CONTEMPORARY ARTS
THE THEATRE
DURING the last few decades there have been many attempts at establishing a new form of verse drama. Some playwrights have been successful in escaping from the influence of the neo-Shake- spearian play, but very few have been courageous enough to introduce poetry into a modern setting. It has been argued that there is little in contemporary life to inspire the poet. But although the world has changed materially in many ways since poetry was the accepted form of dramatic expression there is still a fund of material for the poet in the phenomenon of man's potential goodness and his natural inclination towards evil. The spiritual power that can promote goodness and suppress evil is the talking-point of Mr. T. S. Eliot's new verse play, The Cock- tail Party, which was presented at the Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, last week and will be seen in London later in the year. This will not be ranked with the author's first play, Murder in the Cathedral, as one of the great literary works of our time. Nevertheless, it is a successful attempt to reveal society to itself and to offer a solution to the problems that arise when human relationships become hope- lessly tangled. Superficially, the play is a drawing-room comedy which tells how an eternal triangle is broken up by a psychiatrist and two friends of the people involved. But those who are aware of the nature of the author's philosophy, and are prepared to look beneath the surface of the comedy, will find something more than this. Mr. Eliot has tried to show that once a man makes a decision to change his life, and puts himself in the hands of a power stronger than his own frail will, the most unlikely acquaintances may play a part in shaping his future. When Edward and Lavinia Chamberlayne decide to discuss their unhappy marriage with a psychiatrist, who is also a man of prayer, they set forces in motion in their lives which cannot be reversed. Celia Coplestone, the third component of the eternal triangle, soon realises that her supposed love for Lavinia's husband is merely a craving for something she cannot find in her life. She also visits the psychiatrist, who offers her two ways of curing this craving: she can either return to a normal existence, bearing the burden on her conscience, or she can journey blindly along the road that will lead to what she has been seeking in the wrong place. The husband and wife have taken the first choice, but Celia chooses the second way, which eventually leads her to a terrible but heroic death as a member of an austere nursing order.
Does Mr. Eliot suggest that the life of the saint is better than the life of spiritually-inspired contentment in the common routine ? He does not. The point he wishes to make is summed up in the words of the psychiatrist: "Neither way is better. Both ways arc necessary. It is also necessary to make a choice between them." Although there are moments such as this in the play when its mean- ing is quite clear, the author has deliberately introduced an element of mysticism, thus partly concealing the nature of his faith. How- ever, the discerning playgoer will feel the presence of a Christian philosophy, just as he will sense the rhythm of the unconventional form of poetry. The verse, which is designed to lift the audience gently from prosaic passages into the more emotional and lyrical episodes, was well spoken at Edinburgh by a distinguished cast, including Irene Worth, Ursula Jeans, Cathleen Nesbitt, Alec Guinness and Robert Flemyng. E. Martin Browne directed the production, and it is to his credit that it conveyed the author's philosophy without losing the witty, light-hearted atmosphere of the cocktail party scene with
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