This play was first performed at the National
Theatre in Chichester on 7th June 1964, when I was a young man of
16. I've never seen a performance, but I wish I had. Bernard Levin described
the work as 'The greatest play of our generation', and I can see why, having
merely read the text.
This is a piece of fictionalised history with much
taken from recorded sources. It reads as true. It reads as a commentary on the
utter hypocrisy of the early Catholic Church, the greed of those who would make
Empire their ambition, the incredible courage of some and the cowardice of
many. In the characters we find historical personalities and other figures
developed to illustrate the generality of those men who accompanied Pizarro on
his epic journey to rape and plunder the civilisation of the ancient Incas in
Peru.
The motivation of the majority was a desire to
escape abject poverty coupled with a promise of untold wealth. In an age when the
promise of an afterlife was taken as fact by many ignorant and ill-educated
people, the value of real life was held to be low, of course. Others who
ventured forth on this great adventure of corruption and theft were driven by
political or evangelical ambition. The 'royal' representatives of Spain are
drawn with savage honesty, corrupt, self-serving and totally driven by an ideal
of royalty that has nothing to do with the older idea of noblesse oblige. Those
representing the Catholic Church are drawn with brutal truth as purveyors of a
falsehood they are determined to force on the innocent in the hope that
conversion of such souls might bolster their own insecurities and bring them
the selfish reward of everlasting life for their own souls, regardless of the
cost for those they thus pollute.
But it is greed that most drives the characters of
this play, as in the real journey. They desire gold, at any price and
regardless of the cost in human life. There is no hiding from the facts here.
Pizarro, although trying to present himself as a complex character with mixed
motives, is, in reality, simply a bully and opportunist with a lust for gold
that drowns out all reason. He slowly comes to realise what is defining his
life and, to his credit, develops some scruples as events unfold and he
discovers that the man he would slaughter as a savage is anything but.
My only slight cause for complaint rests in the
depiction of Atahuallpa as an entirely noble sovereign. He is undoubtedly more
versed in nobility than any of the western characters, but he is also the head
of a state where sacrifice and strict rule exist, circumscribing the lives of
his subjects to the extent that they are mere shadows of men. Individuality in
this state is definitely not permitted and the word of Atahuallpa is law on
pain of death. But I suspect the elevation of the Inca leader is simply a
device to make him more admirable than the ruffians, cowards, hypocrites and thieves
who invade his land in order to destroy a civilisation simply for monetary
reward. The destruction of the art into simple blocks of gold, as a means of
sharing, is unforgiveable and underlines the wholly material concerns of the
men concerned in the looting.
This is a powerful, disturbing and moving piece of
drama. It reads on the page with a presence of power and emotional thrust that
performance must render into an amazing experience. If I ever get the
opportunity to attend a performance of this play, I will definitely go. In the
meantime, I recommend any reader with an interest in the frailty of man, the
iniquity of empire, the place of brutality in history, to read the text. It is
a worthy use of your time.
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