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T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral was performed in Epsom United Reformed Church in 1988, as part of the tercentenary celebrations, by a cast of church members and NESCOT students. It was performed in 2009 in the Parish Church of St. Mary & St. Nicholas, Leatherhead, and in Epsom Methodist Church, by the Methodist Drama Group and the Pilgrim Players of Leatherhead.. The play was originally written to be performed in the Chapter House at Canterbury Cathedral in 1935.
It is an appropriate play for a church setting: the plot concerns the rise and fall of an archbishop; the action takes place in and near a cathedral; the main theme is religious martyrdom. Robert Speaight, who played Thomas in the first production, remembered: ‘Becket himself entered through the audience and was similarly carried out at the end…It was a moving experience…to be carried thus into the Cloister and to pass within a few feet of the place where Becket is believed to have been murdered.’ The two parts of the play are separated by a sermon. (At the Methodist Church the audience became active participants at this point and sang a carol.) The sermon forms a natural part of a church service, but Speaight had doubts as to whether a theatre audience would be prepared to listen to a theological sermon. However the sermon, although in dramatic terms it takes the form of a monologue, marks a climax in character development and themes. Becket has so far played a passive role; here he takes the initiative and makes a decision – although there is some suspense in that he does not tell the audience exactly what effect his decision will take. The themes of pride, power and peace reach a climax of resolution; Thomas rejects pleasure and power, and recognises the element of pride in martyrdom; he promises peace, with the warning that it will not be peace as the world gives it, hinting of his awareness that he is not in danger, only near to death.
Eliot kept close to Aristotle’s dramatic unities; the Chorus has an important role, open to theatrical interpretation. Again Speaight’s memories are interesting: ‘The Chorus spoke beautifully, but they remained middle-class young women from South Kensington. Nothing more remote from the medieval poor could have been imagined…They gave one Eliot’s poetry without ever being able to give one Eliot’s people.’ The Chorus in both Epsom productions represented ordinary women. Speaking in chorus, they convey eternal truths and everyday experiences: ‘Destiny waits in the hands of God, shaping the still unshapen’; ‘Yet we have gone on living, living and partly living.’ Solo voices give supporting details: ‘We have seen births, deaths and marriages, we have had various scandals…several girls have disappeared unaccountably, and some not able to.’ At the end of the play they identify with the earthly concerns of the common man but also with the spiritual suffering of martyrs:
We ‘fear the hand at the window, the fire in the thatch,
the fist in the tavern, the push into the canal,
Less than we fear the love of God.
We acknowledge our trespass, our weakness, our fault; we acknowledge
That the sin of the world is upon our heads;
that the blood of the martyrs and the agony of the saints
Is upon our heads…
Blessed Thomas, pray for us.’
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