As the pageant waggons of the York Mystery Plays return to the city, Lydia Onyett and Charles Hutchinson take a closer look at the ancient event.


What?

Different city guilds perform the York Mystery Plays in traditional style on moving pageant waggons.


When?

July 11 and 18, noon to 7.15pm.

Who is taking part?

Just like their medieval predecessors, members of the various guilds of York are relinquishing their tools in favour of community theatre. 400 people are taking part.


Where?

The waggons move around different locations throughout the performance: Dean’s Park, College Green, St Sampson’s Square, Museum Gardens and the new location of the Eye of York.

What are the Mystery Plays?

In medieval York, the guilds of the city presented the entire Christian narrative of the Creation to the Last Judgement to mark the Corpus Christi Festival in June. Each guild took one of 48 plays, mounted it on a waggon, then paraded through the city streets from one location to another. When performed today, the Mystery Plays are at once engaging, emotive dramas and living artefacts that offer a view into York’s fascinatingly rich cultural history.


When did the Mystery Plays begin?

In 1340, the first cycle of the Mystery Plays took place, beginning a theatrical tradition that would stretch across centuries. Although the plays survived the abolition of the Corpus Christi Festival, the great upheaval of the Reformation led Archbishop Edmund Grindal to confiscate all copies of the Cycle in 1571. The Plays were not seen again until their triumphant revival in the 1951 York Festival of the Arts, seen by a total audience of more than 26,000.


Who wrote the Mystery Plays?

Most authors remain unknown. However, the elusively-named “York Master”, reputedly a St Mary’s Abbey monk, authored at least one play of the extensive cycle. If JB Priestley had responded favourably to a request for a new commission in 1951, the Plays’ future would have taken a very different course.

What makes up the cycle of plays?

Originally, 48 plays were performed by 48 different guilds, making one cycle of Mystery Plays. Guilds would perform stories appropriate to their work; the Shipwrights, for example, performed the Building of the Ark, while the Butchers played the Death of Christ. This year, groups ranging from the Guild of Scriveners to St Peter’s School will perform 12 selected plays.


Rival Mystery Play cycles:

Many famous European cities have their own versions of the Mystery Plays, yet York’s collection of 48 is regarded as the largest and most complete – the Newcastle Cycle, for example, consists of a single play. However, even York’s extensive collection is not perfect; this year, gaps in some of the scripts have been plugged using material from the nearby Wakefield cycle.


Recent history of the Mystery Plays:

The traditional four-yearly cycle of the York Mystery Plays, led by a professional director and usually a professional actor as Jesus, has been dormant since the Millennium production in York Minster, burdened by financial issues and restrictive health and safety rules.

Not to be defeated, young people from around York devised the York Youth Mysteries in 2008 as experimental reinterpretations of the plays that form their medieval heritage. The plays are the cultural property of the citizens of York, and therefore nothing was considered off-limits, from circus tricks to Bob Marley.

The Guilds of York have mounted waggon productions on the city streets in 1998, 2002, 2006 and now 2010.


Did you know?

Finding medieval-style waggons is a challenge for modern guilds, and to build one from scratch can cost anywhere between £2,000 and £3,000. Luckily, helpful students from York College have refurbished one waggon that will feature in this year’s cycle.


Famous figures involved in the mystery plays:

Dame Judi Dench appeared in the 1951, 1954, pictured below, right, and 1957 productions, while Gregory Doran, another Royal Shakespeare Company heavyweight, directed the Millennium production in the Minster.

Actors Joseph O’Connor (1951 and 1954), Christopher Timothy (1980), Simon Ward (1984), Victor Banerjee (1988), Robson Green (1992) and Ray Stevenson (2000) have all played Jesus; a role apparently once sought after by the classical actor and Hollywood star Jeremy Irons.


Significant events of the Mystery Plays:

San Franciscan Keith Jefferson, a 33-year-old teacher at Ryedale Waldorf School in Bishophill, became the first black man to play God in 1984.

York antiques shopkeeper Ruth Ford was the first female God in 1996.


The changing location of the Mystery Plays:

After the revival in 1951, the Mystery Plays ran in the Museum Gardens until moving indoors to York Theatre Royal in 1992 and 1996, and were presented for the first time in the Minster in 2000. Plans for a second Minster production in 2010 did not come to fruition.

The Plays were first revived on York’s streets in 1994.


