From one aspect of the city’s cultural heritage (its football team, and its base at Bootham Crescent since the 1930s) to another — its Mystery Plays (quite a bit older).

On a recent page I mentioned heading out from the city centre quite a lot recently. But the splendid once-every-four-years spectacle of the York Plays performed on waggons saw me heading enthusiastically towards town, to catch the start of this year’s production. And it brought, as it always does, a sense of deep connection to the place, but particularly this time, dashing down Bootham, that ancient road, through Bootham Bar, and then meeting the Minster, and finding the waggons and people gathered around it, by the south transept, on Deangate. I thought I’d share a few photos and thoughts.

If you missed it on Sunday there’s another chance to see it all next Sunday. More details on the York Mystery Plays website.

I know that some people may be put off by the fact that these are religious plays, and because the language can be difficult. I’m not always sure what’s going on either, but these plays every four years are a wonderful thing to behold, and, I think, something everyone who loves/admires/feels a connection to the city of York should witness.

Why? Many reasons.

Because you can watch them for free, just turn up if you feel like it, and watch for a while, at various city centre locations.

Because of the movement — the moving between playing stations — with all that human-powered waggon shifting.

Because of the music — the York Waits, the choirs. And the sound of the language, the alliteration in particular.

Because of the colour and the costume, and the way the people of the plays mingle with the people in the streets doing their shopping, or heading for the bus stop.

Because of the creativity these plays always demonstrate in their working with the constrained conditions of performing on and around a waggon.

And because they use tree branches as tools.

For more information see yorkmysteryplays.co.uk.

. . . . .

I’ve written about the Mystery Plays a few times over the years. Those pages are on this link.

This site — a resident’s record of York — is at present powered by virtual coffees. When time and energy permits I’m on a mission to continue to do my best to do the kind of thing I’ve done for many years, and perhaps do it better, and maybe more often.

Thank you for your support in sustaining this online resource.

The post York Mystery Plays: a moving spectacle appeared first on York Stories.

This weekend saw much mystery playing, with both of our local traditions on show and free to view. On Saturday lunchtime, by the Minster, I watched waggon plays. That evening, on my computer screen, I watched the Museum Gardens production, courtesy of a ‘for one night only’ live feed. The following day, one of the waggon plays again, on College Green.

A memorable event, seeing both productions on the same weekend, being temporarily immersed in mystery plays of such different types.

The waggon performances and processions are pictured on this page.

The waggons stationed by the Minster, at the end of Duncombe Place, understandably draw a larger audience from people simply passing by, including visitors to the city. I overheard many comments from interested and often slightly bemused passers-by. One man explained to his wife ‘they’re doing those olde worlde plays’.

The processions between the playing stations and back to base provoked the most interest. Partly because of the unusual and haunting medieval music played by the Leeds Waits and York Waits, and partly because it’s not every day you see people in medieval dress and colourful robes walking through the city leading people also in medieval dress pushing a waggon topped with a small stage set. Though I do wonder if many of the tourists passing through from far-flung places, in York just for a brief visit, think we do this every day, or perhaps at least weekly.

We did of course once stage these waggon plays every year, on the feast of Corpus Christi. That’s the tradition these modern waggon plays refer back to. The medieval waggons used to begin their journey from Toft Green, which was once green, but is now covered in large modern office blocks. Performances went on all day, and were a big community event, involving amateur players, and a jolly and probably increasingly drunken audience.

The two plays chosen for this weekend’s ‘mini’ production were the more light-hearted and cheerful ones. Both had animated waggons and amusing props.

It takes a lot of inventiveness and ingenuity to make these waggons, complete with moving parts. Large-scale grandeur isn’t possible on a small stage, in daylight, with the audience sitting or standing just metres away. The effects are impressive, but in a homely and charming and amusing way. (The crucifixion waggon isn’t amusing, but is particularly impressive, relying as it appears to do upon human strength and the principles of leverage to raise Christ onto his cross. That one you’ll have to wait until 2014 to see.)

The Noah waggon had a wheeled device which turned a painted cloud into a painted rainbow, and real live birds – a raven, and doves. Previous releases of the lovely white bird had gone well, but at College Green on Sunday the dove sent in search of dry land found it rather more quickly than expected. Instead of the planned disappearance into the distance it flew a short way to a nearby roof just behind the waggon, for a bit of a rest. This was followed by the intended humour of the ‘return’ of the dove, which saw Noah produce and clasp fondly an obviously stuffed non-real dove, complete with olive branch.

The audience for the plays wasn’t as big as it could have been, considering this entertainment is provided for free, in the open air. Many potential audience members perhaps feel that the language may be too difficult. These are, after all, even older than Shakespeare’s plays.

