Gathering of Vultures

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 795, 15 October 1954, Page 19

Gathering of Vultures

"| HE theme of Victor Rietti’s play The Wanderer strongly resembles that of Ben Jonson’s Volpone, but without the taint of heartlessness that mars the earlier play for modern readers. In a kinder, more mellow Italy of a later day than the Fox’s Venice, a peasant family goes about its business on -the farm and in the house. They are a hardbitten, canny lot on the whole, with an eye out for any extra lire capable. of being extorted, no matter what the source. ; Giacomo and his shrewish wife, Mansueta, head the household, and they are guardians of their niece, Viola, an unhappy girl whose money is ‘in the tight grasp of her uncle and aunt. This unlovely pair plan to marry her off to their foolish son but, fortunately for Viola, one afternoon a fiddler passes along the hot, dusty road to the farmhouse. He is great-uncle Martino, returned from a_ life of wandering in distant Jans, and now, perhaps, a rich man. a appears to be desperately poor, but bis..money-grubbing relatives are conyinced that this is a blind to test them» out . before he ‘makes his _allimportant. will. How Martino feigns itl-

ness, extracts permission, from her intransigent guardians for ‘Viola to marry her lover and himself succeeds in tricking the stingy relatives into declaring their real reasons for worrying about his health, makes a sly, ironic commentary on human frailty. Victor Rietti’s comedy has been televised by the BBC with the author himself playing the old wanderer. Rietti, it might be added, is also the author of an_ even more famous play, To Live in Peace, which was made into one of the finest films of the Italian post-war cinema renaissance. The Wanderer was produced for the NZBS by William Austin, with Roy Leywood, Briton Chadwick and Ria Sohier in leading roles. It will be broadcast by 4YZ on Wednesday, October 20, at 9.49 p.m., and will be heard later from other National stations.