Cast & Creative Team for “The War in Heaven”

Posted on by under Drama, Historic, History, Mystery Plays, News, Production, York Mystery Plays 2026

We are excited to share the cast & creative team who are bringing forth The War in Heaven for the York Mystery Plays Festival 2026. Find out more about our production on our Current Projects page.

CAST
Angel EnsembleFreddie Amy
Fallen Angel EnsembleChristopher Bradshaw
1st AngelJacob Carhart
2nd Fallen AngelRobin Denley Bowers
3rd Fallen AngelOliver Eardley
LuciferColin Hayes
2nd AngelImogen Lisle-Clarke
GodEhren Mierau
3rd AngelWill Seddon
1st Fallen AngelSue Whyte
CREATIVE TEAM
DirectorLaura-Elizabeth Rice
DesignerLaura-Elizabeth Rice
ComposerSamuel Fernandes Morais
Musical DirectorSamuel Fernandes Morais
Puppet DirectorCatherine McRae
Assistant DirectorIrem Saticioglu

We are still seeking Waggon Crew for The War in Heaven – please see our Jobs & Opportunities page for details & to sign up.

Meet Our Puppet Director! An Interview with Catherine McRae

Posted on by under Design, Interview, Mystery Plays, York Mystery Plays 2026

Recently, I [Laura-Elizabeth Rice, director for “The War in Heaven”] sat down with Catherine McRae, our puppet director, to discuss making and working with puppets. HIDden has never really worked with puppets before, so this has been an exciting addition to our productoin. I’m deeply grateful for all the work Catherine is doing, as the puppet demons really are adding a lot to our Hell, and also for everything that I’m learning from her along the way. I want to preface this interview by candidly admitting that I probably didn’t know enough about the incredibly nuanced world that is puppetry as we started this show, and Catherine’s contributions have not only therefore been vital to the success of our puppets, they’ve also made me grow in perspectives as well. I hope you’ll find this interview as utterly fascinating and eye-opening as I did! [Note: this interview has been edited for brevity.]

So tell me about your background and what got you started in all of this. 

My background is as an actor, drama facilitator, puppeteer. And I’ve been interested in storytelling in one way or another for as long as I can remember. I did all the stuff you would expect- youth theatre, amateur dramatics, and went to uni to study it and uni was where I was formally introduced to puppetry. Since graduating, I’ve had various life experiences, which have led me to focusing on specific types of puppetry or specific communities I want to work with. 

What got you into theatre in the first place? 

I was very, very lucky that theatre was never uncommon or strange to me. My parents introduced me to theatre quite young so the option to get involved in theatre was always there for me. And I never lose sight of the fact that that is an enormous privilege, to have a family that are able to regularly take their kids to the theatre. Growing up, I also got to meet lots of different people from different backgrounds, which highlighted to me that actually, you are in quite a privileged position to just think that going to the theatre is a normal thing to do because there are clearly lots of people who don’t!

Why puppets specifically?

I grew up in the late 90s, early noughties, so there was quite a lot of puppetry around, particularly in British children’s television, because although you did get animation and CGI, it wasn’t anything like it is today. So [puppets] have always been in my life to some extent. The thing I find interesting about puppets is the reaction you get from other people. It’s often a very strong reaction- sometimes it’s a negative reaction, and sometimes it’s a positive reaction- but you always get a very strong reaction to puppets so as someone who’s interested in stories and storytelling, that was an interesting tool. And I also found myself focusing on puppetry for adults, [which] has an additional challenge…. You generally have to do a lot of work beforehand to suspend their disbelief and get them to believe in the puppet on stage, but when you do it, you end up with some really powerful pieces of theatre. I’ve seen productions that have used puppets to talk about really hard-hitting topics like the benefit system…. it gives you a way in to difficult topics that people may not connect with as much.

So what do you think it is about puppets that makes people react so-?

I use the word viscerally; whether good or ill- I think it depends on whether you hate them or like them. There’s a lot of iconography around puppets being in horror films and used for nefarious means, so I can understand the fear around puppets. And particularly the background [puppets] had: when shadow puppets were being made in places like China, [historically] it was an alchemist who would do them, so there was a sense of magic and something ethereal about them. If you like them, there’s something quite innocent about them, something quite open and vulnerable… and I think people respond to that really well.

