Merry Christmas Everyone! Here's a little audio gift for you.
Many years ago I organised a little reading of some edited Mystery plays in the bar of the Quay Theatre - it was a heavily edited Nativity sequence, mostly from the Towneley Cycle (including most of the Second Shepherd Play), with an introduction from the Chester Banns. Luckily I recorded the show on a mini disk player, so this very rough audio recording can now be heard. With Christmas coming around again, here's the first half of Medieval Mysteries. The second half, featuring the three Kings and Herod plays, follows below.
Medieval Mysteries - Part One
Narrator and Mak: Robert Crighton
Gabriel and Shepherd: Richard Fawcett
Mary and Gill: Sara Knight
Joseph and Shepherd: David Knight
Other Shepherd: Michael Harding
Medieval Mysteries - Part Two
Narrator and Soldier: Neil Arbon
Herod: Robert Crighton
Nuncius and Mother: Helen Arbon
King and Soldier: Joseph James
King and Mother: Carole Hughes
Medieval Mysteries was edited and produced by Robert Crighton and performed in the bar at the Quay Theatre in December 2006.
From the earliest drama in English, to the closing of the theatres in 1642, there was a hell of a lot of drama produced - and a lot of it wasn't by Shakespeare. Apart from a few noble exceptions these plays are often passed over, ignored or simply unknown. This is a blog about what exists beyond Shakespeare, about the plays, fragmentary and extant, that shaped the theatrical world that shaped our dramatic history.
Thursday 10 December 2015
Tuesday 17 November 2015
The Nativity - A Nativity
It's happening - we're doing a Nativity in December. We're calling it The Nativity. Subtle, I know. It's going to feature six complete 'pageants' from the N-Town play, plus a little bit from another.
Our Nativity Line Up -
Annunciation: a short passage
Joseph's Doubts
The Nativity
The Shepherds
The Kings
The Purification
Slaughter of the Innocents
Now there are a lot of other Nativity applicable pageants contained in the N-Town play and they're all very interesting, but the N-Town play is very odd and there are lots of different ways of cutting the cloth. It's all part of a longer term plan, so here's my thinking.
The N-Town play is a compilation - a composite of a number of different sources, edited together into the final manuscript. So, you've got the original pageants, performed individually or in some order from a greater whole, but they've been cut up and rearranged and turned into another play - the N-Town play. It's a bit like we've lost Shakespeare's history plays, but we've got a copy of the Barton/Hall script for The Wars of the Roses - though we don't know whether the text was created to be performed, or as a private document for an individual/family/institution, though most people tend towards for the latter.
The question is then, how do you perform it? Attempt each play individually, putting the additions or cuts to one side and try to get at the original (whatever that means) text, or perform the final form of the play - which it may never have been meant to be?
The long term plan is this - perform sections of the play in some detail in a number of locations around East Anglia (from whence the plays came), recording, archiving and noting the way the text works (or doesn't) in an individual way. We may go back to some plays and perform them with others. The Nativity sequence I've chosen above could be done quite differently, we're sticking to the main thrust of the story in this selection, but we could mix in a number of other plays, perform the Kings and Slaughter as one text, without the addition of Simeon and the Purification in the middle etc. So this isn't The Nativity, as such, in December we'll be performing A The Nativity. We'll possibly perform another very different The Nativity in the future.
Once we've played around with all the texts in an individualistic way, curating the material in different ways, we'll look at a complete staging of the whole play.
To some degree this is a text I am coming back to. I used the Passion Play 1 from N-Town as the primary text for a version of The Passion three years ago. I'm rather looking forward to covering that text again in a more consistent way sometime soon.
Our Nativity Line Up -
Annunciation: a short passage
Joseph's Doubts
The Nativity
The Shepherds
The Kings
The Purification
Slaughter of the Innocents
Now there are a lot of other Nativity applicable pageants contained in the N-Town play and they're all very interesting, but the N-Town play is very odd and there are lots of different ways of cutting the cloth. It's all part of a longer term plan, so here's my thinking.
The N-Town play is a compilation - a composite of a number of different sources, edited together into the final manuscript. So, you've got the original pageants, performed individually or in some order from a greater whole, but they've been cut up and rearranged and turned into another play - the N-Town play. It's a bit like we've lost Shakespeare's history plays, but we've got a copy of the Barton/Hall script for The Wars of the Roses - though we don't know whether the text was created to be performed, or as a private document for an individual/family/institution, though most people tend towards for the latter.
The question is then, how do you perform it? Attempt each play individually, putting the additions or cuts to one side and try to get at the original (whatever that means) text, or perform the final form of the play - which it may never have been meant to be?
The long term plan is this - perform sections of the play in some detail in a number of locations around East Anglia (from whence the plays came), recording, archiving and noting the way the text works (or doesn't) in an individual way. We may go back to some plays and perform them with others. The Nativity sequence I've chosen above could be done quite differently, we're sticking to the main thrust of the story in this selection, but we could mix in a number of other plays, perform the Kings and Slaughter as one text, without the addition of Simeon and the Purification in the middle etc. So this isn't The Nativity, as such, in December we'll be performing A The Nativity. We'll possibly perform another very different The Nativity in the future.
Once we've played around with all the texts in an individualistic way, curating the material in different ways, we'll look at a complete staging of the whole play.
To some degree this is a text I am coming back to. I used the Passion Play 1 from N-Town as the primary text for a version of The Passion three years ago. I'm rather looking forward to covering that text again in a more consistent way sometime soon.
