Clash of cultures

The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Peter Shaffer’s 1964 play about the conquest of the Incas

The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Peter Shaffer’s 1964 play about the conquest of the Incas, contains one of the most famous stage directions in modern drama: ‘They cross the Andes.’ On the face of it, these four words are completely preposterous. How could a theatre company possibly create the illusion that a 4,000-strong army is crossing a mountain range? Yet there was method in Shaffer’s madness. By including a stage direction that was impossible to follow naturalistically, he was forcing directors, actors, set designers, and so on to fall back on their ingenuity. In order to do justice to this play, they would have to use such devices as mime, music and dance — they would have to embrace what has come to be known as ‘total theatre’.

In so far as The Royal Hunt of the Sun ushered in a new, non-naturalistic era in British drama, Shaffer has a lot to answer for. I absolutely loathe ‘total theatre’. It’s a catch-all term for everything that is precious and self-regarding and insufferable about contemporary theatre. (Picture a bunch of luvvies leaping about the stage clutching a ream of blue silk in an attempt to recreate a shipwreck and you have some idea of what ‘total theatre’ means.) It’s based on a profound misunderstanding of what it is about a really good play that engages an audience’s imagination. It’s got very little to do with the use of these ‘imaginative’ tropes — almost all of which have become wretched clichés — and everything to do with things like character and plot. In short, tapping into the audience’s unconscious is more or less the sole responsibility of the playwright.