When is the earliest puppetry that we’re aware of? I assume it’s going way back…

Something like 87 BC… they have always been around in some shape or form, particularly shadow puppetry. Then you’ve got marrionettes, which are a type of puppetry that came much later. There’s a lot of different types of puppetry that have originated from different spaces over time, but puppetry as a whole is something we’ve always been doing. 

What’s the best project that you’ve done? What’s your favourite among things you’ve worked on? 

A show I did for my dissertation when I was at university about fan culture and mental illness. I was doing a lot of the work myself and putting in the hours for that. There’s lots of other things I’ve done since that I’m very proud of. But I’d say that one is was sort of a big one, so to speak. 

What is the best thing about puppets and what’s the worst?

I think the best thing about puppets for me is getting to play with them [puppets]! I’m one of those people who, when I see a puppet, and I start playing with a puppet, I find it very hard to put it down. On several occasions, we’ve been playing with puppets, and someone has said, leave the puppets, come and sit down. And everybody else would dump their puppets and go and sit down. I would walk over with my puppet still breathing, still acting, and sit it on my lap as if it was listening to the conversation because I couldn’t put it down… I’d say the worst thing about working with puppets is that people have a lot of misunderstandings about puppetry and what is required to make a good piece of puppetry, it can sort of be trivialized and turn into people seeing puppets as glorified props and actually it’s a lot more complicated and requires a lot more skill than that!

I was really fascinated when you had [our puppet] Beelzebub in the rehearsal “breathing.” I know you’d mentioned breathing and I was thinking [of] our breathing and seeing you move him I realised he also breathes! I think my next question follows on from that- what do you think people should know about puppetry that they don’t know?

It’s more complicated than it looks, definitely. With certain types of puppetry people [realise] it’s complicated quite quickly. There are other types where people think it’s easy, but in practice, it’s actually really complicated. With shows like War Horse, the amount of physical stamina you need in order to do that is often understated…! Anyone can pick up an object and make it talk, but if you want people to believe it’s not a piece of paper talking, that takes a lot more work and a lot more skill.

 What are the biggest challenges in working with puppets? 

It would be the same kind of thing. Particularly if I’m the one puppeteering them it’s making sure that I get the support that I need. It’s not so much of a thing on this [project] because I’m not going to be operating the puppets so I can ensure that the actors are actually having enough time with [them] and they are getting the direction from me, but there have been times [when I’ve] needed that sort of guidance- when you’re behind the puppet often you’re not seeing what the audience is seeing, so having that outside eye is really helpful. The real challenge is the misunderstandings that other creatives can have about puppets and how that shows up in the rehearsal space.

Do you have a favourite puppet that you’ve ever made or worked with? 

Hopefully it’ll be one I’m making currently! 

Do you get emotionally attached to them once you’ve made them? 

You definitely get emotionally attached if you’re working with them and performing with them. But I think the connection is sometimes a bit different. A lot of the shadow puppetry I’ve done, for example, has been on film…. and it’s a lot more of a practical mindset. Obviously, there’s elements of creativity in there, but in terms of the emotional connection, it’s much more practical. Whereas if you’re having to physically inhabit something for a period of time you’re going to get emotionally attached…. There’s a difference between types in how you relate. I think particularly when you’re having to infuse an object with a character it’s-  I’m going slightly off topic here but I did a module at university, between the creative writing  and acting students. [We were] studying a play where a character kills another charecter, and there was this very strong divide of the writers going, “This person is evil, this person brings this girl to a place with the intention of killing her.”  The actors very much went, “No, this person is triggered during the conversation. Yes, he does a horrible thing, but ultimately he’s not an evil person,” and … the conclusion I came to was that writers can write particularly evil characters without inhabiting them, whereas if you have to inhabit that person night after night, you have to really think about what their thought process is and so you have to come up with some rationale for why you do evil things. All of that to say that when you’re having to really get into the character… there is that emotional attachment because you’ve been through it with that puppet or with that character.

Do you have any advice for anybody who wants to know more about puppets or get involved with them?