Wednesday 2 September 2015
The Fall of Lucifer (Chester) - Full Audio Recording
In the dim and distant past of 2013 we started a real in depth look at the Chester Plays - launching the Exploring the Chester Plays series as well as recording fuller audio productions for future release. We've nearly caught up with ourselves. The first five Explorings, covering plays 1 to 10, have now been archived and the first audio production has been edited. It's not perfect, but considering how rushed the sessions were, it's turned out quite well. Beyond a minor edit to bypass the issue of the Angels singing (sorry Mat, you ended up on the cutting room floor - we so can't do music of the period yet) it's a full recording of the text we used for Exploring in 2013 - though with more considered performances and sound to help tell the story. It is hopefully a good introduction to the play for the student who's never seen or heard the play in full before - i.e. almost everyone on the planet.
We've recorded play two which will follow in a similar fashion, and some bits from plays 3,4 & 5 - which may be completed at a later date.
And that'll be it for a while - we're moving on from Chester for the present (though we hope to finish the Exploring sessions at some point). We're based in East Anglia, so the N-Town play is a much more important 'cycle' to be looking at at in the future.
So, please enjoy our version of Play One of the Chester Plays - The Tanners Play covering the Fall of Lucifer.
God: Robert Crighton
Lucifer: Trevor Laver
Lightbourne: Richard Fawcett
Angels and Archangels: Helen Arbon, Neil Arbon, Adam Webster, Kevin Roychowdhury, AM Barrett, Annie Eddington.
Recorded at the Quay Theatre, Sudbury
Produced and edited by Robert Crighton
Music and Sound Effects all come from the lovely people of freesfx - http://www.freesfx.co.uk
We've recorded play two which will follow in a similar fashion, and some bits from plays 3,4 & 5 - which may be completed at a later date.
And that'll be it for a while - we're moving on from Chester for the present (though we hope to finish the Exploring sessions at some point). We're based in East Anglia, so the N-Town play is a much more important 'cycle' to be looking at at in the future.
So, please enjoy our version of Play One of the Chester Plays - The Tanners Play covering the Fall of Lucifer.
God: Robert Crighton
Lucifer: Trevor Laver
Lightbourne: Richard Fawcett
Angels and Archangels: Helen Arbon, Neil Arbon, Adam Webster, Kevin Roychowdhury, AM Barrett, Annie Eddington.
Recorded at the Quay Theatre, Sudbury
Produced and edited by Robert Crighton
Music and Sound Effects all come from the lovely people of freesfx - http://www.freesfx.co.uk
The Pride of Life - A Reconstruction
Just what is The Pride of Life?
What is the text even? We don't have the original manuscript, which is conjectured to be a rushed copy of an original play. It was copied by two men, one by sight, one by dictation. It is written on the back of something else. It sits, unremarked and unstaged, for hundreds of years, is copied and then is lost in fire. We have this copy of a copy.It was copied in Ireland, but was it a script from a touring company? A script from England or Ireland? A few English place names in the text suggest England, but it isn't absolute. The copying of the text may have altered the original, disguising any linguistic clues as to provenance.
It's old, it's about as old as drama gets in English (1350ish) and, even in its damaged state it is still performable. The story is simple. The King of Life boasts his mastery over all things. His soldiers, Strength and Health agree with him, his Queen does not, and warns him that death will take him. He rejects her and calls on his messenger Mirth (or Solace) to cheer him up, which Mirth does and is rewarded for his pains. The King then leaves with his knights and the Queen sends Mirth to the Bishop, hoping that the Bishop will change the King's mind. The Bishop laments the loss of faith in the kingdom and goes to the King, exorting him to turn to God and prepare for death. The King rejects him as well, and sends Mirth out to with a challenge to anyone who might try to best him - even Death himself - that he is King over all. There the text ends, but we know from the prologue that the King is then visited by Death who kills him.
The dramaturgy is deceptively simple. Characters enter, state who they are, state where they stand in the play and then, by and large, shut up. There are two set piece dialogues - exchanges between the King and Queen and the King and Bishop. The Bishop also gets a long set piece monologue. There the text ends and though we know broadly how the play ends, we don't know how the action would have been treated. The play could be viewed as a fairly simple demonstration of an argument.
Prologue - this is what will happen.
Main Body of Play - it happens.
Probable Epilogue - it happened.
It is unlikely that the play developed themes beyond the main - that man will die and should prepare for death/Death. The play was written not long after the Black Death had swept across Europe and reached England - preparing for death was a very pressing matter. The play doesn't engage in debate. The Queen warns the King he will die, his rebuttal is all bluster. He has no counter argument. Rather than engage with the issue he insults her, saying she wants him dead so she can marry another. The King leaves her to engage in more play and distraction from his end, possibly more than he would have done had she not spoken. She sends for the Bishop, who similarly warns the King to look to God. Again, the rebuttal is the same - he just insults the Bishop as a 'babbler' and questions his motives for speaking up. The King acts up even more and directly sends his messenger out to challenge Death - with predictable results. The argument lost, all that remains is for the King to die.
However, I used the word deceptively above for good purpose. The dialogue - repetitive though it is - is heartfelt. The King maybe a type, but he isn't a cardboard cutout. He rejects the Queen by having a temper tantrum, calling her a 'whore'. His speeches are emotive, violent and unfair, but in performance suggests fear. If he were really confident in his position he might laugh off the suggestion that Death would get him. As he isn't, he blusters.
When the Bishop enters he makes a long speech which is the only time that the outside world is expressly referenced. He talks of how the land is corrupt, the rich eating the poor. Again, though the text is corrupt, and very long, the speech is brilliantly constructed. A general lament about rich and poor, the unbalance in the land bleeds into anger - as his ire gets more direct and more pointed. The speech pulls back and he looks to God, offering a final prayer, at which point the King enters. The Bishop is now in the right frame of mind to make a reasonable, yet impassioned plea to the King, which is rebuffed.
