ELDER STATESMAN, THE - Faber

T.S.Eliot's last play, drafted originally in 1955 but not completed until three years later, after his second marriage. Lord Claverton, an eminent former cabinet minister and banker, is helped to confront his past by the love of his daughter, his Antigone. 'The longer we pretend. The harder it becomes to drop the pretence, Walk off the stage, change into our own clothes, And speak as ourselves...' The dialogue in The Elder Statesman, the love scenes in particular, contain some of Eliot's most tender and expressive writting for the theatre. The play was first performed at the Edinburg Festival in 1958.