 I’d say just start playing with stuff. [Don’t assume] that you have to have a full-size Jim Henson-style puppet in order to start. It’s something that you can just play with. Practising the technique is super easy. Just grab whatever you’ve got and try and infuse it with a character. And there are some brilliant resources out there on puppetry. A lot of people will do a beginner’s course on puppetry. But also there’s a book called A Practical Guide to Puppetry by Mark Down that’s got lots of stuff about puppetry. I’d also say go and see as much puppetry as you can…. I guess it’s the same for every creative art: See it and do it. 

What kind of things go into creating puppets, designing them, ideas, processes? 

It changes, depending on the project…. When you’re making a puppet you have to think: what is the style of the production, are you making cute or scary puppets, animals or humans, performing indoors or outdoors, is it a large group or a small group- that will then impact how big your puppet needs to be, what types of materials you need, who’s actually puppeteering them. There’s quite a lot that goes into it. 

Thank you so much! This was so interesting! I’ve definitely learned a lot, I’m sure I’ll learn a lot more as the show goes on!

If you’d like to learn more about Catherine’s work, please follow her on Instagram (@cathymcraee). And come see The War in Heaven’s puppets live on 28 June and 5 July with the York Mystery Plays!

Behind the Scenes: Thousands of Feathers & Finger Painting

Posted on by under Design, Musings, York Mystery Plays 2026

For this week’s #MysteryPlaysMonday, “The War in Heaven”‘s designer talks about what’s going on with the costumes, and working with our brilliant crafting volunteers.

Do a Mystery Play, they said. It’ll be fun, they said. And truth be told, they were right! What they didn’t mention was the angel feathers… the thousands and thousands of angel feathers… the glitter… the marabou fluff… the shedding of a thousand fabrics… all of it trailing along after you, like some bizarre but fabulous slug trail. And that’s before we get to the paint. If this sounds like I’m complaining, I’m really not; it’s said with a smile. But there is no denying that making our costumes has been a messy process!

To be fair, we’re quite lucky. We had angels in our play in 2014 and we have angels in our play this year, and our angel costumes are in quite good shape, so we’re able to reuse them. I’m quite proud of our angel costumes- yeah, I’ve heard them referred to as the “chicken suits” but I stand by the many, many instances where medieval angels have feathered bodies. The trouble with the angel costumes isn’t the things themselves, it’s the fact that we simply don’t have enough of them. We have to make more. And that means: making lots of feathers.

There are many ways you can achieve feathers. Our angels’ large wings, beautifully crafted for York Theatre Royal, use foam and faux fur for their feathers. (We’re extremely pleased to have these wings on loan; they date from the 1992 production in the theatre, and thus connect our play today to a different strand of modern Mystery Plays history.) Our smaller wings are covered in actual bird feathers. Medieval angels likely had their costumes made our of leather and/or fabric. I decided that large-weave canvas was the ideal material, because I wanted something that would fray easily but wouldn’t do so in a stringy, tangled manner. Gold glitter-glue is used to give them some sparkle, but it serves a very functional purpose, making sure that the fraying of the edges of the feathers doesn’t extend to them falling apart. They look great at a distance (say, on a waggon!) but they’re quite tedious to make, especially the fraying part. In 2014 I lost all the feeling in my finger tips for about six months from fraying the costumes; this year I watched one of our volunteer costume makers use a seam ripper to do them quite efficiently and I was horrified that I hadn’t just done that! Sewing them on is no picnic, either, as one has a lapful of material with hundreds of feathers pinned on- which means hundreds of pins, ready to catch your legs, your arms, your hands, at any moment. It’s a bit like cuddling a porcupine.

Our fallen angels don’t get to look shiny and feathery- they’ve come through the fires of hell already, and they’re not pretty. A scour of York’s charity shops gave us the base pieces, and then the costume volunteers went to town! They literally tore the clothing apart, putting holes in the pieces, some of which were then patched with canvas mesh (saved from an old screen tent my family used to take camping- costuming is a lesson in never throwing things away!) or fabric painted to look bloody. We sewed on dangling strands of the same bloody material, while some pieces had the additions of chain or rope as well. All of them have some feathers, but they’re brown and black, “singed” from those hellfires. And then they all got painted: we set up a space where grown adults could pour paint on their hands and smash it all over the costumes. The painting experience was giving me flashbacks to early childhood: I could practically smell the finger paints my mum used to give me when I was a toddler. The results really worked: any shine on the fabric was dulled, and some of them really did look like the fallen angels had been through something- possibly a dung heap. If only we could figure out a way to make them smell the way they look….

