At Easter 2010, on 31st March and 1st and 2nd April, we again presented The Passion. The production by Michael Hoy MBE was adapted by him from the version of the Mystery plays produced by Tony Harrison in 1985 for the Cottesloe Company of the Royal National Theatre, and was first performed at Kirk Braddan on 4th, 5th and 6th April 2007.
There were more than thirty named characters in the drama, together with a supporting crowd and choir. Our performers, drawn from our communities at Kirk Braddan and the Methodist chapels at Cooil and Union Mills, included Sam Shipstone and Gemma Williams, former winners of the Thomas Cranmer Award, who played Jesus and Mary Magdalene. John the Baptist was played by Daniel Jacobs, Pontius Pilate by Albert Dudgeon, Peter by Colin Gurney, Mary Mother by Margaret Newton and Judas by Mike Trout. Ken Gumbley, Ian Parker, John Cowley and Tim Keyes played the four Knights. Musical solos were performed by Beth Mawdesley, Juliet Tranter and Hannah Corrin.
Michael Hoy writes:
"The Mystery Plays presented the Bible to medieval people in much the same way as stained glass windows and church wall paintings. Each story, from the Garden of Eden to the Last Judgement, was given to a community group – the carpenters, the smiths, the millers – who devised a play in verse to be one episode in the cycle. The plays are Guild Plays (a 'mystere' was a craft or profession) and reflect in language, tone and form not only the different social elements but also the personalities of the people who wrote the words and acted the parts. So Bible characters and medieval artisans play their parts seamlessly together, and the result is a powerful and moving mix of spiritual truth with down-to-earth realism which give a sense of the events actually taking place not two thousand years ago nor even seven centuries ago, but today.
In 1985 Tony Harrison translated and re-worked for the Cottesloe Company of the Royal National Theatre a selection of plays drawn from the four cycles, York, Wakefield, Chester and Coventry, and produced a trilogy – The Nativity, The Passion and Doomsday. His remarkable London production (more than seven hours in playing) engaged the audience by presenting all the actors in modern dress: those watching seemed complicit with those on stage as the drama unfolded before them. The actors donned simple cloaks or badges of office to distinguish their dramatic roles and their dialogue preserved the strength and poetry of the original verse; they became both characters in history and the people we meet everyday in the street.
The Easter Story which we presented in Holy Week 2010 is based on the second play of Tony Harrison's trilogy. His Passion ends with the crucifixion, however, and I have added two scenes from the early part of Doomsday so that our version ends with Jesus and Mary Magdalene in the garden on Easter Day.
The music of the medieval plays, an important part of the drama, was the popular song and dance of the day. I chose for our production music which spans the centuries – J. S. Bach, Spiritual, West End musical – to highlight the story's timelessness and, in the opening and closing hymns and the Palm Sunday song, to involve the audience."