Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot

As part of the Chorus, a group of 7 actors, I stepped back in time and converted into a barefoot, raggedly peasant, representing the poor people of Cantebury. With our singing, lamentation and commentary in poetic verse, we guided through the plot of the play. For this role I rehearsed three evenings a week for 2 and a half months. Thus I spoke:

“I have seen Grey necks twisting, rat tails twining, in the thick light of dawn. I have eaten Smooth creatures still living, with the strong salt taste of living things under sea; I have tasted The living lobster, the crab, the oyster, the whelk and the prawn; and they live and spawn in my bowels, and my bowels dissolve in the light of dawn. I have smelt Death in the rose, death on the hollyhock, sweet pea, hyacinth, primrose and cowslip, I have seen Thrunk and horn, tusk and hoof, in odd places; I have lain on the floor of the sea and breathed with the breathing of the sea-anemone, swallowed with ingurgitation of the sponge. I have lain in the soil and criticised the worm.” — page 72 of script

About the Thames & Charles Company

This was the first public production of the Thames & Charles Company, introduced by Princess Monica zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg as the best interpretation of Murder in the Cathedral to be witnessed on German soil. It was staged in the clover-leaf choir of St. Maria im Kapitol, in the city of Cologne, Germany.

The Thames & Charles Company was a select unit of the American Management Seminars (AMS) at the University of Cologne. Theatre projects offered them an outlet (without credit in the regular curriculum) to develop "their associative powers and also their ability to think in a more interdisciplinary, holistic way", according to Executive Director Paul Drew-Bear. Besides complementing academic management eduction, AMS projects challlenged conventional methods of study at German public universities.