Much of costuming, like theatre itself, is about trying things and seeing what works, but there are also times where experience lends knowledge that might be otherwise obscure. Simply mucking in with “finger paints” was a volunteer’s wise suggestion, and worked much better than using brushes. Another pearl from someone with excellent wardrobe credentials was to use coffee grounds for dirt on the costumes. As always, the volunteers bring their knowledge with them, and I learn things that are useful now and for the future. I also appreciate their willingness to get messy. Acting, of course, takes a certain amount of courage- but as someone who can’t stand having anything sticky or gritty on her hands, I think it takes some courage to wade into the messiness of costumes, as well! Not everyone enjoys this sort of thing, and I appreciate beyond measure the people who aren’t afraid to get messy with paint, or sit under a pile of pin-studded fabric, in order to achieve something fantastic. 

And I apologise to their families for sending them home trailing clouds of glitter. The Mystery Plays are for everyone… our angels’ glitter is, too.

Report from the Rehearsal Room

Posted on by under Musings, Drama, Mystery Plays, York Mystery Plays 2026

Welcome to another #MysteryPlayMonday! We’re well into rehearsals for “The War in Heaven”, so today the play’s director is sharing a bit of what we’re working on from behind the scenes.

By the time you see a performance, hopefully everything that happens feels, if not real, then at least natural. The conversation should feel real, not rehearsed; the movements should feel logical and organic, not choreographed. Obviously there are exceptions to this rule- actual choreography, dance, is clearly not spontaneous, despite what musical theatre might want you to believe!- but in the main, the performance should belie the many hours put in to make that happen.

And many hours there are! This week we had the whole cast in, and finally had a chance to really work on the blocking. For those who don’t do a lot of theatre, “blocking” means figuring out where everyone is going to stand, and when they’re going to move, and where, and why. It’s the choreography of everything that isn’t actually dance (or fights). Blocking can be as simple as telling a cast member “you stand there” to a far more complex series of movements involving dozens of people. In fact, in most cases, the more moving parts (people or motions) involved, the more tightly choreographed something is likely to be, to make sure that all of those many pieces sit comfortably together and look the way you want.

Many years ago, I worked with a director who had the entire show mapped out on paper, down to which direction she wanted the spoon to go when a character stirred her tea, and how many times it was to go around the cup. Although I applaud the thoroughness with which she had thought through the show, the experience was stifling for the actors, who had no ability to create the physical world for their own characters. The effect of that experience on me was that I like to go into rehearsals with some general notes about how I’d like things to look, and why, but it’s probably more loose than some people would prefer, as I want to give the cast maximum flexibility to contribute to the process (and to the solving of solutions when there’s a problem, because they should know what feels right for their version of their character better than I do!), and because I’m fully aware that what looks lovely inside my head may bump up against a physical reality that I haven’t anticipated, like just how many angels can dance on the bed of a waggon. 

Which is exactly what happened at “The War in Heaven” rehearsals this weekend. We have a fairly large cast, and only so much square footage The waggons seem big until you actually mark them out on the floor with tape, and then try to fit all your actors onto that rectangle. All of a sudden, things are very crowded. It’s “Mary, your foot is actually off the waggon!”, “Bob, your wing is poking someone in the face”, and the best laid plans just don’t… quite… work. So you change things, and change them again, and together with the cast you work through figuring out exactly how to bridge the gap between how you want things to look and how things can look. Our minds are awfully good at imagining that something is possible, even when it’s not, so you can’t be too hung up on everything going exactly the way it did in your head!

This can be either really challenging for a cast (“but I already learned it the other way!”), or satisfying (because their input is valued and they aren’t treated like a movable object), or both in turns. And sometimes working through a part means anyone not actively in that scene can spend quite a bit of time sitting on their hands. Our cast were really fantastic about being patient and walking through different solutions to the problem, which I thoroughly appreciate, and it’s my absolute belief that an end product that is the result of multiple people’s input is invariably better than what any one individual could come up with on their own.