Of the other characters, the King's knights have no inner life, they speak when commanded to and are yes men to the King. Mirth, the messenger, is different. It's a double role as a fool who sings and generally amuses, as well as serving the practical purpose of being the messenger sent after Death. He has two speeches that survive and possibly more that don't. Firstly the King calls him up, asking him to generally cheer him up - he appears to the King and gives a fairly grovelly speech saying how wonderful the King is - and, in passing, how great a servant he is as well. The King rewards his sycophancy with a title and lands and then leaves. I would suggest that possibly there is something missing in the text at this point - something lost during the initial copying - perhaps a song from Mirth, something more for which he deserves reward. It follows the rejection of the Queen by the King, who demands something to change his mood, but nothing in the text shows this to actually happen, beyond a fairly short bit of grovelling.
Mirth is then sent by the Queen to the Bishop. Questions arise as to loyalty of Mirth - he is clearly the Kings servant, but he goes to take the message for the Queen anyway. He is presumably mostly in it for the money, following whoever pays him. He sings as he goes - though no song is in evidence - the song helpfully covering a scene/location change. The beginning of Mirth's scene with the Bishop is missing, so we can only speculate how this might have run. A speech reiterating the words of the Queen, or some kind of back and forth?
Mirth reappears when the King has dismissed the Bishop - he is tasked with calling out Death and his speech to the people is not dissimilar to other messengers in Herod plays. The relationship between the King of Life and Herod and their messengers is marked. Though the King is nowhere near as violent or prone to ranting as a Herod, he is as proud and as changeable in his mood. Mirth clearly isn't keen on the message and I would like to image a scene where, having made the speech to the people, Death approaches Mirth and has a conversation with him - leading to the first death of the play. But I doubt that would have actually have been in the original play.
Making absolute conclusions about the play is difficult because of the half state it reaches us. The original copy was incomplete and difficult to read, and even this is now lost, so it is difficult to do more analysis of the text than was done when it was first transcribed. I've suggested that there may be other minor absences from the text, beyond those we know about. The King and Queen suffer from the first missing passage, where the Queen swears some kind of fealty to the King. We have the last four lines of this and this loss is felt. Here they are -
QUEEN: Baldly thou art my boot,
[remedy]
Trusty and full true -
Of all my rest thou art root,
I nill change for no new.
Of all my rest thou art root,
I nill change for no new.
Interestingly this promise, that she wouldn't change him for another (i.e. remarry should he die) is one of the first things he will throw back at her when she defies his pride later - perhaps a clue to what the rest of her speech would have said lies in what he turns against her later? In so formal a play it is likely that repetition would be used throughout.
The next lost passage, as discussed above, is the relaying of the message to the Bishop. I suspect this would have told us more about Mirth than the Bishop and is no where near as keenly felt a loss as the earlier section.
The final lost passage is the death of the King. It is difficult to know precisely how this would have worked - the prologue speaks of the King dreaming about Death coming for him, slaying both father and mother and then him. Were we to be treated to a dream sequence? Or do we think this is beyond the dramaturgy of the play? More plausibly the King would enter having awoken from the dream, telling his court what he saw. Perhaps reports would come of the death of his family? Would Death come for him alone or kill the whole court? And then what? Death says goodbye or an Angel appears? A full trial for the King's soul in Heaven a la Castle of Perseverance seems unlikely, I would suspect it would be something reported. But all of the above is speculation, we don't know.
Staging Pride:
I was asked to produce a community production of something medieval for the Magna Carta in Clare celebrations for 2015 and I suggested Pride as the earliest example of its kind. This approved, I started to produce a text.
Firstly there were questions of clarity - it's an early play, so the incidence of unusual words was great. Then there were questions of distortion to the text - inferred lines and what to do with them. Then there was the question of what to do with the lost passages.
The last was the most pressing (and I've covered the earlier textual issues in an earlier post). For the first gap I decided to do next to nothing - I looked through passages of medieval verse and comparably lines of love, but decided to just use the remaining lines of the Queen - using a gesture from the King to indicted she come to him, her four lines being a neat and short summary of her feelings. All that was needed to tidy up the exchange was to compose the concluding two lines of the King's opening speech, so that the pattern of the stanza and the rhyming scheme remained intact - I cribbed from similar commonplaces in other texts to create a reasonable approximation.
Lords of land beith at my leading,
All men shall a-bow in hall and in bower.
No man shall ever dismiss my heeding
Not of field, village, town or tower.
Finally we come to the lost ending. How to deal with that? The BBC Radio version from the 1950's used the prologue to great effect, using it as a running narration throughout the play, taking up the storytelling for the end when the text ran out. This worked on radio where words and music are the complete world. But on stage it would feel half formed and also would make the play far too short. (Also, I hate just stealing someone else's idea - it's lazy.)
Using the prologue as a guide I looked for suitable substitutions in medieval drama - rather than writing a cod medieval text of my own. There are two good possibles. One is from The Castle of Perseverance, where we had the appearance of Death and the option of the soul in an afterlife. But I felt it didn't follow the theme of the punishment of pride enough and I dismissed it quickly. The other possible was from The Death of Herod of the N Town plays. A prideful King acclaims victory over a foe (Jesus in this case) and Death arrives to ruin the party. With a few adjustments to the King's line about who his foe was and some moving around of dialogue the scene runs well, ending with a repeat of the King's first lines defiantly claiming he is King over all, just as he is about to die. We then repeated the final lines of the prologue about his soul and ended the play with an Epilogue from a lost play, which deserves an airing - it is possible this is the first performance of this Epilogue in a production since the middle ages.
It was surprising how well the two texts flowed together, specially when, formally, they are very different. The Herod play is later, has a more sophisticated verse structure and longer lines, but the sentiments were very similar, so it worked well. The only real failure was joining the new ending to the older play. Mirth makes his speech to the audience, relating the King's challenge. He is then killed by Death - but I should have made that clearer, using a different approach to break into the new ending. There was a sense of losing the flow of the play at this point - especially as I was using a chorus of actors to play Death, rather than a clearer more traditional figure in a big cloak.
