AFTER taking to the York streets last Sunday, the 2010 York Mystery Plays return for a second run this Sunday. Charles Hutchinson turns the spotlight on one of this year’s new participants, the Square Pegs Theatre Company from St Peter’s School, and a regular player, Tim Holman.


The new participants

The most experimental of the 12 waggon plays in the 2010 production is St Peter’s School’s rendition of The Massacre Of The Innocents.

This is the story of Herod exacting a terrible revenge when warned of a threat to his earthly throne, and Tim Coker and David Newell’s production gives it a modern interpretation with the soldiers dressed for action in Afghanistan, the women in Islamic dress and bowler hats that recall A Clockwork Orange.

Puppetry, kubiki movement, slow-moving Japanese theatre, butoh dance, treated recorder and keyboard sound effects feature too, but the text is medieval.

“With these texts, I think they’re pretty flexible,” says Tim Coker, St Peter’s head of drama.

“There’s a kind of elasticity to them and lots of modern renderings of them, and certainly with this particular play, the cast of 15 and 16-year-olds found a huge amount of material that had modernity to it, with lots of references to atrocity and the cyclical nature of horror.”

The Square Pegs Theatre Company provides a chance to take theatre out of the “safe environment of the school context, exposing the work and the experiences of the company to a wider audience”.

The decision to put the soldiers in combat wear from the Afghanistan war fields, for example, is deliberately provocative. “We wanted to push buttons and ask questions about the occupation and the legitimacy of that,” says Tim.

“So the soldiers are being told what to do by the politician [Herod], and though we didn’t want to make too big a deal of it, we want to raise eyebrows, and anything that provokes debate and questions authority is good.

“These texts are political, without wanting to ram it down the throat. Who is wrong, who is right?

“There are ambiguities, and the good thing is that we can discuss that in rehearsals, and as an academic that’s important to me.

“For us, it was not about archaeology but what concerns do you have about this story, and if students are discussing it and finding it intriguing, when Herod’s actions are so horrendous, that is important.”


The stalwart actor

TIM Holman has tried to tot up the number of times he has been involved in performing the York Mystery Plays.

“Quite a few is the answer,” says Tim, who is appearing as Cain in the Gild of Freemen’s waggon play for the 2010 production.

“Even this morning I recalled playing a son of Noah in about 1984, when I was in a group of people that got together to do a Mystery Play to take to Tattersall Castle as part of an evening’s entertainment.”

Such is the cycle of these plays through the years that Tim has played Abel on a previous occasion, while Samuel Valentine, Abel in Sunday’s performance of the Glovers’ Pageant of The Tragedy of Cain and Abel, has previously played Cain.

“They’re such fun to do,” says Tim. “They’re nice short plays, so you never have too many lines to learn; they’re familiar stories and the language is wonderful.

“They’re utterly down to earth and in a way they’re very immediate; they can be epic but they can be very intimate as well.

“You really feel like you’re drawing the audience in.”

Last Sunday, the companies faced somewhat windy weather in the first set of performances, but that was nothing by comparison with 2006. “For the Settlement Players that year, Ruth Ford and I were swaying around in the wind, at least ten foot off the ground on the wagggon, but that’s the fun of the challenge,” says Tim.

Over the years, he has played all manner of roles. In 1994, he was a centurion in The Resurrection in a “very dashing leather-and-studs Jean-Paul Gaultier mini-kilt – no centurion should be without one”.

In 1996 and 1998, he played Satan; in 2000, he was Herod in the York Millennium Mystery Plays in the Minster; in 2002, he was still on the dark side as a devil in The Last Judgement, but in 2006 he switched to the male voice of God, opposite Ruth Ford as the female voice.

Now comes Cain, and last Sunday’s performance affirmed once more Tim’s belief in the importance of the York Mystery Plays.

“This year’s production is terrific,” he says. “It goes right across the length and breadth of the York community, and it’s a tremendous community event. It would be nice to have a full-scale production again, like in the Minster in 2000, but I think there is an authenticity to the waggon plays. I like that play by Anthony Minghella, Two Planks And A Passion, which perfectly captures the difference between a community production on wheels and a big, full-blown civic production with all its pomp, when all you need is two planks and a passion.”


Where to see the Mystery Plays on Sunday

Dean’s Park, Part One, from noon, Part Two, from 2.40pm; College Green, 12.30pm, 3.20pm St Sampson’s Square, 1.15pm, 4.10pm; Museum Gardens, 2.15pm, 5pm.

Tickets

Available from York Visitor Information Centre, 01904 550099. Allocated seating for Dean’s Park has sold out; a few seated tickets remain for 2pm performance in Museum Gardens. Standing viewing is free.