The future of the plays

York Theatre Royal is in negotiations to restore the Mystery Plays to the Museum Gardens in 2012, possibly as a daytime rather than evening production.


The York Cycle of Mystery plays chosen for the 2010 Guilds of York production:

1 Creation to the Fifth Day, performed by York Guild of Building; director, Tony Ravenhall. Original guild, the Plasterers.

2 The Expulsion of Adam and Eve with Cain and Abel, performed by Guild of Freemen; director, Becki Nicholson. Original guild, the Armourers and Glovers 3 Abraham and Isaac, performed by York St John University; director, Kay Hepplewhite. Original guild, the Parchmentmakers.

4 Joseph’s Troubles about Mary, performed by Heslington Church; director, Lee Maloney. Original guild, the Founders.

5 Massacre of the Innocents, performed by new participants St Peter’s School (Square Pegs Theatre Company); directors, Tim Coker and David Newell. Original guild, the Girdlers.

6 The Transfiguration, performed by the Lords of Misrule, University of York; director, Laura Elizabeth Rice. Original guild, the Curriers.

7 The Agony in the Garden, performed by Company of Cordwainers with St Luke’s Church; director, Mark Reilly. Original guild, the Cordwainers.

8 The Dream of Pilate’s Wife, performed by York Settlement Players in association with Merchants of the Staple; director, Graham Sanderson. Original guild, the Tapiters and Couchers.

9 The Road to Calvary, performed by Company of Merchant Taylors with first-time participants All Saints School; director, Lindsay Ibbotson. Original guild, the Shearmen.

10 The Crucifixion/Death of Christ, performed by Company of Butchers with St Chad’s Church; director, Simon Tompsett. Original guild, the Pinners and Butchers 11 The Incredulity of Thomas, performed by Guild of Scriveners; director, David Crouch. Original guild, the Scriveners.

12 The Last Judgement, performed by Company of Merchant Adventurers with Pocklington School; director, Alan Heaven. Original guild, the Mercers.


Where to see the Mystery Plays :

There are four playing stations per day:

• July 11: Dean’s Park, Part One from 12 noon, Part Two from 2.40pm; College Green, Part One from 12.30pm, Part Two, 3.20pm; St Sampson’s Square, Part One, 1.15pm, Part Two, 4.10pm; Eye of York, in the shadow of Clifford’s Tower, Part One, 2.15pm, Part Two, 5pm, concluding at 7.15pm.

• July 18: Dean’s Park, Part One, noon, Part Two, 2.40pm; College Green, Part One, 12.30pm, Part Two, 3.20pm; St Sampson’s Square, Part One, 1.15pm, Part Two, 4.10pm; Museum Gardens, Part One, 2.15pm, Part Two, 5pm, concluding at 7.15pm.

Audiences can watch the plays for free as the wagons move through the city streets; College Green is wholly free while ticketed seating and free standing viewing applies for the other stations.

For a map of the route, see yorkmysteryplays.co.uk.


Tickets

Tickets are available from York Visitor Information Centre, tel 01904 550099. Allocated seating for Dean’s Park has sold out; a few seated tickets remain for 2pm performance in Museum Gardens on July 18. A selected number of tickets for the Eye of York at 2.15pm on July 11 can be bought on a two-for-one first-come, first-served basis.


DVD

A DVD of the 2010 York Mystery Plays will be recorded by director Richard Laurence of Video Production Services.


Mystery Plays events:

In conjunction with the Mystery Plays, the York Art Gallery exhibition The Art Of The Mystery Plays is showing until September 8. Exhibits include the return to York of the only surviving original York Mystery Plays manuscript, on loan from the British Library.

The exhibition also includes paintings and works on paper showing the original 12 stopping places of the waggons in the city and other documents and artefacts from the time they first ran and when they were reintroduced in the 1950s.

The Woodcraft Press exhibition of The Armourers’ Play, featuring linocut prints by Owen Legg accompanied by text of the modern version of the play, runs at Kings Manor, York, until July 19, Monday to Friday, 10am to 3pm.

Mystery Plays artistic director Paul Toy will be linking this year’s performance with its historical origins in a lecture at York Art Gallery on July 14 at 12.30pm; admission free.

You can follow the same route as the Medieval plays with Yorkwalk tomorrow, Sunday, July 17 and 18. The Sunday walks will finish before the Plays start.