The Canterbury Mystery Plays

In August at Canterbury Cathedral there were a number of performances of the Mystery Plays. The organisation of this is quite complicated. Basically there are two plays: one called Creation (this takes the story from the creation of the world to the birth of Jesus and the visit of the shepherds) and the second, called the Passion (which takes the story from the visit of the ago to the ascension of Christ). Each evening there were two performances of the same play, one starting at 7 pm and the other at 7.45 pm. This is possible because everyone moves around to selected sites in and around the Cathedral.  So for the creation, one starts in the nave, then goes to outside the Library, then by the Infirmary, then to the crypt and finally back to the nave.

The idea is, following medieval practice, that each guild performs one scene. Thus, appropriately the Shipwrights portray Noah's Ark, the Fruiterers the creation of the world and so on. In practice the actors were drawn from a vast cast of both professional and amateur actors, and of all ages. Thus Jesus was played by Daniel Macpherson who, I gather, plays Cameron in 'The Bill' while the boy who played Isaac so excellently was only seven. The guild idea worked well in the Creation because the characters are different in each scene. The stories, besides being true to the bible, had a slant which told a moral tale appropriate for the times: not lying, being sloppy, stealing and so on, sometimes this has particular relevance to the guild.

In the Passion, the same characters, Jesus, the disciples and so on, appeared in every scene so the guild idea did nor really work there. As there was so much to tell from the bible, there was less time to put a slant on the story pointing up a contemporary challenge. It did make one think to see the same actor play both Eve and Mary Magdalene.

All in all, I enjoyed the Creation more partly because of its attempt to relate the bible stories to times we live in but also because these stories are less attended to. The Passion tells stories we tell in Holy Week, also made familiar this year, by seeing Mel Gibson's film, the Passion.

I do think that these plays are wonderful ways of telling the Christian Story in a way that is so needed today. I hope it will not be too long before they are repeated at Canterbury, or should we put on, say, the Tovil Mystery plays.

Christopher Morgan-Jones 

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