Written mostly in blank verse (though not iambic pentameter), it incorporates elements from Greek drama and mid-twentieth-century detective plays to portray the hero's journey from guilt to redemption.
The play was first performed on 21 March 1939 at the Westminster Theatre, London, with Michael Redgrave as Harry, Helen Haye as Lady Monchensey and Catherine Lacey as Agatha.
Among other things they discuss the sudden, and not to them wholly unwelcome, death at sea of the wife of the eldest son Harry, the present Lord Monchensey.
In fact Harry has an alibi for the time, but whether he killed her or not he wished her dead and his feelings of guilt are the driving force in the rest of the play.
[10] Lady Monchensey decides that Harry's state warrants the discreet observation of the family doctor, who is invited to join the party, ostensibly as a dinner guest.
"[18] Acknowledging the flaws in the work, the Eliot scholar Helen Gardner wrote, "Both plot and persons fail to reveal to us, as drama must, a spectacle for our contemplation.
[19] Writing for the Guardian, Maddy Costa concluded the play was more of a "curio" than a play, but leaves you "in awe" of Eliot's poetry (which is described as mesmerising)[20] A contemporary review described Harry as "an unresolved amalgam of Orestes and Hamlet" and Eliot himself had vetoed the casting of John Gielgud because he thought him "not religious enough to understand the character's motivation.
[16] In the 1930s, the verse chorus was enjoying a revival begun by Gilbert Murray's well-received translations of Greek drama, presented by Harley Granville Barker.