But she wasn't afraid of sticking it to such eminent figures as T.S. Eliot (much beloved of this blog). In her The Art of TS Eliot she really gives Murder in the Cathedral quite a panning. She's right of course: as a play it makes a good church service. Essentially, nothing happens in the play (always a downer for an evening out at the theatre). The 'action' is concealed from the audience because it is spiritually realised. And Thomas isn't even very likeable. Gardner uses the expression 'classic prig'. As she puts it:
The problem is whether drama can deal with sin, and still be drama, or whether like the law, it can only deal with crime.
She goes on:
The central theme of the play is martyrdom, and martyrdom in its strict, ancient sense. For the word martyr means witness, and the Church did not at first confine the word to those who sealed their witness with their blood; it was a later distinction that separarted the martyrs from the confessors. We are not to think of a martyr as primarily one who suffers for a cause, or who gives up his life for truth, but as a witness to the awful reality of the supernatural.
Quite. The best bit of the play, she thinks, is the Chorus:
...the play transcends its origin and occasion, and the chorus becomes humanity, confronted by the mystery of iniquity and the mystery of holiness.
