The Last Supper, Stagecoach Studio Theatre, Trinity Hall, Monkgate, York, July 5 to 10

IF tradition had its way, the York Cycle of Mystery Plays would be in full bloom this summer. Instead, the spectacular Millennium production in the Minster continues to cast a shadow, with the authorities still to decide how to "follow that". Mystery Plays stalwart Ray Alexander keeps the flame alive next week by presenting The Last Supper, a sequence of plays that tells the story of the days leading up to Christ's betrayal, in a Friends of York Mystery Plays production at Trinity Hall, York. Charles Hutchinson investigates.

What is the background to this production, Ray?

"What we're doing now, put simply is... let us say that we were concerned when the Mystery Plays authorities decided they wouldn't be producing a production this year. As early as 2003, in the spring, the Friends made an announcement that we would be putting on a play this year so that York would have Mystery Plays in the city in 2004.

Do you feel there will be added interest in your production in the absence of the full-scale Mystery Plays?

"We would prefer not to have that burden of being the only people producing the Plays this summer because we don't have the financial strength that can be gained by having the support of the authorities. We're left to our own resources: a few thousand pounds, rather than the tens of thousands that would come our way if we were officially supported."

Will Mel Gibson's controversial film The Passion Of The Christ be a boon for your Mystery Plays production?

"No, that is only additional to our primary concern, which is to preserve the heritage of our medieval city. A major part of that city, where the plays were being performed around the streets, is still extant, and we wish to maintain that heritage because these plays come from the time of the very birth of the English language.

"In this city we have very special plays about Christ, so the impact of The Passion Of The Christ is incidental to the Mystery Plays' continuing importance."

You have a long association with the York Mystery Plays and indeed you are serving on the Mystery Plays steering committee. Run through your past productions, Ray.

"I've done nearly all of the 47 extant plays, starting in 1994 with the Friends' street production of The Resurrection and The Assumption Of The Virgin. In 1996, in conjunction with the Mystery Plays production in York Theatre Royal, I did a wagon production, outside York Minster, of The Harrowing Of Hell, with parts of The Ascension and The Last Judgement.

"In 1998, I produced The Life Of Christ, with all the plays from Christ's baptism to his entry into Jerusalem, at All Saints Church, and in 2000 there was the Barley Hall production, done in conjunction with the Mystery Plays at the Minster, when I directed The Goldsmiths and the Masons' Play, Herod And The Magi.

"In the 2002 street production mounted by the Guilds of York, I did The Death Of Christ for the Butchers' Guild, and I've also done a show called Divine Intervention, which featured all 11 Old Testament stories from the York Mystery Plays."

For The Last Supper, not only have you adapted The Woman Taken In Adultery, The Entry Into Jerusalem, The Last Supper and part of The Conspiracy and The Agony In The Garden, but also you have written additional scenes. Why?

"I do fear purist criticism from medieval specialists who have studied the plays, and their criticism will come from the fact these scenes are not in the cycle of plays in existence, but in my mind they are sad omissions.

"They are important scriptural stories from the life of Christ: the Foretelling of the Second Coming; the Sermon on the Mount; The Lord's Prayer and Jesus at the House of Simon the Pharisee.

"The Vintners' Play (The Wedding at Cana), The Ironmongers' Play (Jesus at the House of Simon the Leper) and The Linen Weavers' Play (The Funeral of the Virgin) are among the missing plays, so what I've done is write scenes, drawing exclusively from the Gospels."

Was that a difficult challenge?

"For my past productions, I have adapted the Plays to make them comprehensible to the modern ear, so what I've done with the missing plays is to take the Bible stories as they are and then adapt them slightly in order to make them medieval."

Are you nervous about the possible reaction?

"I can shoulder criticism. I put on the Plays in the hope that people will accept them as they are."

In the past you have performed on the street, in wagons and in churches. What will be the setting for The Last Supper?

"This is the first time I've done the Plays in a traditional theatre staging. I'm going to re-arrange the Stagecoach Studio Theatre so that the whole thing will be in the round, because I want the audience to feel they are part of the Plays going on all around them. It should be as if they are witnessing the Sermon on the Mount first hand, not second hand from some mythological character."

Finally, what will happen to the York Mystery Plays?

"The waters have been muddied by the fact that we still don't have a decision about when the major authorities plan to move on their next major production. Fortunately we do have the Wagon Plays Trust, which has established its own four-yearly cycle through the guilds."

The Last Supper, Stagecoach Studio Theatre, Trinity Hall, Monkgate, York, July 5 to 10, 8pm. Tickets: £8, concessions £6; ring 01904 658338.

Updated: 15:44 Thursday, July 01, 2004