THE TURBULENT PRIEST REMEMBERED
Sharp of AD Tom Littler, during the renovation of his theatre opposite, to direct (with Francesca Ellis) this gloriously set, candle-rich production in the already spectacular Victorian-Gothic church of St John the Divine, just opposite the theatre itself. Quite brave, too, as well as darkly topical, to stage T.S.Eliot’s dense, intense and frankly overwritten verse-drama about the 1170 assassination in Canterbury Cathedral of Henry II’s “turbulent priest” Thomas a Becket. It is Grecian in style, a great chorus of Women of Canterbury throughout, drifting,moving together in pale shabby robes ,sometimes speaking in chorus, sometimes singing (Orlando Gough writes a new score). They express from the start the huge unease of the sacreligious murder to come, mourning the seven years of their beloved Bishop’s exile:
“There is no safety in the cathedral. Some presage of an act which our eyes are compelled to witness, has forced our feet towards the cathedral. We are forced to bear witness..”
They talk of the seasons, the farms, labour and mud and quiet firesides; carry candles up and down the long steel-grey aisle between us lined with low blue lights. After after the killing they mourn and scrub, scrub away the blood, seeking some sense in the horror. It is a beautiful chorus in movement, music and expressive gestures: its people as women symbols of the helpless of all ages who can only wait for the next horror. But, if I must be frank. their sections could do with a bit of cutting.
Never mind. At the heart of it, and magnificently, is David Suchet as Becket. Noble, old, calm and – delightfully – a warm and pastoral bishop, bending close and reassuring to the crowd, drier, wittier and more practical and determined than the three priests around him. He is deeply touching in the Christmas sermon entr’acte as the second, violent half begins, aware as he says that it may be his last sermon. Before this we have seen him suffer four temptations, figures gliding towards him from a darkness at the centre the bright gilded altar-space, each with a great drumbeat (the drum is wonderful throughout). They offer alternatives to his refusal defy secular power when it interferes in matters of faith: there’s a fascinating essay in the programme by Rowan Williams about the 1935 setting and the martyrdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer under Hitler, by the way. Eliot’s four temptations are perennially topical: either leave well alone and knuckle under, or become Chancellor again and have temporal power, or else join in the barons’ political rebellion. Or, the fourth is the subtlest, hold fast and seek a martyr’s crown for glory: “doing the right thing for the wrong reason”. In the age of suicide-bomber glorification, that ought to sting hard, though God knows it’s hardly the Orange Tree’s demographic. But the drama is strong, and Suchet’s reaction to these (quite long, wordy) tempter speeches is immaculately expressive.
With the knights striding in, leather-coated, yobbish and vicious in the second half, the tension rises. Dozens of candles flicker in the sacred dimness ,bright points along the aisle, crowded in the sanctuary under the great gold cross. When Becket cries “Unbar the door!” at the end you gasp. When he affirms “it is the just man who, like the lion, should be without fear”, you see him tremble nonetheless, a simple human body facing shining swords.
But the most effective passage of all is to come: suddenly in brighter light the four killers emerge, civil and besuited and utterly modern whether in 1935 or right now, to explain in the format of a corporate press conference how hard it has been for them. That weren’t paid for it or anything, and may for good reasons have to go abroad in exile while King Henry denies any involvement for good political reaons. And how the complex politics and seditious populace made it, in fact , the proper and most responsible thing to do for the sake of the country. Even though Becket was, “after all, a great man” deserving of respect the problem was that his “unsound mind” making their killing of him, well, virtually a suicide. He did after all, unbar the door..
It is so brilliantly topical that you gasp. And it would have been magnificent if the chairman had dismissed us, as he does the women, “disperse quietly to your homes, be careful not to loiter in groups and do nothing that might provoke any public outbreak”. That would have made it…a happening.
But, faithfully, the production keeps the last section, priests and chorus maudering about the enduring Church and its future (which include the crusades, with trips to lands of “blackamoors’ with “filthy rites”),. More again too from the women-of-Canterbury, praying and begging prayers for weakness and trespasses. Authentic, but I longed to go out thinking more, and savagely, about the wonderful political speeches and self-satisfied fascism of the four murderous knights. It’s a night to remember for a long time, though. Travelling on to Theatre Royal Bath it won’t have quite the church setting, but it’s worth the trip. And Suchet is a marvel.
orange tree theatre to 7 November
then Theatre Royal Bath, 10-21 November
