KIWI CRUSADERS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 942, 30 August 1957, Page 30

KIWI CRUSADERS

[Tt is quite a while since we have had a substantial New Zealand-written tadio play, and hope must have been burning pretty dimly in the breasts of those listeners eager to hear a new native product. But even the most sanguine could hardly have expected anything to come to light as ambitious as John Dunmore’s drama of the Fourth Crusade, A Masque for Old Bones (YC link). Let me say at once that this play was well worth doing and that it was well done. No need here for any comment like "Pretty good considering .. ."

In the matter of language, which is even more important on radio than on the stage, Mr Dunmore’s drama had bite, colour, verve and resonance; and, while I cannot judge of the play’s fidelity to history, it certainly, in the mouths of the admirable cast, carried ringing conviction. In some respects, to my mind, the play did fall short of the best radio drama. Interest was too generally divided among several characters, some, like the Crusader, litthe more than observers; ho main character, or characters, carried the action through dominantly, and so were rounded sufficiently as people to engage my full sympathy. Several scenes, especially the early ones involving the Soldier, were talky-talky, repetitive and circlingly expository. The epilogue, in which characters at length explained their significance and the Soldier identified himself with the modern "common man," seemed to me a mistake, a gratuitous annotation, with touches of banality which took away some of the force of the drama. Yet, in the character of the resolute Cardinal (finely played by George Royle), who came nearest to three dimensions, and in one scene, in particular, wherein the Soldier (Derek Whittaker) confronts the Priest (Pat Smyth) he has been ordered to kill, Mr Dunmore’s dramatic power shone out excitingly. I know that the recorder was historically right for David Sell’s hauntingly apt music, so I have only myself to blame for finding the recorder interlude a trifle chichi. Am I alone in thinking the recorcer a particularly dull instrument? Is historical accuracy as important as dramatic effectiveness? However, A Masque for Old Bones, despite its tendency to make its characters types instead of persons, and a certain garrulousness, was alive with ideas and pungent language. Save for its epilogue, it is a play that, I feel, would make its mark on the radio any-

where. I hope that Mr Dunmore will be encouraged to give us more like it, and that others will be inspired to fol-

low his stimulating lead.

J.C.

R.