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Mysteries 2003History |
Originally the Mystery Plays were large popular outdoor re-enactments of the stories of the Christian Old and New Testaments through drama.
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There are productions of Mystery Plays and Passion Plays world wide. Some of them happen annually and are very well know and are attended by people from all over the world. Traditionally York and Chester do productions but Coventry is not far behind and is looking to do a major work based in the Mystery Plays every three years or so. This years production is attracting attention from abroad s well as at home. People travelling on holiday to England thie summer have already started booking their places. Galway hosts a major arts festival annually and the Mysteries 2003 is one of this years highlights. The attraction ultimately is the popular manner in which the plays are performed by the community. People see themselves reflected in their peers. |
To increase your enjoyment of the show and hopefully this site we have gathered articles relating to the history of the mysteries. If you have a suggestion for an inclusion we would love to hear from you. We have made every effort to contact the authours of each of these articles and appreciate their co-operation.
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What's in a name. |
This variety of names is highly suggestive of the social, commercial and ritual functions of a dramatic tradition that flourished in England's major urban centres for over two centuries until, in the sixteenth century, they became obsolescent, economically unviable and theologically suspect. |
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MEDIEVAL CHURCH PLAYS |
The remarkable fact that the revival of the drama in modern Europe was due to the Christian Church has been abundantly proved and illustrated. At first, certain parts of the church ritual were expanded in action, and especially at the great religious festivals of Christmas and Easter attempts were made to exhibit vividly before the faithful what the service was intended to commemorate. |
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The Old, the New & the Saints |
The mysteries may be grouped under three cycles, that of the Old Testament, that of the New Testament, and that of the saints. It must be borne in mind that in all these the authors mingled truth and legend without distinction. |
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Aesthetic Representation and Technic. |
As regards the aesthetic side of this drama, modern standards should not be applied. This theatre does not even offer unity of action, for the scenes are not derived from one another: they succeed one another without any other unity than the interest which attaches to the chief personage and the general idea of eternal salvation, whether of a single man or of humanity, which constitutes the common foundation of the picture. |
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Waylaid |
As the liturgical dramas became increasingly secularized, they began to be performed entirely in the vernacular, and eventually they moved out of the church and into the churchyard, and then into the nearby marketplace. Soon the plays were taken over by the religious and professional guilds, with each guild taking responsibility for a particular episode or set of episodes from scriptural history. |
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Mystery Plays in England. |
There is no record of any religious drama in England previous to the Norman Conquest. The earliest religious plays were undoubtedly in Latin and French. The oldest extant miracle in English is the "Harrowing of Hell" (thirteenth century). Its subject is the apocryphal descent of Christ to the hell of the damned, and it belongs to the cycle of Easter-plays. |
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Coventry’s medieval mystery plays. |
Only two play-texts
are known to have survived from Coventry’s famous and once-comprehensive
cycle of late medieval mystery plays, the Pageant of the Shearmen and
Taylors which covers the Nativity story from the Annunciation to the Massacre
of the Innocents, and the Weavers’ Pageant which follows on with the Purification
of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Presentation of Christ in the Temple, and
Christ and the Doctors |
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Your in good company |
The Coventry Mystery Plays were the most famous in England and this is reflected in the number of royal visitors they attracted. Henry V, Henry VI, Richard III and Henry VIII are all known to have attended the annual performances. |
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Chester Plays |
Of the Chester Plays (twenty-five parts), five complete MSS. from the period between 1591 and 1607 have been preserved. They were doubtless intended for representation on perambulating pageants. |
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Towneley Mysteries |
The characteristic feature of the Towneley Mysteries collection is a certain realistic buoyancy and, above all, the abundant display of a very robust kind of humour. Thus, the merry devil Tutivillus has found access into the last judgment scene; the family quarrels in Noah's household are nowhere else depicted so realistically; and, in the shepherds' Christmas Eve scenes, the adventures of Mak the sheep-stealer take the foremost place. |
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OBERAMMERGAU PASSION PLAY |
Surely one of the greatest passion plays in the world is that which is performed in Oberammergau, Austria. The Passion Play, based on the life of Christ, dates from the 17th Century. It was first performed in 1634, following a vow taken by the people of Oberammergau during an outbreak of bubonic plague, which killed 15,000 nearby Munich residents in 1634 - 1635 alone. |