My initial staging decisions didn't help the staging either. The acting area was narrow and long and this cat walk style thrust made the play function in a very different way to it's original outdoor scaffold performance. I made a benefit of this by using the length of the space to create long 'walks of shame' whenever a character was made to choose who they supported. The Queen goes to the King at the start, joining him at his throne, taking a long walk to get to him. When she questions him she ends up the other end of the room to him and his two knights choose to move from her and walk to the King's end. This pattern was repeated with the Bishop. He was found in the centre of the room and the King's knights again decide to walk the length of the room, past the Bishop, to show loyalty with the King. Death's approach to the King was similarly long, killing his court one by one as Death processed down towards him.
Additional I tried to repeat these images several times in the course of the play - both during the action but also before hand, during the prologue. I broke the prologue up into sections for the whole company to say, and as they spoke, the action of the play were demonstrated - not quite a full dumb show, but near enough. This way the audience had some chance of following the story should the ancient dialogue be a bit much for them.
I'll be posting video and audio of the production online - though the quality of these recordings varies. The space had a difficult echo and the shape of the staging made it very difficult to document. The configuration of the play made it next to impossible to film or record a good audio copy. What I have will be online as soon as possible - I will also make available my version of the text so that others can plunder what is good and what is bad.
The Pride of Life: Surviving Text - from rehearsals of the reconstruction, this recording features only the surviving text, with white noise to indicate the breaks in the original manuscript.
The Pride of Life: Annotated Video Version
The Pride of Life: A Reconstruction (Single shot video of the performance, including additions)
Additional links: The Pride of Life is available in a number of editions and collections. I haven't come across any text that is ever less than massively intimidating to the general reader, but persevere and it will reward. Hopefully our flawed recordings will help - I've always found listening to the version of an early play whilst looking at the text immensely helpful to understanding, if only to reject the decisions of producers or editors. For an e-edition there is a fully edited text online on the University of Rochester website - and an introduction here.
The Pride of Life by Anonymous - Edited and reconstructed by Robert Crighton
Cast:
King of Life - Haydn McCabe
Queen of Life - Esme Stanway
Bishop - Robert Myson
Mirth - Clarissa Seeley
Strength - Michelle Allen
Health - Pat Curtis
Chorus - Katie Landon, Beth Norris & Kate Terry
Costumes by Mary Denton
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| Ian McCabe as the King of Life, at the dress rehearsal. |
Sunday 28 June 2015
Backstage Photographs from Pride & Dame
To accompany the back stage photos for the medieval drama from the Magna Carta in Clare celebrations we include the programme notes for Pride and Dame Sirith.
THE PRIDE OF LIFE:
The Pride of Life is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, surviving play in the English language.
There are many caveats to the above sentence.
Firstly, there are other surviving texts which come from about the same period in time, though it’s very difficult to put an exact date to these things. Pride comes somewhere around 1350.
Secondly, it doesn’t quite survive - not fully. There are big gaps in the text we have and the second half / third is completely lost, so it can’t be classed as an extant play.
Thirdly, though in English, the text is Irish in origin – at the very least by adoption, as this is where the manuscript was copied in the form which has come down to us.
So, on the face of it, not a very appropriate entertainment for a medieval banquet in 1215.
But what else is there? When I was first approached to do something for the Magna Carta celebrations I racked my brains as to what was most appropriate. We haven’t got any surviving plays in English prior to 1350 – and I didn’t think that the average persons knowledge of Latin would be up to it. Thinking a little sideways I considered some later plays about King John. But all three King John plays from the early modern period have one major deficiency.
They don’t mention Magna Carta. At all.
So I made a compromise – the earliest play that was doable and which features at least a thematic link to the story of King John. The Pride of Life is, as the title suggests, about pride and a prideful King at that. It resonates nicely.
For all the incompleteness of the text, it is performable thanks to the detail afforded by the banns that open the play – a prologue that tells the whole of the plot, including the ending. To make the play more whole I have added a section of another early English play – from an East Anglian Mystery play about the death of Herod – to round off the story dramatically, as well as a playless Epilogue that has survived as a fragment. It is possible this Epilogue has never been performed as part of a production for six hundred years as, being without a play to perform before it, why would anyone use it? One can never be certain of such things, someone else might have had the idea before me, but it’s an exciting thought.
The Pride of Life has been performed more recently than the mid 14th Century, though I haven’t had a chance to hunt out any specific productions – either student or professional. The BBC produced a reasonably accurate version for the Third Programme in the 1950’s as part of their The First Stage series. It used the prologue throughout the play (which, short as it was, was cut down and heavily modernised) to cover the gaps in the text. Sadly this recording is only currently available if you can find the LP release of the series (which thanks to ebay I have) – which I doubt will get a wider airing. I have therefore recorded our cast performing our text of the play and this audio recording (and video footage we hope to make of the last rehearsals and performance) will be put online for free to introduce interested people to the play.
As part of this production I have endeavoured to retain as much of the original text as possible and not overly modernise it. We have only cut four lines from the extant play and altered some readings where the corrupted text gave me some license to be bolder with changing lines. I have written two additional lines to one speech where a gap in the text doesn’t complete the rhyming scheme – though this reconstruction is based on patterns found in other plays of the period. For those who are interested the original play ends with the final lines of Mirth, just as Death kills him. Sadly none of the original dialogue for Death survived, which is a shame as he’s a marvellous conversationalist in most medieval texts.
I would like to thank the Magna Carta in Clare committee for hosting this Before Shakespeare* production and for producing such a welcoming atmosphere.
