#but these characters are so grotesquely presented‚ the pope himself so wilfully ignorant of the greater machinations of | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mariocki · 2 years

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Pope: Becket maintains that the election of Clarendon was not a free one, that he owes his nomination solely to the royal whim and that consequently the Honour of God, of which he has now decided he is the champion, does not allow him to bear this usurped title any longer. He wishes to be nothing more than an ordinary priest.

Cardinal: [after a moment's thought] The man is clearly an abyss of ambition.

Jean Anouilh, Becket (tr. Lucienne Hill, 1960)

#100plays #becket #jean anouilh #lucienne hill #1960 #modern drama #theatre quotes #modern theatre #the pope and his cardinal are deeply interesting figures within the play #they're very minor parts‚ originally doubled in the uk premiere ny Roy Dotrice and George Murcell (who were also playing barons)#they're wheeled onstage immediately after King Louis has warned Becket to be wary of the Pope; Louis an intelligent and candid politician #allows his personal admiration for Becket to prompt this warning‚ so that an audience might naturally expect an even more #intelligent politician to enter. but the pope and the cardinal‚ their entrance and the scene are all washed with the brush of farce #in fact the stage directions actually state that the two actors should deliver their lines in 'atrocious' Italian accents #Becket is not a play without humour‚ far from it‚ and there are moments of satire and wit throughout #but these characters are so grotesquely presented‚ the pope himself so wilfully ignorant of the greater machinations of #royal manoeuvring (or ignorant is maybe not the right word; he simply wishes not to see) and the naked greed with which they discuss #Becket's fate as a potential monetary transaction... it's startling. and yet! and yet underneath the sleaze and the grime and the absurdity #the cardinal quietly displays perhaps the single greatest understanding of events and foreseeable outcomes‚ listed quite without #attachment‚ his approach purely amoral but pure in its political grasp. only for Anouilh to then undercut it again with a base #bit of comic business as the two forget who has told the other what and who should know about such and such #it is perhaps the play at its most subversive‚ and certainly the closest Anouilh comes here to interrogating the wider shape of his work #but it also speaks to the playwright's lifelong interest in the idea of forging a moral path; the struggle for honour amid the dangers of #politics. Anouilh was almost unreasonably apolitical‚ for a writer who drew so readily on political themes‚ to the extent that his #behaviour during the nazi occupation of France would be questioned and debated throughout the rest of his life and beyond.#ironically enough‚ the artifice and archness of this scene is in some ways the closest this play comes to inhabiting the same world as the #new drama style that would be Anouilh's undoing; existentialism and absurdity were grabbing hold of the stage‚ and as writers like Beckett #and Ionesco found favour‚ so Anouilh's naturalism and period pieces began to lose popular support. he was becoming unfashionable and #would never again write anything that rivalled the success of this play. having spent his life sitting on fences‚ Jean Anouilh found #himself unable to adapt to the new theatre; he spent his later years as a director‚ interpreting the work of others as well as his own

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