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.
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.
Monday 30 March 2015
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...
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| Clare Town Hall - we're mostly not using the stage itself - the performers will be among the audience |
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| A mini minstrel gallery - where music will pour forth... |
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