The blocking is the physical manifestation of all the characters together interacting, but the acting itself is naturally a more individual matter, where each person has to find their own ideas about who they’re portraying and what makes them tick. We’ve been starting rehearsals by talking about and playing with the characters; I know “theatre games” have a reputation for being cheesy and unpleasant, but I’m not interested on some sort of “pretend you’re a toaster” nonsense, I want to see people really thinking themselves into their parts. One of the silly things we did last time was make our breakfast in character, and as nuts as that sounds, the results were great. God didn’t have to do anything- he could just make it appear. Lucifer had one of the fallen angels scrambling to make his eggs, rather than doing it himself. The fallen angels complained that their eggs cooked too fast, because hell is so hot, while at least one angel found that fire is a problem in heaven and so made porridge instead. Obviously the great Breakfast Scene is nowhere to be found in our play, but especially when working on amateur theatre, people understanding their world enough to make those choices- choices that technically go against the direction “cook some eggs” but are entirely character/situation appropriate!- is exactly the point of the exercise. 

These are just some of the pieces “in motion” as we get ready for the Mystery Plays. It’s a phenomenally complicated undertaking, and it’s a bit like Russian nesting dolls: the character work and the blocking are just two of the pieces which make up our play; there are nine other productions doing the same things, which together make up the whole; and at the top level there are all of the logistics, as well as making sure it all hangs together coherently. That’s not even to mention the festival events adjacent to the Plays (which you should definitely check out)! I hope by the time you see it all in performance that what you’ll see will be a seamless whole, an organism that lives and breathes as one entity… but know that it’s made of all the million little cells of people and work and ideas that we’re creating right now.

Introducing the Gild of Freemen of the City of York

Posted on by under History, Mystery Plays, News, York Mystery Plays 2026

This #MysteryPlayMonday we’re excited to talk about our partnership with the Gild of Freemen of the City of York, a local civic organisation build on medieval foundations with more than three decades of involvement with the modern Mystery Plays.

As we’ve previously mentioned, the play “The Fall of the Angels”, which this year has been rename “The War in Heaven”, was owned, in the Middle Ages, by the Tanners’ Guild. This organisation, made up of those men who worked in the creation of leather, has ceased to exist in the city (as indeed has the industry itself), and so we “represent” them only in the theatrical and historical sense.

Modern York does, however, continue to have guilds- largely industry-based fraternal organisations today- as do several other cities around the UK. In York, there are seven: the Merchant Taylors, the Merchant Adventurers, the Guild of Building, the Cordwainers, the Butcher, the Scriveners, and the Gild of the Freemen of the City of York. This last is unique among them, in that it is not based on a particular industry in which its members work; rather, its origins lie in the citizens who occupied a unique niche in the social and governmental hierarchy of England. 

Medieval freemen were a sort of proto-middle class, men who were not among the nobility but were not tied to land or lords as serfs, nor under indenture to a trade master. They were, literally, free: to move around, to establish a career, to farm land that they might rent or own, but to which they were not permanently tied. In order to join any guild, or to trade within the city, one first had to have the status of freeman. And those who had such status also had privileges like being allowed to graze their animals on the common land, which in York we know as the Strays. They had responsibilities, too: freemen had to pay taxes, maintain the city’s infrastructure, defend it if needed, and help manage the city and its trade. In time, freemen became the only residents eligible to vote. This menu of privilege and responsibility meant that freemen were often the officeholders of the city, and the ones in charge of its various functions, both civic and economic. 

In the Middle Ages, “freeman” was a status, but it wasn’t a group, or organisation, or guild unto itself. Their precise role changed over the centuries, but they were never a coherent, unified body. In 1953, however, the freemen of York came together and decided that their shared status would have greater meaning and usefulness to the city if they formed a formal organisation. The Gild of Freemen was thus established: a modern society built on ancient roots. 

In 1994, the Mystery Plays, having been revived on a quadrennial basis since 1951 as large, staged productions, were shifted back to their historic performance method: processional waggons performing in open air throughout the city of York. The city guilds once again became involved in the event, which had been a key part of their civic responsibility during the Middle Ages. The Gild of Freemen, however, did not “own” a play from the medieval period, as all members of all the guilds were simply “free men”. But, civic-minded as the members were, the Gild got involved anyway, pairing, as the other guilds did, with organisations and dramatic groups keen to be part of this special, very York event. In 1998 and 2006 they were responsible for  “The Temptation of Christ”, in 2002 the Gild partnered to stage “The Conspiracy Against Jesus”, and from 2010-2022 they settled into working on “The Fall of Man”, the story of Adam & Eve, with “Cain & Abel” as well in 2010. 