I find it doesn’t matter that much if some of the meaning isn’t apparent, it’s the sound of it. In parts it’s poetic, not in a soppy kind of fashion but in a down-to-earth way. Some phrases are probably familiar to anyone who has even a vague knowledge of the bible. Many deeply resonant phrases you feel you know, even if you don’t. There’s a lot of pleasing alliteration: ‘To wend in the water it were wothe’. (With, as I recall, ‘water’ pronounced ‘watter’ to rhyme with ‘batter’.)

And between the plays, and afterwards, the procession through the streets, while tourists stand and stare. As do many of the locals, who don’t seem exactly familiar yet with this resurrected tradition.

It moved through the traffic, with the procession stopping at the traffic lights, like a rather strange vehicle, before heading off down Bootham and Marygate, still led by the York Waits, playing medieval music.

A car heading up Marygate was forced back by the advancing procession of waggons, waits, actors and guild members. Two young men were highly amused and took pictures of one another fooling around, with the waggons and medieval costumes in the background, before the waggons disappeared in a dignified fashion, into the old abbey precinct.

The Museum Gardens Mystery Plays 2012, via internet feed

No photos of the large-scale production, I’m afraid, though I do have this picture of an amusing sign spotted in the Museum Gardens.

It was an interesting experience to go from Saturday’s daytime waggon plays to Saturday night’s brave and innovative live feed of the 2012 production. I’m a bit of a web-head, I love the internet, and get excited by these initiatives which utilise the web in opening up our cultural riches to a wider audience.

The much-anticipated fixed-stage production uses ‘modern’ dress, or rather mid 20th century dress. In all other respects it seems even more modern, bang up to date, very much a 21st century production using Twitter and other social media in a confident and skillful way to spread the word. The internet live feed fitted it so well.

At midday I was standing in the street watching people in medieval costume reading our Mystery Plays right in front of me. At 7.30 that evening I was sitting at the kitchen table at home watching our Mystery Plays on a computer screen. Taking place only ten minutes walk from where I was sitting, but travelling to me digitally over a vast distance, in an instant.

I have been more interested in the things ‘around’ the massive Museum Gardens production – the enormous stage built for it, the internet broadcasting of it. It’s all so big and brave and you can’t fail to be wowed.

I watched it partly on an iPad and partly on a laptop computer, unsure which screen I preferred. While watching I also looked at the transcript provided on the website (nice touch) and at one point located on the internet a version in the original Middle English. To complete this ‘multimedia extravaganza’ I had a copy of the Purvis translation of the plays, in old-fashioned library book format, propped up on the kitchen table.

It is very long. I thought it had been going on ages and then realised Christ hadn’t even been born yet. I got distracted, like a proper 21st-century Twitter-obsessed web-head, and started tweeting about it rather than watching it.

Compare and contrast

The abiding impression of the two productions, in my ‘compare and contrast’ viewing exercise, was that the fixed stage production is visually spectacular, very grand, and very serious. The bloodiness and suffering of the crucifixion was expertly portrayed, difficult to watch, and deeply moving. Noah and the flood looked stunning on the Museum Gardens stage, but was an entirely different thing, without the charm and humour of the version I’d seen earlier. And their dove wasn’t as good.

I felt very privileged, being able to see both versions of our plays on the same day. (Anyone following me on Twitter would have been aware of this, and possibly rather bored by my repetitive tweeting about it.) It also clarified the claims of the two traditions, which have the same title – the York Mystery Plays – but are two entirely different creatures. Watching the Museum Gardens production I lost any sense of connection with our medieval past, despite the abbey ruins in the background. I was watching bible stories, beautifully realised, involving hundreds of people, in a truly impressive production. But these were scripts plucked from the setting they were intended for, restaged for the 21st century.

I know that many people see the fixed-stage productions as the ‘real’ mystery plays, and I’ve had a heated debate on the subject with a friend who had that view. I know that many are equally passionate about the more ‘authentic’ waggon plays – I’m still one of them.

The Last Judgement is the play I remember the most. Always visually spectacular when performed in the guilds’ waggon productions, then and now. You’ll probably have to wait until 2014 to see it performed again on waggons, for free, in the open air in the city streets. Its language is so beautiful, and perhaps best presented by someone standing on a waggon speaking directly to a small crowd.

Here’s just a bit of it, accompanied by a photo from one of our city’s medieval stained glass windows, in All Saints Church, North St. This is the world the waggon plays bring back to us.

When I was hungry ye me fed,
To slake my thirst your heart was free.
When I was clotheless ye me clad,
Ye would no sorrow upon me see.
In hard prison when I was stead,
Of my pains ye had pity,
Full sick when I was brought in bed
Kindly ye come to comfort me.

The post All the world’s a stage appeared first on York Stories.

I’d like to highlight a smaller scale production, which won’t cost you any money to see, and which you can just turn up for, if you fancy it, without needing a ticket.

The Guilds of York regularly stage our famous York Mystery Plays on waggons. Two of the plays are being staged this Saturday and Sunday (11 and 12 August), around midday, outside the Minster. For more details, please see the website of the www.yorkmysteryplays.co.uk.

