Making a thriller out of the Vatican fallout from Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanæ Vitæ (subtitled On the Regulation of Birth), published on 25 July 1968, has mercifully not occurred to Dan Brown.
But Roger Crane has succeeded in doing just that. The Last Confession at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, is a compelling account of the thirty three day reign of “The Smiling Pope” John Paul I, which may or may not have ended in his murder. These few weeks in 1978 find the Catholic Church locked in a bitter feud between liberal and conservative factions over birth control and finances.
It is always a challenge to deal with historical events because the audience already knows what will happen in the end. Director David Jones creates real tension and jeopardy on the stage with the help of William Dudley’s excellent set: treachery and tradition lurk in every shadow of a magnificent prison of a Vatican.
David Suchet plays the protagonist, Cardinal Benelli, a deeply moral man striving to do the right thing in spite of his shaken faith and the crushing weight of realpolitik. There can be very few people – apart from Gordon and Tony – who spend the better part of their working lives locked in mortal combat while the fate of millions of people and pounds hang in the balance and it is to Suchet’s immense credit that he generates enormous empathy for Benelli’s struggles and doubts.
Richard O’Callaghan is magnificent as John Paul I. He takes the reluctant Pope on a journey from a mild-mannered tea with Miss Marple figure to man of principle, determined to pursue a liberal agenda against the machinations of the scheming cardinals, without ever descending into caricature. He is genuinely missed when he disappears from the stage and the ghost of an opportunity lost haunts the rest of the story.
The dialogue between the cardinals is excellent: witty and full of pointed one-liners. “The poor are always with us” with its beautifully weighted double entendre could be a New Labour slogan.
The Last Confession is a great deal more than the thinking man’s Da Vinci Code.
The Last Confession is booking until 15 September 2007 at the Theatre Royal Haymarket.
