PLAY WITH QUALITY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 933, 28 June 1957, Page 13

PLAY WITH QUALITY

THE TRIAL OF THOMAS CRANMER, by Anne Ridler; Faber and Faber, English price 12/6. "THE combination of verse drama with ‘" both history and religion presents curious and considerable problems to the writer; so far poets seem only to have found two satisfactory solutions to the dilemmas. Eliot, Fry and others convince us of the reality and the humanity of the protagonist (e.g., Becket and Moses), and present .a dramatic clash on personal, legal and spiritual levels. Charles Williams, Claudel, and their like speak dramatically to the inner ear-of the mysteries-and in such a way that we are satisfied with the outer conflicts even when structurally the play may not be adequate. In this play Mrs Ridler does not quite succeed in either direction. Historically she reconstructs the last few years of Cranmer’s life, failing to make him an entirely real person as husband, archbishop or martyr. For the play to be wholly gripping all three facets would probably be necessary. Of course, with the compelling background of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford where the play was presented and where stands the actual pillar against which Cranmer made his final apologia, the atmosphere ‘might carry the work trifimphantly. Needless to say, Anne Ridler turns her verse well and without obscurity. There are moments of spiritual inspiration and dramatic poignancy, but the play does not fulfil the considerable promise of her earlier nativity play The Shadow Factory. It may be (Charles Williams also had a try) that Cranmer is not the subject for a play; certainly his wife suggests more dramatic possibilities, since she renfarried not once but twice after his martyrdom, which surely constitutes some sort of a record. Anne Ridler may still write a play in speakable, understandable verse of fine

quality,

John V.

Trevor