A long time ago, in a life far, far away…A personal cultural history
The Fishers and Mariners (The Flood), York Mystery Plays
London, British Library, Add MS 35290, f. 29r
Image here: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_35290_f029r
The York Corpus Christi Plays - commonly known as the York Mystery Plays - have long been a prominent feature of York’s cultural landscape. This cycle of plays, preserved in their late C15 Middle English form in a remarkable manuscript, has yielded a great deal of fascinating scholarship. The plays have been many things to many people since the first extant record of their performance in 1376: a vehicle of worship and piety, an expression of civic pride, an arena for pious competition between trade guilds, a didactic tool, entertainment, and, latterly, a jewel in the crown of the post-war ‘tonic for the nation’ which was the Festival of Britain.
Satan (2003) & Oberon (2000)
We may well return to the plays at a later point, but this is a more personal history, because without the Corpus Christi Plays, Wright History as you know it wouldn’t exist. Over the last year or so, several of you have asked how we met, and as this week’s History of York session generated some interesting discussion of the Plays, the time seems right for a post which we hope doesn’t seem inordinately self-indulgent…
Scene fades in: spring 1998.
A young Robert, not-yet quite permanently welded into his bow tie, is approached by a fellow doctoral student from York’s Centre for Medieval Studies, one Katherine J. Lewis (who would eventually deliver The Big Speech at our wedding), who wonders whether he might fancy being Christ. How could any young man resist?
And so it comes to pass that he joins The Lords of Misrule - the CMS’s drama group, specializing in medieval (and, later, renaissance and early modern) texts and adaptations in original pronunciation. Within but a few years he will ravish and impregnate Katherine in one play and be her dull husband in another, but for his first foray into Lordly thespianism he is an ascending Christ, serenaded into heaven by her angelic soprano tones: once in the King’s Manor, five times on a wagon throughout the streets of York, and several times at Rievaulx Abbey.
“The Fadir blissing moste myghty // Giffe I you all that leffe here”
Never one to shun the spotlight, young Robert is hooked, and continues to perform with Lords throughout his doctoral studies, buckling his swash, ravishing maidens, being kingly, kidnapping sheep, and executing saints at every opportunity.
Scene fades out; fades back into October 1999.
A less young (but nevertheless a spring chicken compared to now) Joanna arrives at the CMS, having moved to York with Spouse and 4-year-old Spawn over the summer, in order to go on to postgraduate study immediately after her first degree at Newcastle University, bringing with her a hefty dose of Imposter Syndrome. Amidst the delights of medieval studies, settling into a new home, and settling Spawn into school, she goes to this weird play thing to support her new CMS friends, who have fewer distractions and are fully-signed-up members of the cult that is Lords of Misrule. Once home and Spawn are more settled, she gets into the habit of working at the King’s Manor while her thespy friends are rehearsing and joining them for a post-rehearsal pint, and one evening gets chatting with the bloke who’s doing his research elsewhere but is in every Lords play and seems quite nice.
It is, of course, but a matter of time before Joanna is convinced by her friends to be in A Midsommer Nights Dreame - a new departure for Lords, i.e. a full Shakespeare, with original pronunciation. She is eventually won over by the lure of a small part with few lines (Hippolyta) and the chance to wear a proper steel-boned corset. Mike Tyler - a friend and fellow MA student (you’ll be meeting him again infra) - is also courted, and can’t resist the opportunity to show the world his Bottom. Robert is in his element as Oberon, with many lines, make-up, and a swooshing cloak.
Scene fades out; fades back into spring 2002.
Inevitably, Joanna is by now a fully-signed-up member of the Lords cult, having found that perennial stage fright at performance was outweighed by the fun of rehearsals. Over the course of several productions, she and Robert had quickly developed a reputation of being The Bad Kids of the group which, naturally, they both embrace with relish.
“Loo, litill babe, what I have broght”
The Lords of Misrule are invited to stage Angels and Shepherds - one of the ten plays within the 2002 wagon cycle, in Middle English, as is traditional (all other plays are in modern versions) - with Carolin Esser (friend, fellow research student and stalwart of Lords) as director. Mike Tyler - having long performed in the plays under the auspices of St Luke’s Church and centred his doctoral research on them - is director of the whole cycle. Joanna decides to duck out of this one, due to home stuff and research pressure, but is eventually talked into being the Star of Bethlehem by (a) Carolin and Mike with the assurance that there are no lines to learn - can you see a theme developing here…? - and that being part of the wagon cycle is an experience not to be missed (they are right on both counts); and (b) Robert promising to make rehearsals extra fun because he doesn’t want to be A Bad Kid on his own (he also follows through on his promise). Robert, by the way, is very happy to be First Shepherd: the main role, with many lines, and much hamming.
