I have no idea if anybody still performs T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral, but if you have a chance to see a production, I'd definitely recommend it. If you can't see a production, the play makes a good read.
My first reaction to this account of the death of Thomas Beckett, Archbishop of Cantebury was that I need to know more English history, history of Christianity and history in general. Not that more history is needed to understand the play in particular, but most anytime I read anything historical, I realize how lacking my knowledge is. My second thought was that I don't like to read plays. Which was followed immediately by recollections of laughing hysterically the first time I read "Taming of the Shrew", whipping through "Waiting for Godot" in order to figure it out, and the excitement of "Arms and the Man" and Macleish's "JB". So it's more that I prefer to see plays performed (a good performance of Romeo and Juliet is hilarious, but I never read it that way), and I would like to have seen Murder performed.
At one point while reading I commented to The Mister, "I have no idea where this is going," to which the Mister calmly and correctly replied, "Becket gets murdered in the cathedral." Eliot does a good job of lulling the audience with a single view of a Beckett and the other characters, and then casting plenty of doubt (sometimes in the form of self-doubt) on their true motivations. When he turns the murderers into audience-addressing buffoons at the end, Eliot gives the play a post-modern edge (I hope I'm using that correctly, plant ecologist seldom deal in the post-modern intentionally) and attempts to force the audience to see themselves as part of the play and the events of history. It made me long for, dare I say this, Dr. Fair, my pompous junior year English teacher, to discuss it with. Dr. Fair did introduce me to JB, my favorite piece of religious questioning drama, and I'd like to compare the plays.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
2 comments:
"Beckett gets murdered in the cathedral" - I can just hear the mister saying that.
Talk about weird coincidences, I am not much of a play reader either. But during out last trip to the library, I decided I needed to read a play. So I picked one up. Haven't read it. Don't remember what it is. Maybe I will take it with me to Ohio.
Have we moved beyond post-modern? If so, when are we?
Best as I understand it from the Self Fellow discussions, post-modernism as far as lit./soc. is not just the time after modernism, but rather the idea that the truth and the meaning is with the audience: that everything is in the eye of the beholder.
It was very funny at a few Self Fellow discussion where some of the psych people (counseling and aging and such, not just the theoreticians) would bring up post-modernism as a big underlying theme of current scholarahip. There would be great shock and horror as they realized (which some never did) that not only did most of the scientists not have a good definition of post-modernism on hand, it was not something that we ever gave any thought to regarding our own endeavors.
Have you found your play?
Post a Comment