[*Our original incarnation - Ed]
[*Our original incarnation - Ed]
Some rehearsal shots for Pride of Life - first full tryout with costumes.
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| Adam reading from his medieval mobile phone... |
A Magna Carta Mumming
The first part of the
evening is a completely true account of the story of Magna Carta – told in the
fashion of a Mumming. Mumming is a
slippery term, it can mean a lot of different things depending when it was produced
and who it was for. It could involve
song, dance or drama. We’ve used a
loose folk ritual to create something new, something special for this
event. It isn’t an historical re-enactment;
it is a reimagining of a form designed to illicit a few cheap laughs, created
in the spirit of the medieval
entertainments of the day, not in absolute fact.
The Mummers Are: Michelle
Allen, Robert Crighton, Pat Curtis, Katie Landon, Beth Norris, Clarissa Seeley,
Alban Smith-Adams & Kate Terry. Costumes
by Mary Denton.
Dame Sirith
Edited
and performed by Robert Crighton
Dame Sirith isn’t quite a
fable, if only because it doesn’t have a moral.
It tells the story of a monk, Wilekin, who takes a fancy to the wife of
a merchant, one Dame Margery. When the
merchant is away the monk tries to woo Margery but she’s having none of it and
sends him away with a flea in his ear.
About to give into despair he meets a friend who recommends Dame Sirith
the hend (wise) to help him.
He goes to her and, after a
little bartering, she agrees to get Margery to relent. To do this she uses a small dog and a jar of
mustard... but we wouldn’t want to ruin the ending for you by saying
anymore.
Unlike our very fake
Mumming, Dame Sirith is genuinely medieval, appearing towards the end of the 12th
Century, and so is something that would have been about at the time of King
John.
This version is only lightly
modernised, so features many old words (gange is one of our favourites) and
unfamiliar phrasing – but hopefully through the modern day translation service
of the storyteller’s backchat it will be both clear and amusing.
Sunday 3 May 2015
The Chester Plays 9 & 10 - Adoration of the Magi & Slaughter of the Innocents
It's been a long time since we held this event, but thankfully it was fully recorded, so I can recap. The Adoration of the Magi is an incredibly short play - and there are lots of questions it raises.
Firstly the Kings, having left Herod in the previous play, rediscover the star - a continuation from play 8, where the star disappears, hence their asking for directions from Herod. This Star has been such a mobile thing in these plays, it's an interesting question of staging. Are there several stars about, which could be covered or uncovered at will - was the star a property carried by Angels - so that it could move among the audience, or a mixture of the two. I can see a star on the end of a long staff, like a cross carried in a service, being carried by the Angels, so that it could be seen above heads, but be grounded to an actor. (Or, at any rate, that's how I'd stage it!)
A few stanzas of exposition, presumably as they travel among the audience, starts the play. They speak of the star, that it has stopped above a distant stable, of what is to come of the prophet and then finally the Kings start discussing their prospective gifts. There is some competition between the Kings as to what they're giving and whose is the most appropriate - though it is less competitive than discursive - it is a debate, rather than a boastful argument. The structure of the dialogue is very formal.
Each has a (broadly) a stanza to state their gift and the case for it - King 1, 2, 3.
Then another stanza for a rebuttal as to why theirs is the better gift to the others - King 1, 2, 3.
Then they each debate the three gifts together, mulling over how all three gifts are good gifts - King 1, 2, 3. Then the first King recaps that, good though these gifts are, Jesus doesn't actually need them, because he's the son of God.
Then the second points out that he can see the stable ahead, with the star above - obviously closer now.
Then the third that he can see the holy family within - closer still.
This isn't a lengthy sequence and I've laid it out above to show how formal it is. At almost no point are the Kings named, not till briefly at the end, and whilst an actor can find little differences, they act as a unit, not as individuals. They're debating the symbolism of their gifts, the appropriateness of them, agree as a group that they are all good gifts and finally acknowledge that their gifts are not actually needed, before moving onto the scene of action - which is presumably on a pageant wagon or scaffold. It took this discussion of their gifts to get to the stage.
The formal structure continues.
Each King hails Jesus - King 1, 2, 3 - two stanzas each.
Mary and Joseph reply - Mary, two stanzas - Joseph - three.
And then something odd happens.
No stage direction, no cut, no indication of a move - but suddenly the Kings are being addressed by an Angel and the Holy family are no longer involved in the play. They must have changed location because the Angel is warning the three Kings not to return to Herod, and he can't be doing so in front of Mary and Joseph as he will warn the Holy family of Herod in the next play. Also there is no surrounding scene for the Angel appearing to the Kings - they're travelling away, going to sleep in the wilderness etc as in other plays - it is just happening. This is in a play where, so far, shifts in location and time are indicated by direction or dialogue. I can only conclude there is either a missing page or this was a cut to a longer play - the change in place could be effected silently, but it doesn't fit the dramaturgy of the play or the style of the play sequence at large. And that's before we consider how incredibly short the play already is, it's not much above ten minutes long, whereas most other plays orbit the twenty/thirty minute mark.
Anyway, however it was or wasn't effected, the Angel appears and tells them not to pop back to Herod and, after a few brief lines (and a mention of their names, almost as an afterthought) they split up and go.
Play 10 - Slaughter of the Innocents
There are more questions of the overall dramaturgy of the nativity sequence raised by this play. The play focuses mostly on Herod, his Knights and the Mothers, as makes sense. This suggests the use of a pageant wagon or scaffold, used for both events, or for the slaughter to occur among the audience. But there are two mini scenes with Mary and Joseph - first being warned to flee Herod, the second that it is safe to return. These scenes suggest they are located elsewhere to the action of the main play - on a separate scaffold - to help aid the shift in focus from Herod's court (in the first warning) to the street. From the Balaam play onwards there have been several instances where multiple places seem to be in use - where one play lends its location to another (the Mountain of the Balaam play for the Three Kings, for example). This suggests that at the stage this text was produced that a relatively static delivery system was used - i.e. multiple wagons or scaffolds in one area, focus being directed to each in turn, with journeys between the spaces throughout, making use of the audience place. Chester seems to have been a city that changed its staging over time, from one day to three day eventing, and a shift between a processional to a static focus could be part of that playing with form.
