Painfully, the stage actor had to wait until a historical figure had to be assassinated for him to jump-start a brilliant career on stage.
A philosopher from Harvard, Thomas Eliot, in the absence of distraction in the literacy scene, simply descended on the theater-goers and swept them of their feet. His works were meant for the stage but the chosen medium with language elevation and the intensity of poetic inspiration led the flights of lyrical sublimity. With such a feel in the air, other playwrights attempted to renew their works keeping with forward moving drams.
Most plays boarded were classics having recognized the growing need of audiences of the day for space between writers who could quench the thirst, Eliot seized the opportunity to exhibit his memorable play, MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL. Giving a whole new concept to a play with high profile central character, was a challenge even for a Harvard grad. By raising the concept of theatrical acting, Eliot led the field.
As in poetry, the predominant influence on the stage belonged to T.S. Eliot. The prejudice held against verse plays, were banished with the success of MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL on stage. The high spirituality of this work and the example of its choruses along with the blending of mysticism and realistic humour not only gripped the public of England but elsewhere in the world. Its chosen medium with language elevation and the intensity of its poetic inspiration led the flights of lyrical sublimity. This was followed by THE FAMILY REUNION which was much bolder thought not a very happy attempt because this grim story was of crime, remorse and purification.
Modernism was around the corner after the deluge when the setting of MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL was boarded as its first performance in 1935. Eliot heavily leaned on the writing of a clerk named Edward Grim who was an eye-witness to the event back in 1770 when this drama took place, the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral. The play was written at the time of rising fascism in Central Europe.
With many performances following one after another, more versions were presented. One notable was when Robert Donat played Becket at the Old Vic, directed by Robert Helpmann. Again Jonathan Frid played Becket at the Central Theatre, Park Avenue, New York City. Royal Shakespeare Company staged revivals at Aldwchh Theatre and at The Swan in 1994. Little Spaniel Theatre had its production at St. Batholommew the great Church in Smithfield, London in June 2014. With all these taking place with Eliot's masterpiece, we leave behind the popular Shakespeare drama era and travel down to the years of strain that stood between the past and present. The outcome has not been easy or pleasant but ended being brilliant on drama stage. In English literature more output than poetry or prose, the conditions favoured productions of new plays. Its revival leapt into stage capturing the imagination of all theatre goers. Today, it is sizzling with enthusiasm embracing whole categories of subjects ending with operas and symphonies and high-tech drama. The struggle was over with the coming of new poets and story writers whose works are seized by eager directors. With the death of George Bernard Shaw in 1950 ending an illustrious literary career, which for a quarter-century was a permanent feature in literary life, the stage stirred towards its vitality.
Every moment was a fresh beginning, created a deeper awareness which was essential for a truly dramatic experience,
The stage was set and so were the works of other writers beside T.S. Eliot.
To mention other attempt at this time, there was Noel Coward whose facile talent remained expert in handling a situation he knew unerringly would please the audience. Written in 1947 PEACE IN OUT TIME exploited fresh memories of those eventful years and the reaction against Munich. Some characters had an Elizabethan flavor and produced whiffs from Dekker or Fletcher but the drama though clever, narrowly associated with the passion of the moment and woke up a passig response. In 1947, J.B. Priestly displayed technical skills in his very artistic innovation titled THE LINDEN TREE as against Sean O 'Casey's RED ROSES FOR ME written in 1942. These are two contrasting views of great writers of the day that deepened the aura of drama in many ways. Their work were aptly placed in human setting. Natural development such as dialogue, achieved success of the play though not written with stage in mind, This was stirring stage of the modern school of thinking that took drama more meaningfully forward.
Scottish Playwright, James Birdie will perhaps remain ahead of author Daphne Laureola who came from Edinburgh to capture London in 1949. This displayed the readiness of the English reader to be amply satisfied but they needed to get piquant feel of fresh situations, provided conventional psychology. Birdie died in 1951.
As we are going through the period of Lent, it is very appropriate to recall THE MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL for its significance and the turn of events that left an indelible mark in history.
There was a significant difference in drama success in the advent of new theatrical phase. A lively and almost irresistible display of extravagance was felt in THE LADY IS NOT FOR BURNING by Christopher Fry in 1949. When the popular W. Somerset Maugham ceased writing plays, his adroitly nurtured drama were often revived and still remain a great influence. But sudden flights of poetry soared in the midst of prose like for example VENUS OBSERVED in 1950, put in more weight with modern plots of originality. Brilliant verbal feats and metaphysical conceits interrupted passages of popular flavour. If we are to go back to the late 1800s, there was Robert Loise Stevenson who created much ado for the New Romanticism along with other big names such as Richard Blackmore, T.S. Eliot, Arthur Symonds, Willima Carleton, William Yeates, Geroge Moore and E.M. Forster and a host of others who created the advent to the writers of the Years of Strain. T.S. Eliot among them wrote a broad range of comedies that mingled elements of dissimilar. All these dramatis and poets led us with today's, vibrant enormously spectacular contemporaries like the very modern welsh writer, Dylon Thomas.
THE EMERGNCE The Restoration actor still enjoyed something of his Elizabethan predecessors' intimacy with the audience. Though hugely expensive to create new sets of scenery which players often just used what was in stock. But when a new a tragedy was to be produced they played in a way then that pointed toward modern concept of a production. However there did not seem to have been quiet the modern idea of having to interpret Shakespeare. Interpretation of Bard's work was implicit in the act of adapting it. The idea of playing the dialogue in new ways had not caught on yet.
Thomas Stearns Eliot was an American by birth but was British from 1927, Poet, dramatist with an AB in philosophy from Harvard. (1915-1916). He was a member of the Literary movement of Modernism and won the Nobel prize for Literature, in 1948 of Merit (1948) Apart, from his famous Murder in the Cathedral, he wrote The Love song of J., Alfred, Prufrock (1915), The Waste , :and (1922) and the Four Quartets (1948).
Eliot was born on September, 1888 in Missouri, US and died on 4 January 1965 in Kensington, London.
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