UNCONTROVERSIAL PLAY?

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31498, 12 October 1967, Page 13

UNCONTROVERSIAL PLAY?

(N.Z.P A.-Reuter—Copyright) ■ WEST BERLIN, Oct. 11. Rolf Hochhuth’s play, “Die Soldaten” (The Soldiers), which indirectly implicates Sir Winston Churchill in the death of Poland’s war-time leader, General Sikorski, may not become as controversial as forecast. Loud boos greeted Hochhuto as he went on the stage after the play’s world premiere on Monday night. The 36-year-old playwright’s latest work dramatises the former British Prime Minister’s role ■ in ordering aerial

bombing of German towns during the Second World War.

It also dwells on the death in an air crash off Gibraltar of General Sikorski, who led the London-based war-time Polish Government-in-exile. Before the performance Hochhuth told a press conference that- the three-act play would imply that Sir Winston Churchill had ordered that Sikorski should be murdered. But the play’s reference to this is only a veiled one.

In one scene Churchill and Lord Cherwell discuss 'the planned flight by Sikorski to Gibraltar and "Churchill remarks on the three previous mishaps Sikorski experienced in flights. Cherwell closes the scene with the whispered remark “This time, I feel, this time.” In t toe second act, set in

Churchill’s bedroom, plans are approved for “Action Gomorrah” the aerial bombing of Hamburg. In the final act, Churchill gets the news that Sikorski is dead and weeps on a garden bench. A Polish resistance officer shouts at a woman aide of the Prime Minister: “We Poles are treated like the Jews. Nobody wants us. They kill us. Yes, they have killed Sikorski”

But be does not say who has done so.

At toe end, Churchill tells the Polish resistance officer: “Soldiers must die but by their death they strengthen toe country in which they were born.” The officer retorts with some heat “at least they strengthen toe country in which we are guests—and toe Allies." One critic even described I

last night’s performance as “a boring evening.” Reviewing toe play in “Der Tagesspiegel” today. the theatre critic, Walter Karsch, described “Die Soldaten” as “a bit confused, but brings an interesting encounter between the temptation of power and injustice.” Hochhuth’s play would be laughed off any London stage in 24 hours, Colin Lawson wrote today in toe London “Daily Express.” Lawson wrote from West Berlin that he was bewildered at toe decision to ban it from London.

In toe play, Churchill was turned into a “third-rate clown” although the author’s announced intention was to project him as a brilliant and humane war-time leader, Lawson wrote. Instead, Churchill was depicted as a caricature of a statesman;. J I