Murder in the Cathedral
The play portrays the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral during the reign of Henry II in 1170.
[1] Some material that the producer asked Eliot to remove or replace during the writing was transformed into the poem "Burnt Norton".
[2] The action occurs between 2 and 29 December 1170, chronicling the days leading up to the martyrdom of Thomas Becket following his absence of seven years in France.
Becket is immediately reflective about his coming martyrdom, which he embraces, and which is understood to be a sign of his own selfishness—his fatal weakness.
You, my Lord, In being with us, would fight a good stroke Finally, a fourth tempter urges him to seek the glory of martyrdom.
King, emperor, bishop, baron, king: Becket responds to all of the tempters and specifically addresses the immoral suggestions of the fourth tempter at the end of the first act: Now is my way clear, now is the meaning plain: Temptation shall not come in this kind again.
We see in the sermon something of Becket's ultimate peace of mind, as he elects not to seek sainthood, but to accept his death as inevitable and part of a better whole.
The chorus sings that they knew this conflict was coming, that it had long been in the fabric of their lives, both temporal and spiritual.
They assert that while they understand their actions will be seen as murder, it was necessary and justified, so that the power of the church should not undermine the stability of the state.
The production then moved to the Mercury Theatre, Notting Hill Gate in London and ran there for several months.
In 1947 it was performed by Pilgrim Players at the Gateway Theatre, Leith Walk in the first Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Nithin Varghese, an assistant professor at St Berchmans College in Changanassery, directed the play for the first time in Kerala.
It was directed by the Austrian director George Hoellering with music by the Hungarian composer Laszlo Lajtha and won the Grand Prix at the Venice Film Festival in 1951.
Hoellering wrote that "in stage productions [the knights' final] speeches amused the audience instead of shocking them, and thereby made them miss the point—the whole point of the play."
[7] The play is the basis for the opera Assassinio nella cattedrale by the Italian composer Ildebrando Pizzetti, first performed at La Scala, Milan, in 1958.
In Series 3, episode 2 (1972), Monty Python's Flying Circus used the play as the basis for the weight loss product informercial, Trim-Jeans Theater: Priest: I am here.
