Word: beckets
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...service was conducted near the very spot where the 12th century Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket was slain by the Anglican King's men for his loyalty to Pope and church. The rite moved determinedly through history, even commemorating modern martyrs who died of religious persecution. And after this emotional service, John Paul and the other churchmen lunched, to talk of matters ecumenical and, one assumes, fraternal...
Chief Architect Robert Mathews of Welton Becket Associates began by "unbuilding" the interior. The task was complicated: the original building plans had disappeared over the years. Assembling old photos, early Sears catalogues and newspapers for pictures of authentic decor, "historians found some clues right in the building-a bit of plaster under the assembly speaker's podium became a model for the style of the ceiling molding. Girvigian, scrambling through false ceilings, uncovered keys to the original paint job. Researchers used aerial cameras to map the mosaic floors, which were then taken up, moved and cleaned. Piece by numbered...
...OTHER real weakness is Andrew Garrett's aquiline Becket, whose performance has an "almost good enough" quality that can't sustain a play that trucks in religious certitudes. Garrett's enunciation is excellent, his modulation poor; annoyingly, his voice turns nasal at the most inopportune moments--a saint with a stuffed nose. Like the chorus, he doesn't seem to change as the play advances. The temptations of the first act, the sermon in the interlude, and the moment of final submission and canonization in the second act all find him earnest but sulky. There's no fear...
...cast, like Lawrence Aronovitch's Third Priest or Kevin Porter's Second Tempter, build more convincing vocal profiles, giving Eliot's conundrums a sonorous base. The four knights (John Piccione, Rick Reynolds, Ted Glowacky, and David Lanznar) also perform their dual task well, first doing away with Becket rudely and quickly, then tempting the audience to grant them forgiveness...
...Currier House company deserves a certain amount of credit simply for launching a play that contains such involuted ideas into the musical-crowded waters of House drama. But Murder in the Cathedral, unlike Becket's sacrifice, demands more than the right intentions; only better voices than these can make it hold the stage...