Eliot's 'Murder in Cathedral' Opens

The HDC took a calculated risk when it chose to give T. S. Eliot's "Murder in the Cathedral." For although the play contains some of Eliot's most beautiful poetry, it is immensely difficult to perform. With little action and long choral passages that are spoken by as many as fifteen people, there is an ever-present danger that "Murder in the Cathedral" will seem more a series of dialogues on the problems of sainthood than a unified dramatic whole.

Yet the HDC won its gamble. Although its production has uneven sections, it is acted with a singleness and intensity that conveys great power.

Specifically, Eliot shows the struggle of Archbishop Thomas a Becket to achieve the purification necessary for martyrdom, and the effect of his death on the people of Canterbury. But Thomas' martyrdom is to have universal meaning. For this reason, Becket and every person in the play, seem intentionally pale and undefined. Eliot champions a stylized drama in which the playwright, not the actor or director, is responsible for every nuance and subtlety of meaning. Particularly in "Murder in the Cathedral," there is little room for individual interpretation. A slight tendency to overact can damage the effect produced by the play. For this reason, the part of Becket, the only major role, is unique. The impressive, moving lines go not to the principal but to the chorus. Yet the actor in the lead must convey all the agony and beauty that comes with martyrdom.

Difficult Lead Role

Thomas Gaydos is largely, successful in the part. With his full and well-modulated voice he can put across the long sermon between acts which might easily have been dull. And Gaydos' Becket is always a mature, gentle figure. Except at the very end, however, he lacks the fullness of power that Thomas must also have throughout. For "Murder in the Cathedral" is not a play of growth. Thomas does not suddenly seize on the power which he takes to his death. He had it, Eliot explains, over since he resigned the Chancellorship to devote his whole being to the Church. In the first act, when he dismisses the temptors who came to lure him from his purpose, Gaydos was too much the prig. He tends also to overuse facial gestures. But in the death scene, when faced by four drunken assassins, he brings a great, cold dignity to the role.

Supporting roles were far less demanding. The only actors with parts that varied enough to warrant individual comment were those who played both the four temptors in the first act and the murdering knights in the second. Robert Schwarz's straightforward earnestness as the temptor who offered Thomas the greatest gift of all--martyrdom--is skillfully handled, while Andre Gregory is delightfully whimsical as he offers Becket the joys of past dissipations. As the two temptors who offer various forms of temporal power, Louis Begley and John Docker are only fair. Begley over-acts to the point of appearing a scheming spy, and Docker's offer of a coalition between bishop and barons seems too gruff and intense. All four share the same fault in the last act speeches, when the knights suddenly abandon their roles of drunken killers and become apologists for their deeds. Although their explanations are fantastic, Eliot included them to show the earnest fervor with which the murder was done. But in the HDC production, the four knights seemed scarcely to believe the speeches they gave. Although the parts are humorous, they should not be delivered as intentionally so.

Effect of Chorus

The real drama in "Murder in the Cathedral" is in the speeches of the chorus. Their fear of harm for Becket, their terror at his death, and the exultation that comes with their final recognition of his spiritual triumph, are expressed in some of the most beautiful poetry Eliot has written. The dramatic impact of the passage from doubt to certainty is tremendous.

The seven women in the chorus do not fall victim to the pitfalls so common in choral speaking: faulty timing and a lack of harmony. Their precision is achieved mainly through the skillful direction of Theodore Field. He seldom allows the seven to speak as a whole, preferring instead to let individual lines go to single persons or small groups. But the chorus always seems to speak at a feverish intensity; greater contrast would lend much to the dramatic effect. The three priests, on the contrary, speak with a careful modulation that shows thorough understanding of their roles.

Because of the highly-stylized structure of the play, the settings themselves are crucial. The cathedral assumes almost the role of a character, for Eliot continually emphasizes that Becket, and indeed all saints, find salvation through the Church. That the murder is in a cathedral adds not only the dramatic impact of sacrilege, but shows the essential oneness of the saint and his Church. Many of the classic productions of "Murder in the Cathedral" have been staged in churches. In these productions--the audience far back and the action heightened by the mass of the architecture--the result is a feeling of aloofness.

But the HDC deliberately chose to move the play as close to the audience as possible. Instead of performing on Sander's stage, they use a highly symbolic set built on a semi-arena sunk into the floor. This decision was a good one; instead of an aloofness, designer Webster Lithgow has produced a feeling of closeness that adds to the intensity. One can only wish that the individual components of the set were larger and placed further apart. Lighting, by Campbell Steward, and costumes, by Leslie Van Zandt, were excellent.

"Murder in the Cathedral" is one of the finest student productions in recent years. The play is always moving, the acting is uniformly good; and the direction is carefully restrained. Such high quality in the use of existing facilities should give an added purpose to the drive for a new University theatre.