A cartoon of war

Press, 24 April 1980, Page 6

A cartoon of war

By -

HOWARD McNAUGHTON

“The Unknown Soldier and His Wife,” by Peter Ustinov. Directed by Simon Hill and Warren Bennie for the Riccarton Players. Wharenui School Hall, April 19 to 26. Running time: 8. p.m. to-10.25 p.m.

As a prelude to Anzac Day, the Riccarton Players are offering Ustinov’s famous cartoon history of warfare. In episodic sketches, the play traces recurrent motifs in warfare from Roman times to the twentieth century. At the start, a group of soldiers is preparing for the'televised burial of. the Unknown Soldier; their collective. memory is jolted by an archaism,

and the first of numerous timeslips takes them back to the General killing one of his men at Knossos. There follow scenes of Roman imperialism, Elizabethan romance, Restoration decadence, eighteenth-century revolution, and modern trench warfare, each episode including the corruption of the clergy, the power of the. technologist, the pathos of the soldier’s wife, and the bewilderment of the unknown common soldier. If the play is commonly interpreted as a pacifist tract, its thematic scope also takes in much broader social issues. The whole cast is required to handle multiple roles, and inevitably each actor has his weak points as well as his successes. The mainstays of the cast are Doug Clarke’s

General, sometimes overplayed but always assertive, Simon Hill's Inventor, showing good stage ’presence, Dugald Martin’s Archbishop, weak as a Roman but an amusing revolutionary, and Nic Farra’s sergeant, controlling a well-presented military group. In the title roles, Benjamin Carpenter and Lynette Crompton generally give festively subdued performances.

The staging is good, with an inventive use of a small playing area and a remarkably glamorous wardrobe. There are, of course, weak areas in-both script and presentation, but the production has obviously matured considerably since opening, and last night’s audience was continuously attentive and amused by the comedy,