What was that like? I've only read the script of the play and was completely floored at how it managed to seep into my brain and explode there with the sparse description that a script always entails. Should I try to track the film down? My gut says no, from what I've read here. I really would love to see this performed. I'm only a few years late for the Broadway revival which I'm sure made its way out here to LA eventually.
shareI've never seen it live, and I'm just going to watch the movie tonight. But I was almost in the cast in a high school production of it in the late 1960s. Almost, because the director wasn't happy with my portrayal of the interpreter, Felipe, during a rape scene. He thought I wasn't violent enough. I was able to learn quite a bit of American sign language, though, and reinterpreted that for the translations.
It's a remarkable story, filled with (some might say revisionist) a 20th century take on a 16th century historical event. In some regard it may be prototypical of the 'mean Europeans squashing the Native inhabitants'. However you interpret it, it's a done deal, which cannot be undone.
I've always wished I could have seen the original Broadway production, because it would have been wonderful to see Christopher Plummer and David Carradine working together. I can really imagine Carradine as Atahualpa.
I'm just watching the interview with Plummer from the "Hamlet at Elsinore" DVD set, and there was a little segment about this play and film. I have seen the film, and I had the sense that Plummer was more suited to play Pizarro, as he did on Broadway. He didn't address that change of characters in the interview, but he did indicate that the film was a disappointment.
I saw one. I was IN a college production.1979. I had a starring role....the third Inca from the left. LOL. Serious. I was just an extra but got to enjoy the whole production and excellent acting. Franklin Schaffner and Roy Schieder were in my same drama group years before me when they were in college. Same little Green Room.
The play was a huge success with great actors filling the starring roles. I dont think either of them went on to having a film career,
I did host the best cast party ever at my parents house which was in the same town as my College.
Oh, yeah, Ivan Kane was in the play too with a supporting role. He went on to minor stardom in Platoon and later as a big time club owner in Vegas.
All of a sudden I want to see this film now.
Seriously? Did Plummer play Pizarro? I knew Carradine played Atahualpa.
Carpe Noctem!
Yes, I saw the original London production at the National Theatre, when it was still at the Old Vic, oh, a long time ago. I'm not sure whether this would have pre-dated the Broadway production somebody on here mentions; probably, since Shaffer is British. Colin Blakely was Pizarro, Robert Stephens was Atuhualpa.
It was the first total theatre, physical theatre, production I had ever seen, and I don't think I was alone in this, I think it was one of the first total theatre productions in mainstream theatre, at least in Britain. We had not seen stylised action like this before - the climbing of the Andes; the dance-like massacre scene, with the victims falling, rising, falling again, and the stage covered in scarlet silk; the mimed translation and stylised speech; the terrible death of Atahualpa and the more terrible scene that followed, with the priests around his body waiting and watching for the sun to rise...
I have never forgotten it.
I've only seen the film once, also a long time ago; as I recall it didn't really work. Film is too literal a medium for stylisation.
They did it at my college (SMU) a few years before I was a student there in the early seventies, but I didn't see it.
"He carries illegal weapons, drives fast cars & wears clothes obviously designed by a homosexual."
I played Atahuallpa in a stage production many years ago. I saw the film in the 80's and didnt care for it much. It's interesting that Christopher Plummer played Pizarro on Broadway and switched roles for the movie.
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