Eliot in a sacred setting is tough on the brain but good for the soul
Murder in the Cathedral
Southwark Cathedral, London SE1 ★★★★★
Theatrical time past hangs in the air like incense at Southwark Cathedral, which christens a new staging of TS Eliot’s high-minded verse drama of 1935. Sitting close to the sweet Thames, the first Gothic church in London served the parish of Bankside during the Elizabethan era (when it was St Saviour’s – the cathedral designation came in 1905). Actors came here, prayed here.
There’s a stained-glass window tribute (and monument) to Shakespeare; the Bard’s younger brother Edmund lies buried here, as do the playwrights Massinger and Fletcher. More relevantly still, it was here that Becket gave his last sermon in London before travelling to Canterbury where he met his doom – butchered at the hands of four knights who were serving, so they thought, Henry II’S wishes.
Re-enacting that murder within a historically pertinent place of worship is the obvious coup achieved by the site-specific, classic-text dedicated company Scena Mundi, led by director Cecilia Dorland. The vaguely medieval-dressed production coincides with the impending 850th anniversary of Becket’s murder (the plan is to tour 25 venues next year).
The approach – using cathedral sites – isn’t new: the National Youth Theatre, led by a young hopeful called Matt Smith, were here in 2003. Yet the frisson of seeing the sword-wielding culprits charging down the nave, violating the sanctity of the space, is an undying one, and a reason why the play looks set to endure longer than Eliot’s other dramatic works (Cats excluded). It was commissioned for Canterbury and it makes haunting sense in spiritual situ.
The challenging thing about Murder in the Cathedral overall, though, is that it deliberately drains the lifeblood of the drama: we know what will happen, the chorus of Canterbury women share (Greek tragedy-style) their foreboding, and everything points towards the moment of violent transfiguration (symbolically rendered here with crimson lighting and the knights locking their swords over Jasper Britton’s Becket unflinching figure in unblemished white).
Only to be enthralled by the physical reconstruction of events is – to borrow a line from Eliot – to have the experience but miss the meaning: the thrust of the piece is to make us understand, via interlocutions with four tempters, the inner pilgrimage Becket makes towards a readiness for martyrdom, one that must be a divine fulfilment, not a concerted act; subtle distinctions.
The abstruse lines of argument, combined with a lot of abstract, paradox-laden verse (however sonorous), plus an echoey acoustic, can make for a hard-going evening: at two hours, it’s tough on the brain, tougher on the butt (take a pew, bring your own cushion). The production needs to sort out its amplification and basic visibility (pulpit-like elevation is required).
There are sufficient saving graces, though. Commitment abounds. Some of the supporting performances impress (Isaac Deayton, still at drama school – son of Angus – looks like a future star, even in the minor role of messenger). And Britton’s persuasively ascetic performance carries a sense of inner purpose that inspires.