The Chester Plays 7 & 8 - The Shepherds & Magi and Herod

Play 7 - The Shepherds Play.  After a couple of weeks looking at some distinctly odd plays, which seem to suffer from that terrible disease being-severely-buggered-about-with, we're back into open territory again and we get down to a more straightforward kind of storytelling.  The Shepherds play is idiosyncratic, as each of the many Shepherds plays are, but it is a complete whole, it has only one hint at obvious alteration and nothing so invasive as with some of the earlier plays.  There was a palpable sense of relief for the readers at the event that this time we were doing a play with a neat beginning, middle and end, not a play which dances around and is interrupted by an Expositor, whose arguments were not necessarily convincing.  (See previous Chester blogs.)

listen to ‘Chester Plays 7.1: Shepherds’ on audioBoom

The Chester Shepherds play does have marked similarities with plays from the other cycles.  There is the sense of realism of their life, the complaints and difficulties of raising sheep - an important animal in late medieval England.  The first shepherd - who, like all his fellows is named (though for ease of use I will stick to numbers here) - speaks first about the practical vetting of sheep, of the herbs and simples used in keeping them healthy.  It is quite detailed and suggests specialist knowledge.  Two other shepherds gather and they start to arrange their food and here hit a question the text didn't quite answer.  The foods they describe are ridiculous in their excess - it is a comic list of delicious foods, which they seem to pull out of bags and coats for theatrical effect, different dishes appearing from different folds of coats and bags in an amusingly impossible way.  The audience is invited to ask themselves, 'where's the next food stuff going to come from next?'  It is a grotesque spectacle and presumably designed to show that they're actually relatively wealthy - less Shepherds and more landowners, as opposed to the man they use to look after the sheep and the various boys they also exploit (more on them later).
[But there's an alternative way of staging the scene.  Perhaps the food they talk about is mimed - a non-display of everything a relatively poor Shepherd can't have.  Bigger and bigger mimes of bigger and bigger plates of food, ending, finally, in their actual food, which could be quite meager fare.  But I seem to be a minority of one on this suggestion.]

listen to ‘Chester Plays 7.2: Shepherds’ on audioBoom

They settle down to eat something and call their herdsman to them - they blow a horn and presumably use the note to then sing - which the stage direction states they do.  Garcius then joins them and there is a clear social difference between them.  It is this sense of a hierarchy - that the Shepherds are top of a relative heap in the social world that opens the possibility that they DO have vast amounts of food on their person, for they are proved, shortly, to be a bit mean.
Their herdsman is a comic ruffian, who states clearly that he'll sleep where he falls and piss where he stands, and who refuses their offer of food, demanding instead (not unreasonably) to be paid.  He is willing to fight for his rights and wrestles with the shepherds for his due - and he wins.  The other Shepherds grumble about being bested and sit down to a grumble.

TERTIUS PASTOR. Though we be weary no wonder

what between wrastling and waking.

Oft we may be in thought we be now under
God amend it with his making.

listen to ‘Chester Plays 7.3: Shepherds’ on audioBoom

And it is with this mention of God that the star appears and they are shocked at its brightness.  They then turn even further from their earthly distractions and kneel and pray.  More music now, as the Angel sings of the coming Christ and they listen in wonder.  Once this concert is complete they struggle to agree what was sung.  They take it in turns singing chunks of text, comically and rather sweetly, getting it wrong and yet teasing out the meaning as they go - often responding emotionally to what was sung.

"He sang also of a 'Deo’ [Deus - in this context, Jesus]
me thought that healed my heart."

They then sing a song in response - 'troly loly loly loo' - and decide to visit the child - which means they have understood what the Angel was singing, because they decide to go before the Angel appears to speak with them in dialogue.  They travel towards the star and are in the general area of Bethlehem - the Angel is waiting for them and moves them on.  Though there isn't a stage direction for it these lines suggest as they make their final way they sing again.

And sing we all I rede

some mirth to his majesty

for certain now see we it indeed:
the king Son of heaven is he.

listen to ‘Chester Plays 7.4: Shepherds’ on audioBoom

Upon visiting the stable they speak in wonder at Joseph and Mary and their age difference, (his beard gets quite a mention).  Mary and Joseph explain how worthy and chaste the birth was - as per the previous play.  The shepherds all give their humble gifts, after swiftly emptying their pockets and deciding who should go first - by order of age it seems.

PRIMUS PASTOR. Who shall go first? The page?  [Garcius]

SECUNDUS PASTOR. Nay you be father of age
Therefore must you first offer.

And here's where some probable later interference comes in.  After the four men have had their bit, suddenly four boys, never referenced before - except possibly obliquely - appear and give homage as well, fighting between themselves as to who has the right to go first.  They suggest a later addition, where an opportunity for some young boys has been crow-barred in, rather like additional cute kids being added to an amateur pantomime cast to help get more mums and dads along to watch.  It has little to do with what came before or after and doesn't add much, just a repetition.
The shepherds then part, humbler and wiser, to devote themselves to holy orders or prayer.  It's quite a sad, moving ending to a play that is fun and knockabout for most of the text.