With the Gild’s mission being focused on the “enhancement of the City of York and the furtherance of the interest of its citizens”, they couldn’t choose a better project than supporting the Mystery Plays! Although seemingly small in scale (none of the plays are longer than half an hour, and waggons are obviously quite petite as stages) they are an enormous undertaking, and there is nothing else in the world quite like them. Hundreds of York residents, York-born and those who have adopted the city as home, take part, reflecting the rich tapestry of a city that punches far above its weight in terms of theatre and performance. Even those who don’t participate or even watch the Mystery Plays on their quadrennial outing seem to be aware, and proud, of this event. Moreover, as one had first to hold the status of freeman in medieval York before one was permitted to join a guild or trade in the city, in a sense the Freemen may feel a special connection to the plays, since they were, if not as a formal entity but as an idea, the foundation for all of the plays and those involved with them. 

We’re so pleased to be working with the Gild this year! Their history as something new built upon the shoulders of something deeply historic feels very close to our own story, and we share their deep affection for the beautiful city of York, which is certainly the home of our hearts if not always our bodies. It really does add an extra layer of connection to our production! We look forward to having members of the Gild process with us and our waggon during the performance days, and to working with them to add another proud chapter to the history of York.

If you’d like to know more about the Gild of Freemen of the City of York, please visit their website at freemenofyork.co.uk

First Rehearsals! and the Questions They Bring Up

Posted on by under Drama, Musings, Mystery Plays, York Mystery Plays 2026

A report from the wilds of Mystery Plays! It’s #MysteryPlaysMonday and our director for “The War in Heaven” has finished the first in-person rehearsal with some of our cast….

When does a production begin? It’s not like sports, where there’s a buzzer or a whistle or a bell, something to tell you, “They’re off!” Maybe it’s the moment the first idea arrives in someone’s head, or the first meeting where two people planning it sit down to swop ideas. Is it the first creative team meeting? The first call for auditions? There are many metrics you could use to help define it, and in almost all cases the beginning isn’t really when the work starts- certainly, by the time the actors walk through the door the first time, scripts in hand, ready to rehearse, a hell of a lot of work has already gone happened.

But emotionally, the first rehearsal still feels like a starting point. I won’t say it’s true of all productions, but in most cases the performers are the centre of the event. There’s that old line about drama, that all it takes is two planks and a passion, but you don’t even really need the planks: the passionate people who make up a performance are what you can’t do without.

Our Mystery Plays journey with “The War in Heaven” thus began with our reading, online, with everyone involved, just to get a sense of the text and the characters, just to dip our toes in the water. Online wouldn’t normally be the ideal way to do things, but it made it possible for several people to be “there” who couldn’t have been otherwise, and ideally everyone is involved from the very beginning and given a chance to feel welcome and a part of things. The truth is that not all parts of the Mystery Plays are equally involved- waggon crew comes in quite near the end, for example, and costume or prop makers may toil behind the scenes and rarely get to spend time with the cast, and yet we absolutely could not do this project without them. There may be small parts, but there are no expendable parts; even the smallest role in terms of time and effort is crucial. That’s the upside to starting online and easily accessible, it gives more people a chance to start from the same place.

The down side is that it is inevitably less dynamic, and getting to a rehearsal room is… well, there’s just nothing else like it! As we finally got to do today, when our Heavenly cast arrived (we’ll get to meet our Hellish denizens next week). We started off by talking a bit about our characters, brainstorming some different questions to ask of them, so that our angels in particular can start seeing their characters as individual, rather than generic.

If the angels have to work to create unique personalities in relatively few lines, Lucifer is almost too well-known, because it’s hard for us to forget what we know about him: that he winds up as God’s greatest adversary. He can’t start out that way, though, he has to begin virtuous and holy, like his brethren. We have to start by liking Lucifer, as we might any other angel; while the pace of the play means that the rot sets in quickly, we have to remember that it wasn’t always there, and that’s difficult when, culturally, we have the baggage of foreknowledge. Lucifer therefore has to really seduce the audience- not in the “sexy daemon” trope that I know exists, that’s not the choice we’ve made in this case- but convince them against their knowledge that he’s a normal angel, until he isn’t.

