6 performances
Hampton Court Theatre, United Kingdom
Tony Harrison and the Cottesloe Company at the National Theatre have taken the York, Wakefield, Chester and Coventry cycles of the Mystery Plays and woven and welded them into three separate and infinitely varied celebrations of story-telling and of English life.
YAT has chosen to present the last of the plays "Doomsday" - but sets the scene by offering two short 'Openers' to remind the audience of the existence of the other two parts "The Nativity" and "The Passion" - and the fact that tonight's production is only the final part of the complete cycle.
To quote a review: 'But it is the language of the plays that above all, thrills. Mr. Harrison uses words as if they are physical objects, sometimes of metal, sometimes of earth or of water, sometimes of stone, sometimes of cloth. Rich in alliteration - bold in rhythm and liturgical cadence as to lift the soul.'
Tony Harrison's own explanation - "The process by which the Mystery Plays were originally created has been described as 'one of translation, accretion, adaption, revision1. It was in a similar fashion that I worked with the Cottesloe Company, offering myself as a Yorkshire poet who came to read the metre and to monitor the preservation of the play's Northern character."
Adapted from the Medieval Mystery Plays
