Adulteration as Clarity: Dramaturgical Strategy in Peter Nichols's Passion Play

Adulteration as Clarity: Dramaturgical Strategy in Peter Nichols's Passion Play WILLIAM STORM James Croxley is a restorer of modern paintings; at the beginning of Passion Play he has recently completed work on a Frank Stella, and at the play's end he has removed a stain, imperceptible to the layman's eye, from a minimalist canvas that is entirely composed of the color yellow. Significantly, his project in the middle ofthe play is a Victorian head ofChrist crucified, a work that he disdains - at least in terms of its subject matter - and one that would presumably be outside of his area of specialization. James's expertise does, however, extend beyond restoration; he works regularly with curators and buyers, advising them on the acquisition of post-Impressionist paintings in particular. Early in the play, James (whose studio is in his home) likens himself to "an original creative artist," and says: "To work on a Matisse or a Picasso means I play my humble part in keeping the wolves at bay. Lighting the darkness."I To a large degree, Passion Play is an investigation ofthe "darkness" that James confronts, and a dramatization of his vain efforts to illuminate it. Early in the play, James is referred to as "a man in total control of himself," one whose "equilibrium" has never been upset (350). By the play's end, his is a fragmented soul, tom from whatever moorings had provided stability and integrity. James is fifty years old (clearly a fulcrum point for him), and his wife Eleanor is forty-five. Eleanor, though not a believer, is greatly fond of the chorales, oratorios, and Passion music of the Christian faith. She sings in a large choir, coaches students (also in her home), and, like James, seeks an element of spiritual solace in her relationship to art. At the beginning of Act Two, she remarks: "We're not Christians. I'm an atheist but I love church music and oratorio and hymns and Christmas carols. Hundreds of people singing together is the nearest we may ever come to heaven on earth. Communion" (401-2). And yet "communion" is precisely what proves impossible for Passion Play's characters. What is encountered instead is a profound state of disjunction and alienation, from one's self as well as from others. Modern Drama, 37 (1994) 437 WILLIAM STORM James and Eleanor have been married only to one another; James has been entirely faithful to 'her as the play opens, though Eleanor, as we learn, cannot make the same claim. While the phrase "naturally monogamous" is repeated, the action of the drama belies such implied stability almost immediately (357, 369). The couple's daughters are grown and have left home, but neither James nor Eleanor seems much affected by the loss of a parental role. Eleanor has, however, befriended Kate, a photographer who is twenty years her junior. Kate was the mistress of the recently deceased Albert, an editor of note and a contemporary - and close friend - of James's; Albert's widow Agnes (who remains bitter and vindictive toward Kate) is a friend of Eleanor's. Both Kate and Agnes become divisive presences in the Croxley marriage; Kate in particular embodies a kind of separating, disintegrative force - in spite of her avowed perplexity over a continual attraction to older, married men (350). Simply in terms of plot, Passion Play tracks the affair that James has with Kate, the way it is brought to light (via Agnes), and the effect it has on Eleanor and upon their marriage. But Peter Nichols has by no means written a conventional "adultery play," nor does he focus solely on the implications of betrayal within a marriage. Indeed, the play's thematic ambitions extend well beyond what might be perceived as the built~in limitations of a familiar dramatic terrain ; as June Schlueter puts it, "adultery is Nichols's metaphor for the essential emptiness of a godless world.,,2 James and Eleanor's world is not only "godless," it is finally without spiritual consolation of any kind. I would argue, in fact, that Peter Nichols's tactic in Passion Play is to suggest that the widening schism between James and Eleanor...