Murder in the Cathedral
By T.S. Eliot
Directed by Mark Bloom
Mystic Theatre
Non-union production
(closed)
Review by John Michael Koroly
Name three popular American plays
dealing with or dissecting religion. Stumped?
Religious faith, the Chester Mystery plays notwithstanding,
seems
never to have been a favorite subject for
playwrights (or filmmakers, for that matter), except
as a target of shallow invectives against homophobia
and general intolerance. But the role the
church plays as a vital part of inner
lives and a motivating factor in human action
can be a riveting core to an evening of theatre.
Two plays recently produced
Off-Off-Broadway (and in wildly
divergent locales) cogitate over what the
individual is driven to do by faith, and on the psychic
and emotional tugs and jerks that result from a collective
need for a church.
One honors a man's zealous
defense of the sanctity of his
church; the other burrows into the soul of
a man whose personal pain has driven him to flail
at the foundations of the church he loves. One was
written by a titan of the Western canon, the
other by a brash newcomer with enormous
theatrical potential.
The Mystic Theatre Company
sets as its mission the exploration and celebration
of ``the heightened
language of contemporary verse
drama,'' which merits some comment in and
of itself. Versification as a
dramatic device has its advantages in that
natural rhythmic emphases and recurrent orders of
imagery can
powerfully evoke emotion through
sense impressions.
The troupe's mission
dovetails with Eliot's goal to revivify the tradition
of poetic theatre in England with his 1935 Murder
in the Cathedral.
Anglophile history buffs or
those familiar with Anouilh's Becket
are doubtless acquainted with the
essentials of plot: Henry II has cut the power
of the clergy and the Barons.
He has
installed his Chancellor, Thomas Becket, as Archbishop
of Canterbury, who suddenly finds the true faith and
turns on his former sponsor, supporting
the integrity of the church. He is eventually
martyred when Henry has him assassinated.
Eliot's language borrows
from
liturgical patterns and ritualistic
delivery by a chorus of the women of Canterbury.
The villains speak in
colloquial manner.
The ensemble's ability
to deliver on the metrical effect of the verse is
paramount to a production's success, and here the
Mystic's corps of actors achieved a very
mixed success. |
As Becket,
Thomas McCann possessed a supreme command
of technique wedded to a molten inner polestar
which is revealed on his path to self-knowledge
and spiritual
purification as he is led to ``what
beyond death is not death.''
Jim DeMonic
also had a firm grip on the stylistic demands of the
text and was splendidly entertaining in his
razor-sharp delivery as a tempter of Becket's
worldly senses, and in his fatuous rationalizations
as one of the Archbishop's assassins.
And Jon-Michael
Hernendez delivered a nicely cheeky turn as a
less-than-reverent herald of Becket's return.
But the rest of the troupe
seemed not to have the requisite chops to
master the verse, either getting mired in its rhythmic
cadences or sloppily glossing over them.
Director Mark Bloom staged
the work with a taut visual elegance. The murder
itself was morally jarring with unsettling
blackouts timed to each swordblow.
The production was also
aurally alive with a fascinating lute and percussion
sound design by Peter Griggs. Bloom did misfire, though,
with some extremely silly contortion danced
by female chorus on the pews of The Little Church
Around the Corner, where the play was staged.
Although the environmental staging
of the play in an actual church was no new
device, it still worked well as a total experience
with its sense of a passion play before the altar
and the smell of incense and tallow adding to
the whole effect.
Mary Anise's costume
designs included many sharply imagined period ensembles,
hut there were a few conspicuous anachronisms,
such as the priest's modern vestments.
The Mystic Company's goal of
popularizing verse drama is an original and
worthwhile one. As long as they steer clear of the
closet dramas like Milton's, which were never meant
to be staged, and focus on works like the verse
epics of Rolf Hochhuth and Howard Sackler, which have
been sadly neglected in recent years, they
have a bright future indeed.
Box Scores: on scale of 0 to 2
Murder in the Cathedral:
Writing 2
Directing 2
Acting 1
Set 2
Costumes 1
Lighting/Sound 1
Copyright 1996 John Michael Koroly |