And thus it comes to pass that two sweltering hot July Sundays see them trundling, along with a cast of hundreds, through the streets of York and playing at five stations. On a not-unrelated note, lest you should ever wonder, we can confirm that several layers of heavy linen and wool do not make for a comfortable hot July experience, and, moreover, that a long-sleeved, high-necked linen and gold lamé frock is not any fat, large-breasted woman’s friend even in the best of weather. On a similarly not-unrelated note, Leeds IMC (the annual major international medieval academic conference), which is held in the week between the performances in 2002, sees many fledgling medievalists with jolly painful sunburn.
But it is absolutely worth it. The processions are as much a part of the experience as the plays themselves (on one, an impressed tourist asks Joanna whether York stages this every summer weekend. Strangely, when Joanna mentions this to Pageant Master Mike, he isn’t keen on the idea of doing it weekly. Joanna will never work out why…), and every time the wagon trickery reveals the Nativity and a strangely Eboresque Bethlehem, there are appreciative “ooohhh”s, “aaahhh”s, and applause.
Those of you who have not watched or performed in the wagon plays will get some idea of the spirit of the occasion in this video. You may recognize one or two people in the few minutes from around 3:20…
Scene fades out; fades back into spring 2003.
It seems that the trials and tribulations of directing a major pageant are similar to those of childbirth, in that eventually one remembers more about the pleasure than the pain, and Mike gets a hankering for more Corpus Christi play action, and thus the Lords of Misrule takes part in the Lichfield Mysteries, with The Buffeting of Christ, from the Towneley (Wakefield) cycle, again to be performed in Middle English. Neither Robert nor Joanna originally plan to take part in this one, but Mike woos them with the promise of, respectively, the main role, and one with little line-learning to distract from research. The first read-through sees Joanna soon realizing that the First Torturer is much wordier than she’s been led to believe, whilst Robert is flicking through the script, vainly looking for more than Christ’s three (THREE!) lines.
They are each further discomfited to learn that the play mostly features a silent Christ being beaten by First and Second Torturers. Joanna is very uncomfortable with hitting anyone (her sole experience of which is slapping a fellow Lord’s face in three performances), and Robert is uncomfortable for… well… for obvious reasons.
But they’re professionals, daaahlings, and the show must go on. They will eventually forgive Mike for his machiavellian casting (and, indeed, eventually ask him to officiate at their wedding).
And so it comes to pass that the denizens of Lichfield and its environs are treated to a wordy, stark play, presented in Middle English and depicting what seems to be a perfectly nice young man being brutally beaten by two women. Just what every family picnic outing at a community event needs.*
*[Err… apologies, Lichfield… - JHW]
Scene fades out; fades back into autumn 2004.
Lords are on less controversial ground with their next foray into mystery plays: a Christmassy confection of the Towneley (Wakefield) Second Shepherd’s Play and Offering of the Magi, to be staged in the splendid All Saints’ Church in North Street. Joanna is now rather bored of mystery plays - largely because there’s a dearth of interesting funny and naughty characters, but is won over as soon as she sees the Second Shepherds’ script, which has the usual pious bits, but is shot through with farce - a kind of Carry On Shepherds-cum-Little Red Riding Hood.
She and Robert jump at the chance to play Mak (a good-for-nothing, impulsive thief, who proudly brings a rustled sheep home, then panics about what revenge the shepherds will take) and Gill (his long-suffering, moany wife, who comes up with a plan to save his neck, namely pretending that the sheep is their newly-born baby by wrapping it in swaddling clothes, and that she’s now in painful and loud labour with its twin, to prevent the shepherds from looking too closely).
And Robert gets to wear the imperial purple as Herod being sneaky with the magi. Notwithstanding, no small children are traumatized in the bringing forth of this production.
Scene fades out; credits roll.
So. Here we are - and it’s all down to the York Corpus Christi cycle!*
*[Admittedly there were other factors (not least illness, divorce, and other Life Stuff), but the general point stands.]
Mak and Gill were the last mystery play roles we performed with Lords (sort of), but it wasn’t long before we were revisiting the plays again in another way.*
* [perhaps another post….]
Our involvement in mystery play productions since then has been as audience members, with increasingly elaborate picnics and suitable liquid refreshment.
It’s always an occasion, and a lovely opportunity to cheer on our friends and colleagues who are performing. Several of said friends have consistently suspected that we were there more for the refreshments than the entertainments. This is, of course, outrageously scurrilous.*
* [Why, you may even see evidence that we were both paying full attention in one of the photos to the right *hrumph*]