ABSTRACT
‘The Cocktail Party,’ presented last week at the Edinburgh Festival, is the most advanced and original point yet reached in Mr. Eliot’s dramatic writing. Yet of his three plays this one will surely prove the most accessible to the ordinary playgoer. ‘Murder in the Cathedral’ presupposed a certain familiarity with Christian dogma and liturgy, and a readiness to accept a poetry which never concealed its metrical diversity. In ‘The Family Reunion’ the Greek Eumenides were made the messengers of grace; and although ‘The Family Reunion’- marked a long step forward in theatrical technique, and although Mr. Eliot had discovered a verse form suitable for a contemporary subject and setting, the play moved a little stiffly and its climax of conversion was not dramatically realized. It was the actor rather than the dramatist, who had to sharpen the play to its point in the great dualogue between Agatha and Harry. But in ‘The Cocktail Party’ there is little impediment for anyone who is not tone-deaf to the supernatural. It is a profound and subtle play, with multiple layers of meaning and an intricate symbolism. But the poetry, more loquative than the poetry of ‘The Family Reunion,’ is precise and lucid; and the design is clear.
