PEOPLE OR PUPPETS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 25, Issue 633, 17 August 1951, Page 12

PEOPLE OR PUPPETS

PLAYS ABOUT PEOPLE, by Peter Ustinov; Jonathan Cape. English price, 9/6. WITH the enviable reputation already behind him of a topflight’ actor, playwright, producer and novelist, Peter Ustinov is even now barely thirty years

of age. A calculation as lightning as any arithmetical sum can ever be for me, makes him in his very early twenties when he wrote these plays. Perhaps this provides the answer to the query why do they not quite come off? "The Tragedy of Good Intentions" has as its main character Peter the Hermit, and as its main theme the fanaticism and idealism of the ‘Children’s Crusade, placed in cynical contrast to the military intrigue and clerical chicanery which sponsored it. "The Indifferent’ Shepherd" is a modern discussion of moral values. "Blow Your Own Trumpet," according to the author, is "an idea, rather than a play in the ordinary sense." There is not space or time to.reflect on what constitutes a play, and what ‘does not, but all these three fall. down, in my mind, at least, because they are plays of ideas rather than of people (this in spite of the title), and because the ideas are not new enough, not exciting or original enough to carry the story. Most of the characters speak as mouthpieces for the author. Very few come to life of their own accord. A stage character must have a life of its own. It must be able every now and then to take the bit between its teeth, to romp away from the author’s initial image and become something in its own right. Not many of Mr. Ustinov’s people do this, so that we are given a hermit whose fanaticism comes from a book rather than from the emotion of a tortured human soul; or we have a clergyman who speaks always as though from the pulpit. "Blow Your Own Trumpet" contains characters who come nearer to some sort of spontaneity. There are some very good acting parts, notably the conductor without an orchestra, the speechless grandmother, the psycho-analyst who finds himself the most interesting subject for examination. This piece has periods of hilarious comedy, excitement and extravagance which give it a glow the other two lack. The preface, "On the Nature of Acting and its Effect on the Playwright," .based

on a lecture delivered to the University of London, I found extremely interest-.

ing.

Isobel

Andrews