THE 2012 York Mystery Plays have already stirred two major discussion points – the use of 1950s costumes and God and Jesus being played by the same actor – and the return to the York Museum Gardens is still more than four months away.

Earlier this week, the first of the casting decisions was announced, beginning where else but with Adam and Eve, but this has subsequently been overshadowed by confirmation that York playwright Mike Kenny’s new adaptation will be staged as if the company were performing in 1951.

“We’re not setting the Plays in the year 1951 but telling them from that period,” says Damian Cruden, artistic director of York Theatre Royal, which is co-producing this summer’s production with Riding Lights Theatre Company and York Museums Trust.

1951 was the year when the York Cycle of Mystery Plays were revived for the first time since their suppression in 1569 and also made their debut in the Museum Gardens, rather than being staged on pageant wagons in the streets of York.

Kenny’s production makes a link between God intervening with Noah’s flood in the Old Testament and doing so again when sending Jesus to earth, and the need to tell those stories in the troubled 20th century and beyond.

“By 1951, we’d been through two world wars in quick succession, and in the first half of the 20th century, we were as close to Armageddon as Man had ever been,” says Damian. “The story of the Mystery Plays needed to be told again.”

The same applies again in a beleaguered 2012. “Now, in order for the Plays to remain alive and have a future, there has to be recognition that they are stories of our time, and we can look back at the whole of the 20th century as being of our time,” he says.

“The stories have always been told as a contemporary telling of the Plays. Realistically, recreating the Biblical period of 1150BC was not what the performances were about. It was about making these stories something that the community could have for themselves outside the confines of the Church.”

The 2012 production will be told by “ordinary people from the 1940s and 1950s”, wearing 20th century costumes that also will hark back to the 19th, 18th and earlier centuries, such as women’s shawls, which are “timeless”, says Damian.

“The soldiers will use swords as well as guns, because that’s what they did in the First World War,” he adds.

“We’re not putting Jesus in jeans [a reference to Robson Green in the 1992 York Mystery Plays at York Theatre Royal] or doing a Godspell to the Plays. 1951 was still a period when horses pulled carts in York, as they did from the train station up to the late 1950s.

“It has to be borne in mind that we have to make it a piece that’s accessible. We’re bound to do that but at the same Mike has retained the Plays’ language, its meter and rhyme. There’s no modernisation of the language; it will be recognisably Yorkshire medieval language but also clear for a modern audience. There are very few word changes, just judicious editing.”

As for the roles of God and Jesus being played by the same professional actor, read the full story on Page 10 of The Press.

“They will be performed by one actor, as we are sticking to the concept of the God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit being one,” says Damian.

“We are really keen to do what it is our duty to do, which is to acknowledge the Plays’ history and heritage, but at the same time place them in the context of our modern world, so that the audiences of today and tomorrow will be able to engage with the stories and make them their own.”

The 2012 York Mystery Plays will run from August 2 to 27.