The next play (eight) is the meeting of the Magi with Herod and is a shorter affair.

listen to ‘Chester Plays 8.1: Magi & Herod’ on audioBoom

The Three Kings meet to recount the prophecies of Balaam, justifying the inclusion of play five in the cycle - it's the last of the Old Testament plays and directly links the prophesies with the coming of Jesus.  There is none of the business in other versions of the Kings meeting each other for the first time and going through a range of introductions.  They are already a unit and they know they're task - they frequently make this pilgrimage to look for a sign that the Christ child is coming.  The Kings, riding on horse back, go to pray at a mountain - literally the same mountain as in the Balaam and Balak play - both in terms of stage property/setting and location within the text - returning the scene of the original prophesy for guidance.  Once there they kneel and an Angel shows them the star.  Given the general direction, which must be to desert terrain as they now mount camels, they head off in earnest.
It's worth going over this action again.  In the space of a few minutes, we've met the three Kings, travelled with them to a mountain on horseback, seen a star and then watched them ride off on camels to the land of Herod.  This asks a lot of questions about how this play and the others were staged - because there seem to be a number of playing areas - pageant wagons/scaffolds, with journeying between them among the audience.  The horses could literally be horses that they ride into the space with - a dramatic entrance to the play.  They discourse on why they're there - but what they're saying isn't as important as their appearance - the audience will be busy adjusting to their appearance, watching them enter and pick their way to the mountain.  They either have servants with them, or ask the audience to help with the horses (something not completely implausible in a horse driven society) with this line:

Say fellow take this courser

and abide me right here.

Once on the mountain - quite possibly the same mountain as in play five - they ask God for direction.  A star then appears and they are so surprised at the appearance that they start speaking in French (an indication of their status) - luckily they repeat the sentiment in English.  Then an Angel appears to them and they kneel.  The Angel tells them to get up and follow the star to Jude - which suggests the Angel carries the star away with it, as there are numerous references to the star doing different things it's difficult to tell.  But if the Angel takes the star then they must follow and so they move onto camels.

Now, even if they had real horses for their entrance (for which we cannot be sure) they definitely didn't have camels - so these are probably comic - hobbyhorses for a bit of fun.  The text is quite light on the subject.

TERTIUS REX. A dromodarye in good fay

will go lightly on his way

an hundreth miles upon a day

such corsers now take we.

There is a stage direction saying they go about, 'riding' among the audience and perhaps following the Angel with the star, leading them a merry dance.  

Then the star disappears and the Kings are left (presumably in the audience) with no direction to follow.  And it is now they meet a messenger of Herod.  They tell him what they're looking for and he tells them that if they go to Herod with their tale of a rival they won't be thanked.

EXPLORATER. Hold your peace sirs I you pray!

For if King Herod heard you so say

he would go wood* by my fay     *[mad]

and fly out of his skin.

But they decide to go anyway, in the blinking of a stage direction.  Explorater, the messenger, goes ahead to the pageant wagon/scaffold to announce them where, with the aide of music, Herod makes his entrance.  They greet each other in Norman French, as Kings should do and Herod makes his usual boasts of power, as all Herods tend to do.  

listen to ‘Chester Plays 8.2: Magi & Herod’ on audioBoom

Again we see crossover with the Balaam and Balak play - as Herod has similarities to King Balaam in terms of stage craft.  He shifts between general boasting to rage in the turn of a stanza and there are stage directions for physical business, where he gestures with a staff or sword - though in what way this stage business worked isn't clear.  It maybe that when he's trying to be Kingly he uses his staff, and when he's enraged he uses his sword - but that's just a suggestion on my part, because he may only have one or the other, not both.  

On hearing of Jesus he consults his learned Doctor (though there could be more than one of them) to confirm the three Kings story and in his increasing rage at the number of prophesies he breaks his sword.  It isn't clear how much or well this Herod hides his anger from the three Kings - his first outburst would have been in their present, though he might have consulted the Doctor in a separate part of the stage.  Though his manner changes as he speaks to the Kings there isn't the sense that he's actively trying to fool them that he is overjoyed at the appearance of a rival King.  There is almost no exchange with the Kings afterward as he sends them on their way, asking them to pop in later with news.  The turn around is very shift, though not impossible, and you could hardly expect the Kings to witness him breaking his sword and need an Angel later to warn them not to return.

The Kings go and Herod has a drink to drown his sorrows, making the final speech to close the play, a speech drowned in self pity.  You can see him waving his staff and his broken sword and railing at the child who has passed him the drink.  Already in this play the plan for the slaughter of the innocents has been touched upon and the audience will know it won't be long till they see it.

Exploring the Chester Mystery Plays - Plays 7 & 8 - featured Liz Cole, Robert Crighton, Annie Eddington, Michael Harding, Kevin Roychowdhury, Alan Scott and Adam Webster.
Live Streaming by Tim Regester, Autocue by Marion Tuke, photos by Mark Pavelin - with Bex Johnson in dictionary corner.  Thanks to the Quay Theatre for hosting the event and the use of their broadband!