometimes they have merely suggested the presence of Christ (for instance by a voice, as in The Great Commandment, or by a hand, as in Ben Hur). But The King of Kings contained an actual representation of Christ (the part being taken by the late H. B. Warner), and it was banned in Great Britain as a result. So was the famous negro conception of God and MHeaven in Green Pastures, which had a brief season in New Zealand. Much of the outcry against The Man Born to be King came from the sort of person who would have objected to Green Pastures or The King of Kings. Of course some of the opposition could not be taken seriously. Dr. Welch received a letter from one opponent who even accused (Continued on next page)

Story Of A Controversy

(Continued from previous page) Robert Speaight, who plays the part of Jesus, of "personifying the Godhead." Others said that Singapore fell because these plays were broadcast, and appealed for their removal before a like fate overtook Australia; which gave some wit the chance to write thanking the BBC for the plays which (ending in the following October) "made possible the November victories in Libya and Russia!" The Languagé of the Plays On this same question of the language used, here is the author herself, quoted from her preface: God was executed by people painfully like us, in a society very similar to our ownin the over-ripeness of the most splendid and sophisticated Empire the world has ever seen; in a nation famous for its religious genius and under a government renowned for its efficy. He was executed by a corrupt church, id politician, and a fickle proletariat led by essional agitators. His executioners made vulgar jokes about Him, called Him filthy names, taunted Him, smacked Him in the face, flogged Him with the cat, and hanged Him on the common gibbet-a bloody, dusty, sweaty and sordid business. If you show people that, they are shocked. So they should be. If that does not shock them, nothing can. If the mere representation of it has an air of irreverence, what is to be said about the deed? It is curious that people who are filled with horrified indignation whenever a cat kills a sparrow can hear that story of the killing of God told Sunday after Sunday and not experience any shock at all. Technically, the swiftest way to produce the desirable sense of shock, is the use in drama of modern speech and a determined historical realism about the characters. . . . Tear off the disguise of the Jacobean idiom, go back to the homely and vigorous Greek of Mark or John, translate it into its current English counterpart, and there every man may see his own face. We played the parts in that Ap nineteen and a-half centuries since, and perhaps are playing them to-day, in the same gocd faith and in the same _ ironic ignorance. But to-day we cannot see the irony, for we, the audience, are now the actors, and do not know the end of the play. But it may assist us to know what we are doing if the original drama is shown to us again, with ourselves in the original parts. . . . The question is, are we at this time of day sufficiently wondering and impressed? Above all, are we sufficiently disturbed by this extremely disturbing story? Sometimes the blunt new word will impfess us more than the beautiful and old. ‘Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man,’ said Jesus-and then, seeing perhaps that the reaction to this statement was less vigorous than it might have been. He repeated it, but this time using a strong and rather vulgar word meaning ‘to eat noisily, like an animal’-chew? munch? crunch? champ? chump? (But in the end, I was pusillanimous, and left it at ‘eat,’ not liking‘to offend the sears of the faithful with what Christ actually said. )" Examples from the Plays > Those are some of Miss Sayers’s own comments on the language question. Listeners will quickly find out for themselves the actual effect of the modern speech she has used. The first dozen lines of the first play for instance, are as follow: . SCENE I. (JERUSALEM) The Evangelist: The beginning of the Gos1 of Jesus Christ; the Son of God. . ow, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem "of Judaea in the days of Herod the King, behold nk came wise men from the east to Jeru‘rattle ‘ot dice and the sound of a lute). Ephraim: Four, six, two. . . . Oh, stop strumming, you idle monkey! Your throw, tain. ; roclus (throwing dice): Five, three, six. Ephraim: You win, Proclus. . . . What was all that noise in the street last night? Right under the palace windows--disgraceful! Proclus: A bunch of fools who’d got hold of some rumour or other. (throws dice) Aha! three sixes. Beat that if yon can, my Lord Ephraim. Ephraim: You have ail ‘the fuck. Rumour? What about? Proclus: Oh, nothing. Just an excuse for doting.

Boy: They’re saying in the market-place that Judea is to have a new king. And as a brief example of Miss Sayers’s unsparing realism, here is a short sequence from the last play, at the foot of the Cross: Second Soldier: Come on, come, let’s have the next . . . got him stripped? Third Soldier: Yes. Here you are. Fourth Soldier: This one won’t give trouble. Third Soldier: Dunno about that. He wouldn’t drink the myrrh and vinegar. First Soldier; Why not? Third Soldier: Said he wanted to keep his head clear. First. Soldier: If he thinks he can make a getaway. Fourth Soldier: Ah! he’s only crazy. (Persuasively ) Here, my lad-don’t be obstinate. Drink it. It’ll deaden you like. You won’t feel so much... No? ... Well, if you wont, you won’t. . . . You’re a queer one, ain’t you? . . Come on, then, get down to it. First Soldier: (whose temper has been soured by the black eye): Kick his feet from under him. Second Soldier: No By sx He’s down. . « Take the feet, First Soldier: Stretch your legs. I'll give you king of the Jews. Second Soldier: Hand me the pas Jesus: Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing. (His voice breaks off in a sharp gasp as the mallet falls. Fade out on the dull thud of the hammering). A Challenge to Christians Finally, here is a paragraph taken from near the end of the author’s preface, in which she turns her defence into.a challenge to all Christian people: Not Herod, not Caiaphas, not Pilate, not Judas ever contrived to fasten upon Jesus Christ the reproach of insipidity; that final indignity was left for pious hands to inflict. To make of His story something that could neither startle, nor shock, nor terrify, nor excite, nor inspire a living soul is to crucify the Son of God afresh and put. Him to an open shame. And if anybody imagines that its conventional presentation has of late been all that it should be, let him stop the next stranger in the street and ask what effect it has had on him. Or let him look at the world to which this Gospel has been preached for close on 20 centuries: Si calvarium, si sepulchrum requiris, circumspice. Let me tell you, good Christian people, an honest writer would be ashamed to treat a nursery tale as you have treated the greatest drama in history: and this in virtue, not of his faith, but of his calling. Titles of the Plays The 12 separate plays are entitled as. foNows: "Kings in Judea" (the Nativity and political background of Herod’s Court); "The King’s Herald" (Christ meeting John the Baptist and the Discipes); "A Certain Nobleman" (a sidelight on the humanity of Christ); "The Heirs to the Kingdom" (friends and foes of the Heavenly Kingdom dividing into opposite camps); "The Bread of Heaven" (the miracle of loaves and fishes); "The Feast of the Tabernacles" (with: many characters, Christ, Disciples, Romans); "The Light and the Life" (described by the author as "the lull before the storm"); "Royal Progress" (the contrast of values between this world and the next); "The King’s Supper" (ending with the words "then all the disciples forsook Him and fled"); "The Princes of this World" (the trials); "King of Sorrows" (Calvary, with sequences showing the Roman attitude to an "insignificant episode" involving an "insignificant man"); "The King Comes to His Own" (the Resurrection). New Zealanders will hear these plays at closer intervals than the English audiences first heard them. They will be presented at the rate of one every Sunday, from April 9 to June 25, from 2YA, and subsequently from " National stations in turn, ;