God’s character is, I think, quite clear in the text, and obvious in who he needs to be. His challenge is more about theology. I don’t want our play to become about theology, for although the story is Biblical the goal is not to preach but simply to tell a story about some characters, but it’s hard to avoid some of those thorny questions in imagining God. Why doesn’t he smite Lucifer down the very second he gets out of hand? Why does God pick Lucifer in the first place? (“God made a bad call” was one  brilliantly blunt answer that came out of rehearsal today.) If God is all-seeing, all-knowing, how does he miss the obvious point that Lucifer is going to go off the rails? There’s no way to answer these questions for our  character, without also acknowledging that these are questions that scholarly theologians have struggled with for centuries. If they haven’t been able to agree upon the answers to our questions, we’re unlike to do so in the short course of our rehearsals! And yet answers which make sense within the context of our play have to be found.

I’m sure everyone had been thinking about these things, but they really surface at early rehearsals, because they can make a difference in material ways. One of the things we toyed with was the question of where God is, while Lucifer is growing in arrogance. Surely, if God is sitting right there, next to him, he might tap Lucifer on the shoulder with a swift, “Hey, knock it off! Too far!” But he doesn’t… so at least from the standpoint of visual narration, God can’t directly see what’s going on, or else his inaction makes no sense. So where is God? When does he leave, and where does he go? This is a real, physical issue we have to solve because the audience has to understand what’s going, but the core of the question- why does God let Lucifer fall?- is also a pretty deep matter of theology and faith.

All these questions are swirling around in my brain after our first rehearsal- and we’ve only worked on half the play! The Hell cast will be in next, which will make for an interesting contrast; Hell is less of a theological thicket and more of a pure staging challenge for us. But, as just shown, that’s what I’m saying now. I may have many different thoughts and questions about Hell and its inhabitants once they’ve leaped off of the page! And those questions are how I know: we’ve officially, really and truly, begun.

Farces, Finale

Posted on by under Farces, Musings

It’s our final #FarcesFriday because the event is this Saturday night! (You can still get tickets, or get them at the door!) So today our farces’ director sums up the experience of preparing for them.

It’s so hard to believe we’ve arrived at the time when the farces will be performed, and put to bed, at least for now. They’ve been quite a journey, from an idea just being thrown around, through an incredible amount of preparation, to tomorrow evening!

The farces started even more embryonic than most of our productions, because I had no real familiarity with either French medieval drama or comedy in general in a historic context. We knew we wanted to start moving outside of the English medieval niche, but not going too far: something with a small cast, at a small scale, seemed a good way to get back on the metaphorical horse. Going through my bookshelves and pulling one of Jody Enders’ volumes off the shelf, I realised what a treasure-trove existed in French farces, and they ticked all the boxes: small casts, short skits, comedy, and not a deity in sight. 

Once we had settled on farces in general, and chosen our pair in particular, the academic excavation began. I liked these plays, but what did we know about them that might change how we approached them? There’s an irony in there somewhere, because these are not deep, intellectual plays that require a heavy academic hand; they’re pieces of fun and fluff, largely, pure entertainment for its own sake.

And yet working on these plays, I have learned so much, which I have hopefully distilled into smaller bites to share with you in these weekly posts! French medieval theatre is so remarkably different from English, more than I would have expected. I have still not ascertained why there doesn’t seem to be any visible exchange across the Atlantic, at a time when the two countries were interacting quite a lot (albeit not necessarily very pleasantly), or why culturally the French valued humour, and secular humour at that, in a way that doesn’t quite seem to have been the case in England.

It was dismaying to read through many farces, only to discover how violent they were. Perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did- it was so prevalent that I rather struggled to find plays where that wasn’t a dominant feature. Violence often features in English plays, as well, but not so relentlessly. I think it’s still possible to perform those plays if they’re handled very delicately, but it isn’t something I personally wanted to do, so we moved on and kept digging to find the plays that we have, which are also, in my opinion, two of the best anyway. And that’s another thing worth noting about medieval French farces: with so many of them surviving, their quality is uneven, and not all of them are necessarily worth performing today. (Just because it’s old doesn’t always mean it’s good is sometimes a hard thing for a history lover to say! But it remains true.)