But back to the play.
Herod ruminates and runs with his plan - calls a Councillor to comment, who agrees it's a great idea to slaughter all children under two years of age.
He calls two soldiers to him, who, though happy to do some killing, are less keen on the killing of children. Herod has his way.
The scene shifts, briefly to Mary and Joseph (see above), before moving to the actual slaughter. Each version of the Innocents play, from all cycles, are different to each other in often radical ways. This plays major variation is that one of the children killed is actually Herod's own child. Upon this news being reported to him Herod immediately falls ill and dies, his rotten body taken to hell by a rather polite demon.
The play closes with Mary and Joseph being told by the Angel to return home.
Firstly the Kings, having left Herod in the previous play, rediscover the star - a continuation from play 8, where the star disappears, hence their asking for directions from Herod. This Star has been such a mobile thing in these plays, it's an interesting question of staging. Are there several stars about, which could be covered or uncovered at will - was the star a property carried by Angels - so that it could move among the audience, or a mixture of the two. I can see a star on the end of a long staff, like a cross carried in a service, being carried by the Angels, so that it could be seen above heads, but be grounded to an actor. (Or, at any rate, that's how I'd stage it!)
A few stanzas of exposition, presumably as they travel among the audience, starts the play. They speak of the star, that it has stopped above a distant stable, of what is to come of the prophet and then finally the Kings start discussing their prospective gifts. There is some competition between the Kings as to what they're giving and whose is the most appropriate - though it is less competitive than discursive - it is a debate, rather than a boastful argument. The structure of the dialogue is very formal.
Each has a (broadly) a stanza to state their gift and the case for it - King 1, 2, 3.
Then another stanza for a rebuttal as to why theirs is the better gift to the others - King 1, 2, 3.
Then they each debate the three gifts together, mulling over how all three gifts are good gifts - King 1, 2, 3. Then the first King recaps that, good though these gifts are, Jesus doesn't actually need them, because he's the son of God.
Then the second points out that he can see the stable ahead, with the star above - obviously closer now.
Then the third that he can see the holy family within - closer still.
This isn't a lengthy sequence and I've laid it out above to show how formal it is. At almost no point are the Kings named, not till briefly at the end, and whilst an actor can find little differences, they act as a unit, not as individuals. They're debating the symbolism of their gifts, the appropriateness of them, agree as a group that they are all good gifts and finally acknowledge that their gifts are not actually needed, before moving onto the scene of action - which is presumably on a pageant wagon or scaffold. It took this discussion of their gifts to get to the stage.
The formal structure continues.
Each King hails Jesus - King 1, 2, 3 - two stanzas each.
Mary and Joseph reply - Mary, two stanzas - Joseph - three.
And then something odd happens.
No stage direction, no cut, no indication of a move - but suddenly the Kings are being addressed by an Angel and the Holy family are no longer involved in the play. They must have changed location because the Angel is warning the three Kings not to return to Herod, and he can't be doing so in front of Mary and Joseph as he will warn the Holy family of Herod in the next play. Also there is no surrounding scene for the Angel appearing to the Kings - they're travelling away, going to sleep in the wilderness etc as in other plays - it is just happening. This is in a play where, so far, shifts in location and time are indicated by direction or dialogue. I can only conclude there is either a missing page or this was a cut to a longer play - the change in place could be effected silently, but it doesn't fit the dramaturgy of the play or the style of the play sequence at large. And that's before we consider how incredibly short the play already is, it's not much above ten minutes long, whereas most other plays orbit the twenty/thirty minute mark.
Anyway, however it was or wasn't effected, the Angel appears and tells them not to pop back to Herod and, after a few brief lines (and a mention of their names, almost as an afterthought) they split up and go.
Play 10 - Slaughter of the Innocents
There are more questions of the overall dramaturgy of the nativity sequence raised by this play. The play focuses mostly on Herod, his Knights and the Mothers, as makes sense. This suggests the use of a pageant wagon or scaffold, used for both events, or for the slaughter to occur among the audience. But there are two mini scenes with Mary and Joseph - first being warned to flee Herod, the second that it is safe to return. These scenes suggest they are located elsewhere to the action of the main play - on a separate scaffold - to help aid the shift in focus from Herod's court (in the first warning) to the street. From the Balaam play onwards there have been several instances where multiple places seem to be in use - where one play lends its location to another (the Mountain of the Balaam play for the Three Kings, for example). This suggests that at the stage this text was produced that a relatively static delivery system was used - i.e. multiple wagons or scaffolds in one area, focus being directed to each in turn, with journeys between the spaces throughout, making use of the audience place. Chester seems to have been a city that changed its staging over time, from one day to three day eventing, and a shift between a processional to a static focus could be part of that playing with form.
But back to the play.
Herod ruminates and runs with his plan - calls a Councillor to comment, who agrees it's a great idea to slaughter all children under two years of age.
He calls two soldiers to him, who, though happy to do some killing, are less keen on the killing of children. Herod has his way.
The scene shifts, briefly to Mary and Joseph (see above), before moving to the actual slaughter. Each version of the Innocents play, from all cycles, are different to each other in often radical ways. This plays major variation is that one of the children killed is actually Herod's own child. Upon this news being reported to him Herod immediately falls ill and dies, his rotten body taken to hell by a rather polite demon.
