King of Babylon

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 892, 7 September 1956, Page 27

King of Babylon

]N chapter one, verse one, of the Book of Daniel, we are told that "In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, Kitig of Judah, came Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, unto Jerusalem, and besieged it." Im .the BBC play, Nebuchadnezzar, by Lord Duncannon afid Muriel Jenkins (2B Sunday Showcase, Septembér 16), the authors have moved on frotn this terse introduction through a concentrated sctap of emotional history (only four brief chapters in all). From it they Have fashioned a

witty restatement of an old, familiar Story in serious dramatic terms. The cufious ttio, Shadfach, Meshach and Abednego ("upon whose bodies the fire had no power"), emerge as three personable characters: the first pompous and academic, the second human and sensible, and the third shifty and nervous. Nebuchadnezzar himself (played by Donald Wolfit, below, left), cotfies to life as a gigantic schizophrenic, intolerable and cruel on the one hand, and comic and genial on the other. The two aspects of his character are brought together by a fundamental religious zeal, first expressed in the worship of the Golden Image, and then canalised into a knowledge of the Living God. Only Bel-Shalti-Nannar, High Priestess of the Temple of the Moon God, and the supposed daughter of Nebuchadnezzar (like all young people with fairly extensive resporisibilities, she is a somewhat precocious character), may bewilder those familiar with the Book of Daniel; but her presence is accounted for by a discovery of Sir Leonard Woolley. In his book Excavations at Ur he describes the school over whith she ‘presided. The music for the production was composed by Elizabeth Poston. A special feature of it is the use made of the psaltery, played by Joan Rimmer. After considerable research Miss Rimmer had this archaic instrument réconstructed for her arid then had to master the art of playing it. The roles of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are played by Eric Anderson, John Gabriel and Brian Haines, while the exotic Bel-Shalti-Nanhat is played by Sulwen Morgan. The narrator is Lord Duncannon, the co-author.