T. S. Eliot's "Murder in the Cathedral," bold title of a play full of bold surprises and shocks, proves that its innovating poet and author in also a master of drama. The play in dramatic because it centers about a great problem seeking its solution in the career of a heroic figure. The problem in that of assertion of self as against self-effacing participation in a greater cause; of acting as against suffering.

Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, returns to England after a seven years' exile resulting from a quarrel with King Henry II over the spiritual and temporal jurisdictions.

Immediately a first tempter offers him case and luxury; a second, temporal power by resumption of the chancellorship; a third, temporal power by aiding the rebellious barons against the King; and a fourth, celestial glory through martydom. Thomas resists the first three, but his reaction to the fourth is not so clear, nor the application of the above solution so easy, for it is debatable whether he merely submits to death or seeks it, at the hands of the drunken knights sent by the King.

The apologies made by these knights come as a thrilling dramatic contrast. They are delivered to a modern British audience in hackneyed modern idiom, with no trace of poetry. One speaker dwells upon their disinterestdness; another, on the constitutional necessity of subordinating Church to State; and a third, the theory that Becket virtually committed suicide while in unsound mind. They are meant to sound superficial, but none of them speaks nonsense, and hence the enigmatical complexity of the play is increased.

Robert Speaight is superb as Becket, because his behaviour and appearance indicate besides the man of God, the onetime parvenu, good liver, and states man. E. Martin Browne in addition to having directed the play, fills with great understanding the roles of the last tempter and the last speakers for the murderers. The nine women who comprise the chorus, the "type of the common man," lend much added power, through their lowly dignity, their hypnotic speeches of vague forboding, and their intuitive understanding of situations that baffle the priests. Poetry and drama are masterfully blended by author and actors