The play closes with Mary and Joseph being told by the Angel to return home.
Monday 30 March 2015
The Chester Plays
Over the next few weeks, I'll have finally finished archiving the first five Exploring the Chester Mystery Plays events, publishing audio for the Nativity, Kings, Shepherds and Herod plays. I've also found a wealth of video footage I'd forgotten was taken and will edit some of that together.
Not only that, but I'll be announcing dates for a return of the events, completing the cycle by the end of the year - phew!
But to celebrate finally getting this together, here's an old audio clip I found from a show I did in 2007, Medieval Mysteries. It was a Christmas Nativity show, using sections from various mystery plays - but I opened with applicable verses from the Chester Banns. The audio quality is terrible - I recorded it on a mini-disk player using a pair of headphones as the microphone - which goes to show how far the world has travelled in but a few years.
And, if you want to listen to the complete set of the Exploring the Chester Mystery Plays events to date then they follow after the banns on this audio player.
Not only that, but I'll be announcing dates for a return of the events, completing the cycle by the end of the year - phew!
But to celebrate finally getting this together, here's an old audio clip I found from a show I did in 2007, Medieval Mysteries. It was a Christmas Nativity show, using sections from various mystery plays - but I opened with applicable verses from the Chester Banns. The audio quality is terrible - I recorded it on a mini-disk player using a pair of headphones as the microphone - which goes to show how far the world has travelled in but a few years.
And, if you want to listen to the complete set of the Exploring the Chester Mystery Plays events to date then they follow after the banns on this audio player.
Wednesday 25 March 2015
Pride and a Dame
I'm putting the final touches to the rehearsal script for The Pride of Life and a new project Dame Sirith. Both are being produced for the Magna Carta celebrations in Clare and we had our first read through on Sunday.
They are two very different pieces and editing them has been incredibly difficult. The Pride of Life is the easier because it is later (mid-fourteenth Century) but even so is one of the earliest dramatic texts we have in English. The read through was a testing ground for legibility. Using a projector to save printing a script that was inevitably going to change, we tentatively attempted the play, stopping occasionally for clarification. There was a certain amount of fear - many of the people in the room didn't know each other and the text was difficult - but we got to the end and nobody had died. (Except the King of Life, of course.) Then I mixed up the readers and we had another crack - and this time it flowed better, people had started to click into the medieval mind. That isn't to say I was going to leave it there. My pad was covered in notes for areas of text that weren't working, words that might need changing, sentences that we just too obscure.
I have rules for editing a play of this type, but they're not hard and fast. The play, ultimately, is the thing - if it doesn't work, then we will make changes. But we start with as light an edit as possible. Broadly the rules are these.
1. Modernise and standardise the spelling where possible. Much of the text will be clearer once the common words that exist today have been given normalised spelling. We're not attempting original pronunciation, so the only words which might cause problems will be the rhymes at the end of lines - generally I choose the most obvious rhyme sound and follow that, but sometimes you have to put your hands up in despair and say, it just doesn't work or it will need to be changed.
2. Do not change sentence structure, syntax or grammar - unless meaning is completely mangled. An audience will tune into the unfamiliar structure after a few minutes and the actors, through their own skill and expert understanding of the text, can signpost most confusions. However, there are always a few exceptions to this rule - in The Pride of Life there are several references to eyes, which seem to be commonplace tropes from the time, a truncated version of a cliched turn of phrase, which has fallen out of use. Even reading my notes on what the lines mean (the same reference is used I think twice) I'm at a loss as to what they really mean. If you need a minute to explain a three second sentiment, then you're on a loosing wicket and might as well draw stumps and walk back to the pavilion. I.e. Change or cut the line.
3. Sounds matter. Try not to lose too much of the texture of the sound of the text when striving for sense. Sometimes intent and the pure power of the sound is enough. Which brings us to...
4. The Teen and Tray rule. Where possible retain words which have no modern equivalent - so long as there is enough context for the meaning to carry. This is exemplified by teen and tray (spelling various) which have appeared in the Chester Plays and again in The Pride of Life. Broadly they mean sorrow and care, but there are no close modern equivalents. To change them steps the editor into the role of translator. The context in which these words appear make their meaning clear, the sentences often repeat the sentiment in other still used words and the actor make make the meaning of the words apparent. Say them out loud and they sound like they mean - they represent the essence of what can be preserved in a modern production of an ancient play. The Teen and Tray rule is the line this project tries not to cross to avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater - because if you're just going to rewrite the play, what's the point of staging it in the first place?
Producing Dame Sirith is another matter entirely. As a much earlier text (late 12th/early 13th Century - i.e. relatively contemporaneous with King John) it flits between complete clarity, to dangerous obscurantism. The version that appears in the Penguin Classics edition is a translation, and I can understand why. It's not an easy read.
However, my approach to Dame Sirith is not to translate, but to commentate. Whereas in The Pride of Life we will play the final edit with a straight bat (to continue my cricket metaphor), for this piece of storytelling, we'll muck about a lot around the text. We'll probably have one or two 'medieval' storytellers, telling it as it is writ (my edit follows the above rules on the strict side), we'll then have other/s simultaneously translating the story, commenting on it, insulting the other storytellers and generally throwing bad jokes around. This will be a work in progress for the next couple of months - I don't know precisely how it will shape up in the end.
More on these projects soon - hopefully you'll start getting a taste of the texts with some audio/visual soon.
Popped round to our venue for the shows this morning and took a few snaps...
