The Royal Hunt of the Sun

Synopsis

Intent on the conquest of Peru, Spanish soldier Pizarro entices recruits with the promise of inconceivable riches, while the Church claims the cause for Christianity. The ensuing clash between two cultures leaves thousands of unarmed Inca troops slaughtered and sparks an intense battle of wills between the sun-god and his captor, as the Spaniards plunder for gold.

Our Review:

13 April 2006

Peter Shaffer’s 1964 epic chronicle about the Spanish conquest of Peru, full of feathers, gold, birdsong and billowing silk, was the first new play presented by the National Theatre: at Chichester, the Old Vic and for a season in the West End. Trevor Nunn’s revival – the first in London since a Prospect Theatre touring production visited the Round House in 1973 – restores the play to the big open spaces it deserves in the Olivier auditorium.

In John Dexter’s original production, the massacre of the Incas was signified, unforgettably, in the simple strewing of the stage with red cloaks. Nunn’s instinct for spectacle is much gaudier: the eyes are assaulted with strobe lighting (an effect surely well past its sell-by date) and a red silk parachute billows across the stage.

The play stands up remarkably well as a metaphor of cultural imperialism, some even noting a parallel with Iraq. But there was something both grander and more freakish about the adventure of a handful ...

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Latest User Review

217.196.231.33) - 9 August 2006:

This kind of dewy eyed, romantic theatre probably worked brilliantly in the 60s and 70s but it just won't wash now. It looks even more dated than some fusty old Victorian melodrama. The National is - again - producing tripe. What for? It would have been just as dated on paper so why commission a new staging? The Life of Galileo, which is an uncharacterisitcally good show at the National these days, is helping to restore the National's reputation this summer. I really hope Hytner's Alchemist does the same this autumn because the place has being going to pot for the last three years (History Boys aside)....

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