Australian TV Plays: The Strong Are Lonely (20 May 1959)

According to the poster this was the 54th live drama from the ABC. It went for 75 minutes. Ray Menmuir directed.

It was from a play by Fritz Hochwalder, who also wrote The Public Prosecutor.

Premise

The struggle by Spanish Jesuits to establish themselves in Peru. At a Jesuit mission, an inquisitor, Don Pedro, arrives from Madrid, having come because Spanish slave owners are upset at Indian labourers fleeing to the mission.

Don Pedro's orders are to banish the Jesuits from Paraguay.

Cast

John Alden as Father Provinicial
Ric Hutton as the inquisitor, Don Pedro de Miura
Peter Carver as Father Cros
Lionel Stevens as Querini
Ken Hacker as Andre Coreelis
Don Crosby as Father Clarke
Philip College as Captain Arago
Nat Levison
Norton Smith as Bustillos
Tony Arpeno as Chief Candia
Vaughan Tracey as Bishop Gervanzori
Douglas Hayes as Queseda
Malcolm Billings as Catalis
Nat Levison as Captain Villano
At Thomas as Father Liebermann
Keith Buckley as Chief Barricua, Indian Chief
Richard Meikle as Acatu, Chief Candia's son,

Original play

The 1942 play written by Fritz Hochwälder was originally performed in German as Das heilige Experiment, then translated into French then English.

The play had been performed on Broadway in 1953.

Borrow a copy here.

Thoughts on the original play

Like the other one by this author done for the ABC, The Public Prosecutor, I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. Historical, smart, a period of history I'm not that familiar with (I googled it - they kicked out the Jesuits from Paraguay). A play of ideas.

Everyone gets their moment in the sun. Miura, the soldier, is not unkind. He has a job to do. The head Jesuit is torn between having created his socialist utopia and having to follow the word of his order. They are involved in politics when they're not supposed to. Is that a good or a bad thing.

This tackles many of the issues of that 1986 film The Mission but is much better. Smarter. More rounded characters - the priest who goes gung-ho, the empathetic antagonist.

This shares a similar flaw - the Indians are these passive characters, barely seen, waiting to be victims. I mean, to some extent they were but a few more lines than "we shall fight" would have helped.

Other adaptations

Donald Wolfit had starred in a 1956 British TV (for the BBC) and radio version.

The Donald Wolfit radio version was broadcast in 1959 in Australia.

The play was broadcast on Australian radio in 1956 with John Alden. This was by the ABC.

It was adapted for Canadian TV in 1958.

Production

According to one report, "With 16 speaking roles and extras numbering 23, The Strong Are Lonely will have the largest cast to appear in a “live” Australian TV drama."

Five Indian students from Sydney University were among the 23 extras. There was a cast of 39.

It was advertised as "the ABC's 56th live TV play, with an all-Australian cast... acclaimed in London, Paris and Rome as an outstanding contribution to contemporary drama."

Tom Jeffrey first worked for Menmuir as assistant floor manager on this. Menmuir said he "tried to break the bounds of the studio" with this.

It was a Saturday morning and rehearsal was due to start at ten a.m. up in one of these old radio studios that the ABC had scattered about. It was the one in town in the ah in the old ah Presbyterian er church up in two two nine Pitt Street and ah we had to mark out the floor. Ron (…….) was the Floor Manager and I was the Assistant and we agreed to be there, we were rostered on for at eight o’clock in the morning to mark out the floor for the sets and things ready for rehearsal at ten and for the life of me I can’t remember why but I slept in. And I ended up getting there about eleven thirty and Ron (…….) was still on his hands and knees trying to mark out the floor. He’d been doing it for three and a half hours and fortunately they were doing a read through of the play so they weren’t quite ready, the actors and Ray, to start blocking the show. But they were awful close and Ray Menmuir turned on me as soon as I walked in the door, gave me the rounds of the kitchen like publicly, which is correct. I mean I was I was that was very unprofessional thing to do and apart from two other occasions that I can recall, I don’t think I’ve ever been late again. It really taught me you know, that if you’re rostered on at eight o’clock you get there at five to eight you know sort of thing. Um unless I’ve got a real good reason to be late but um like having a car accident or being sick or something. Um so yeah so that was interesting, that was a good year.

Crew

Assistant floor manager - Tom Jeffrey.

Reception

By early 1959 the Fairfax papers were reviewing TV.

The Age said

The very fine acting of John Alden as Father Provincial put Channel 2’s drama. The Strong Are Lonely, a cut above the TV dramas offered us. In recent months. Interest also was sustained by the spread of thought - provoking lines, although the production itself carried little conviction In its spotless pseudo-South American tropical set ting.

Producer Ray Menmuir toyed with a brilliant Idea In the battle scene by leaving much of the action to the Imagination of the viewer, but the effect was In part spoiled when the cameras persisted In returning to the same casualty’s pair of feet. Nor can one avoid mentioning the uniforms of the Spanish soldiery. Were they borrowed from Errol Flynn’s pirates In the film Captain Blood ? Faulty sound early in the performance (the ABC must have wished it had video tape) was remedied, but, I suspect, not soon enough for some viewers.

The Bulletin said "Ray Menmuir won considerable acclaim" for the production.

The Sydney Morning Herald said

A Paraguay parallel of the Christ-Pilate collision,Friz Hochwaelder’s “The Strong are Lonely,” was given an absorbing live-play presentation by ABN Channel 2 last night, the author’s skilful working of the big issues in being matched in vital places by acting forceful and sizable enough to ensure safe-‘passage for his arguments.

There were some amateurish moments among the minor players in the cast of 39, and the two _ principals—John Alden, as the Jesuit father, and Ric Hutton, as the inquiring Spanish “Pilate” —were|‘both a lithe undecided from time to time as to whether stage-acting of a film-acting technique was required of them.

But, with television acting be ng such a difficult combination of both kinds of playing they were fortunate to have the guidance of a producer like Raymond Menmur, and, the net outcome of the production, though finally a little flat and disappointing, was an entertainment of stature, substance and challenge.

The play is concerned with a Jesuit “Utopia” in Pararguay, where Indians accept Christ because of all the material comforts that can come to them in His name, and the hatred of hard-driving Spanish slavers who see their bled, labour fleeing from them to Jesuit protection.

Found guiltless according the inquiries of the Spanish king’s emissary. the Jesuits are nevertheless ordered to disband and set out, a challenge which the Jesuit superior finds deadly hard to reconcile with his duty to God.

John Alden, as the Jesuit superior, had the weight, strength and emphasis to keep the role big. despite some studied and mannered moments of affront, but one rather missed sweetness and humility in this leader and in the later stages, the soul-twisting agonie of defeat.

Indeed, from the dignity and sympathy of Ric Hutton’s portrait of the king’s emissary from Madrid, one was led to feet that perhaps Pilate’s dreadful dilemma has never been — generally appreciated with the compassion due to it.