They are two very different pieces and editing them has been incredibly difficult. The Pride of Life is the easier because it is later (mid-fourteenth Century) but even so is one of the earliest dramatic texts we have in English. The read through was a testing ground for legibility. Using a projector to save printing a script that was inevitably going to change, we tentatively attempted the play, stopping occasionally for clarification. There was a certain amount of fear - many of the people in the room didn't know each other and the text was difficult - but we got to the end and nobody had died. (Except the King of Life, of course.) Then I mixed up the readers and we had another crack - and this time it flowed better, people had started to click into the medieval mind. That isn't to say I was going to leave it there. My pad was covered in notes for areas of text that weren't working, words that might need changing, sentences that we just too obscure.
I have rules for editing a play of this type, but they're not hard and fast. The play, ultimately, is the thing - if it doesn't work, then we will make changes. But we start with as light an edit as possible. Broadly the rules are these.
1. Modernise and standardise the spelling where possible. Much of the text will be clearer once the common words that exist today have been given normalised spelling. We're not attempting original pronunciation, so the only words which might cause problems will be the rhymes at the end of lines - generally I choose the most obvious rhyme sound and follow that, but sometimes you have to put your hands up in despair and say, it just doesn't work or it will need to be changed.
2. Do not change sentence structure, syntax or grammar - unless meaning is completely mangled. An audience will tune into the unfamiliar structure after a few minutes and the actors, through their own skill and expert understanding of the text, can signpost most confusions. However, there are always a few exceptions to this rule - in The Pride of Life there are several references to eyes, which seem to be commonplace tropes from the time, a truncated version of a cliched turn of phrase, which has fallen out of use. Even reading my notes on what the lines mean (the same reference is used I think twice) I'm at a loss as to what they really mean. If you need a minute to explain a three second sentiment, then you're on a loosing wicket and might as well draw stumps and walk back to the pavilion. I.e. Change or cut the line.
3. Sounds matter. Try not to lose too much of the texture of the sound of the text when striving for sense. Sometimes intent and the pure power of the sound is enough. Which brings us to...
4. The Teen and Tray rule. Where possible retain words which have no modern equivalent - so long as there is enough context for the meaning to carry. This is exemplified by teen and tray (spelling various) which have appeared in the Chester Plays and again in The Pride of Life. Broadly they mean sorrow and care, but there are no close modern equivalents. To change them steps the editor into the role of translator. The context in which these words appear make their meaning clear, the sentences often repeat the sentiment in other still used words and the actor make make the meaning of the words apparent. Say them out loud and they sound like they mean - they represent the essence of what can be preserved in a modern production of an ancient play. The Teen and Tray rule is the line this project tries not to cross to avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater - because if you're just going to rewrite the play, what's the point of staging it in the first place?
Producing Dame Sirith is another matter entirely. As a much earlier text (late 12th/early 13th Century - i.e. relatively contemporaneous with King John) it flits between complete clarity, to dangerous obscurantism. The version that appears in the Penguin Classics edition is a translation, and I can understand why. It's not an easy read.
However, my approach to Dame Sirith is not to translate, but to commentate. Whereas in The Pride of Life we will play the final edit with a straight bat (to continue my cricket metaphor), for this piece of storytelling, we'll muck about a lot around the text. We'll probably have one or two 'medieval' storytellers, telling it as it is writ (my edit follows the above rules on the strict side), we'll then have other/s simultaneously translating the story, commenting on it, insulting the other storytellers and generally throwing bad jokes around. This will be a work in progress for the next couple of months - I don't know precisely how it will shape up in the end.
More on these projects soon - hopefully you'll start getting a taste of the texts with some audio/visual soon.
Popped round to our venue for the shows this morning and took a few snaps...
 |
| Clare Town Hall - we're mostly not using the stage itself - the performers will be among the audience |
 |
| A mini minstrel gallery - where music will pour forth... |
Monday 12 January 2015
The Rickinghall Fragment
A short extract from a place not a million miles away from where I'm recording - Bury St Edmunds. It was found on the back of a scrap of paper with details of Rickinghall in Suffolk, at one time owned by the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds - hence it's name.
There are two extracts, dating from the early fourteenth century, in theory of the same speech by a King, one in Latin and Anglo-Norman and the other in English. The two speeches are similar in content, but not direct translations of each other. The Anglo-Norman version is slightly longer than the English, and gives more context and stage direction. The King is a tyrant, a Herod figure or something similar, who is speaking to this court and there is a direction for a messenger, who doesn't speak.
I've recorded just the English version, for obvious reasons, using this slightly modernised version of the text below. I've tried not to change too much, leaving words that have no easy modern equivalent as writ. I hope this makes the speech more understandable, without losing too much of the original.
Lordings
Withouten lessing [falsehood]
Ye witten well that I am King
Here of all this land.
Therefore I will that mine baronage
Ye that been of great parage [parentage – high birth]
That he come in to mine will;
For all that arn in burw [burgh] or town
I will he witten my resoun [understands my account]
And that is right and schil. [reasonable]
For this recording the King was played by Malcolm Hollister, with thanks.
There are two extracts, dating from the early fourteenth century, in theory of the same speech by a King, one in Latin and Anglo-Norman and the other in English. The two speeches are similar in content, but not direct translations of each other. The Anglo-Norman version is slightly longer than the English, and gives more context and stage direction. The King is a tyrant, a Herod figure or something similar, who is speaking to this court and there is a direction for a messenger, who doesn't speak.
I've recorded just the English version, for obvious reasons, using this slightly modernised version of the text below. I've tried not to change too much, leaving words that have no easy modern equivalent as writ. I hope this makes the speech more understandable, without losing too much of the original.
Lordings
Withouten lessing [falsehood]
Ye witten well that I am King
Here of all this land.
Therefore I will that mine baronage
Ye that been of great parage [parentage – high birth]
That he come in to mine will;
For all that arn in burw [burgh] or town
I will he witten my resoun [understands my account]
And that is right and schil. [reasonable]
For this recording the King was played by Malcolm Hollister, with thanks.
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