I have it on good authority that a specially designed ark will help tell the story of Noah and the flood ‘with a few genuine animal co-stars’.

Alternatively, for information on the Museum Gardens 2012 production, see www.yorkmysteryplays-2012.com.

No one ‘owns’ the York Mystery Plays, and in York there are now these two approaches to staging them. Some prefer the large-scale production on a fixed stage, some see the waggon plays as more authentic.

Many mysteries

Perhaps most of us assume the ‘mystery’ of the title refers to religious matters. ‘God moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform’. But the word ‘mystery’ was used in medieval English to refer to a trade or craft, or to the groups the craftsmen belonged to – more commonly known as guilds. So there are references to the ‘Misterie of Stationers’, ‘the mysterie and companie of the Marchants adventurers’.

These guilds staged their ‘mystery’ plays on moving waggons in the streets of York, from the 14th to the 16th century, surviving records suggest. A tradition then abandoned, but re-established in our more recent history.

The surviving York guilds, together with local residents, students and church groups, have in recent decades staged the plays every four years, though you wouldn’t know it from our local media sources in recent reports. According to the prevailing view – repeated over and over in the local media – this year sees the ‘return of the Mystery Plays to the Museum Gardens for the first time since the 1980s’.

The guilds’ waggon plays have also been staged in the Museum Gardens, as recently as 2010. I know, as I was there, and here’s a photo to prove it. Like many others, I followed the waggons and procession, which was very cheery, as it always is, and watched the depiction of the crucifixion, which made me cry, as it always does.

If the reports referring back to the 1980s included the phrase ‘on a fixed stage’ or ‘on this scale’ it would be accurate. But they don’t, so it’s not accurate, and the lack of acknowledgement of those who have continued the tradition in recent years is to me the biggest ‘mystery’ of all.

Traditions

The tradition of setting the plays on a fixed stage is a relatively recent one, apparently dating from 1951.

So York now has two traditions of mystery play – one on a fixed stage in the abbey ruins, and one every four years on pageant waggons.

One of the most memorable aspects of the waggon plays is the way they move through the streets, accompanied by music, and followers who’ve joined in along the way. This movement through the city to playing stations in streets and parks connects to our ancestors’ experience of these plays.

The big production is also moving, in the emotional sense, so I’ve heard. Can’t fail to be. Anyone who can afford it should probably buy a ticket. I can’t afford it, but it looks like a truly spectacular production.

The next all-day productions of the waggon plays will take place in 2014. The short performance on 11 and 12 August will present just two of the plays.

And let me stress again, the plays presented by the Guilds of York are free to view – as they would have been, centuries back. If you get there early enough you can follow the waggons, accompanied by music, leaving the Museum Gardens around 11.15am.

Here endeth my page exploring some of the mystery of these Mysteries. We are very lucky to have two versions of our plays, so they’re accessible to all. Enjoy, whichever one you go to.

Links, further information

yorkmysteryplays.co.uk – information on the August 2012 performances, and many pages with further information on the plays

More information on the history of the plays: www.yorkbutchersgild.com

Photos, much more impressive than mine on this page: the 2006 production and from the 2010 production: The Road to Calvary and The Last Judgement. Rather handsome, don’t you think.

The large-scale 2012 production: York Mystery Plays 2012

See also: really impressive time-lapse film showing the construction of the stands and stage in the abbey ruins for the 2012 production

The post Moving tales and many mysteries appeared first on York Stories.

There have been some heartfelt letters to the Press in York recently regarding this year’s production of the York Mystery Plays, part of the ‘York 800′ festival, regarding the decision to use 1950s dress, which has rather surprised many people.

Even more surprising is the frequent assertion, repeated on the just-launched website of the ‘York Stories 2012′ project (also part of the ‘York 800′ festival) that the plays this summer will be ‘performed outdoors in the Museum Gardens for the first time since the 1980s’.

So what I saw in 2006 and 2010 in the Museum Gardens was a mirage of some kind, presumably.

My camera also recorded the mirage, of the York Mystery Plays in 2010, as pictured here.

Clearly that’s the abbey ruins in the background. In the Museum Gardens. Outdoors.

It might not look so impressive, because it’s not so big, it’s not on a massive fixed stage, and no famous names are involved. But if you want ‘authentic’ York Mystery Plays, how about a production that moves through the streets on waggons, playing at different locations, rather in the way our medieval ancestors approached it?

And for free.

The York Mystery Plays as I saw them were entertaining, authentic, thought-provoking, tear-jerking in parts, inventive, creative. But most of all, accessible, because they were free to anyone wandering by. Which is how it would have been, back then. Our ancestors didn’t need a ticket.

It’s odd, really, that something that I and other people valued so much has been apparently eradicated from our recent history, in official proclamations from York 800.

The post So many York Stories … the Mystery Plays appeared first on York Stories.