Murder and EBnefsi in a Cathedral
It was a rather cold evening. A few days after Christmas
- a few days before Easter, it didn't matter. The unexpected failure of
St. Paul’s heating to warm up the faithful in time for that evening’s
vespers added to the ambience of that beautiful place of prayer. Just
like the congregation that day in December 1170, we gathered around close
to the altar waiting song and blessing. Little did some of us know that
we were in for a play of acting, sound and images that would blur our
senses yet focus our imagination to the events of that historical day.
The production of a master’s work, T.S. Eliot’s mystical 'Murder
in the Cathedral', by a truly talented handful of actors of the
Iris Theatre, had little to envy of its premier performance in Canterbury
Cathedral back in 1935. St. Paul of Covent Garden, known as the ‘actors
church’, provided a fitting setting for the plot of Thomas Becket’s
murder by four knights of King Henry II.
The actors veered from actual post to pillar dramatising the agony of
the saintly archbishop coming to terms with his fate, while the choir
and women housekeepers paid testament to the dramatic events like a chorus
would in ancient Greek tragedy. The audience was magnetised by the flowing
course of roaming actors surrounding them, echoing their part in excellent
verse while the choir and organ imparted scenes with revering undertones.
Amidst this medley of motion and emotion, EBnefsi
(Eileen Botsford) kept the viewers collected with flowing projections
on the vast ceiling directly above the main seating area towards the altar.
Sky and water colours interwoven with imminent shots of light, as from
a place divine reaching down to reconcile a mortal passion. At an almost
dialectical pace, the projection came to fill a pause, an overflow of
emotion, a gasp of action with colours, splintered-by-clouds sun rays;
sometimes with near darkness.
Then, suddenly, just as the crime comes to pass, an almost transcendental
image is projected during the birth that follows death….and it is
alive! Alive and kicking, shaped and growing by each heartbeat…or
the mirrored hands of EBnefsi, as it is revealed to the observant eye.
Right there, at the summit of the play, EBnefsi offers a much needed divine
intervention that gives meaning a perfect circle and epitomises the power
of site specific new media projections finely attuned in medieval verse
and play.
This production to ‘kill for’, sponsored by The
Mercers Company and SlideShow
, was the first in a series to infuse with art and body warmth the city’s
cathedrals. With performances of such synthesis, results are bound to
work miracles, even for stone-cold cathedrals.
In the end of the performance, despite the wintry and fateful end of the
story, everyone seemed to leave the church elevated, with a somewhat quenched
thirst for hope as served in the last scene of new blood and youthful
cry. Eliot had done it again… with a little help from Eileen.
- by Manos Hatzimalonas
Greek National Tourism Organisation
an Iris Theatre Production | Projections Assistant Tanita Ojo- Baptiste