Women came off as poorly as you might expect from something written in the 14th century, and yet we have Guillemette, who accurately points out her husband Pierre Pathelin’s flaws, but who seems to have a marriage largely based on mutual aims and a degree of respect. Jacquinot and Jacquinette, our Washtub couple, could learn some lessons from them. And it could be argued that for them, as well as marriages in other farces, nobody comes out ahead- the women may be stereotyped as cranky nags or adulteresses, but the men are often stereotyped as lumpen idiots, who deserve what they get. It’s a negative egalitarianism, but it’s arguably present.

Indeed, one of the hallmarks of the farces writ large is that very nearly everyone is a bit scandalous- the moral universe of the farces is indeed a perverse one, where everyone is cheating, failing, or flailing. True success and decency just don’t exist here; moral ambiguity is as good as it gets. But perhaps that’s one of the attractive things about them: even as stereotypical, stock characters, the better among the farces know that their characters can’t simply be hateful or saintly, we have to sympathise with their plights even when they handle them badly, because they’re only funny if there is just enough humanity in them to be recognisable. In its way, this comes closer to modern characters, with motivations and nuances, than some of the more reverent religious dramas.

One of things we haven’t learned yet, but hope to this weekend, is how well they stand up as text. Many of the farces really do need a lot of zany, antic staging to make sense. We suspect, and hope, that the two we’ve chosen have enough narrative heft within the dialogue to prove entertaining. I don’t think you need to lard lots of extra sight gags on to them, and in fact I think you may detract from the core of these plays and their characters if you go overboard on staging jokes. We’ll see if this is the right approach or not when we get the plays in the mouths of actors this weekend!

I’m so excited to see what people will do with these wonderful characters! They may not be as deeply written a something out of a modern drama, but they’re fun and they’re funny and they’re sympathetic in their own strange way. While I don’t believe that all stories or characters need to be “relatable” there is something quite charming about realising that some things don’t change. Spouses still bicker over petty things like laundry. Lawyers still have shady reputations- maybe sometimes with good reason! People still try to see what they can get away with on a regular basis, flattery can still be pretty successful in running a scheme and a cheat, in-laws can still stick their noses in and make things awkward. All of this could have been written last week and have been just as amusing.

I’ll miss the farces. I won’t miss wrestling through my limited, struggling French… but I can read a lot more of it than I could a year ago! I’ll miss working on plays that make me laugh more than, despite evidence to the contrary, they make me think. They have been a bit of a vacation into a celebration of laughter and the ridiculous, which is not a place where I spent much time, and it’s been a breath of fresh air. Maybe someday we’ll come back and revisit a more fully staged version, but until that happens, it is indeed a bit sad to say au revoir to the Pathelins and the Jacquinots. But I want to bring this in with a smile… so I think I’ll go read the plays again once more. Then I’ll be sure to end this with a laugh.

An Assembly of Angels

Posted on by under Academic Curiosity, Musings, Mystery Plays, York Mystery Plays 2026

Continuing last week’s #MysteryPlayMonday theme of heavenly beings, this week our play’s director looks at the angels in “The War in Heaven”.

What is an angel?

I suspect most people have some quick answer on this one. A basic concept of something like an angel, even if it doesn’t go by that name, exists fairly cross-culturally, and you’d be especially hard-pressed in the Western world for “angels” as an idea to have escaped your notice. Yet when I thought about it, I realised that I had a couple conflicting answers within my own sphere of reference. Angels are, in general, God’s messengers, the intermediaries who communicate with humans on his behalf. Some may serve a guardian function, and some are reputed to escort the recently deceased into heaven. These angels, therefore, are a part of heaven that is and always has been supernatural. Contradictorily, however, the idea that people become angels upon their death is also in circulation, something children are told as a way of helping them make sense of their early experiences of personal loss. And then, to compound matters, some angels seem to get mixed up with saints.

Though the modern world is not immune to the lure of angels as a phenomenon, they rarely come in for the sort of in-depth study that was in vogue among theological circles in the Middle Ages, hitting a high point in the thirteenth century. “Angelology” was considered a genuine branch of science, a rigorous, academic study of the beings who are God’s attendants and helpers, and those who studied them went incredibly in depth in trying to make sense of what angels were and were not. 

Although there was much debate about it, for our purposes, angels are embodied beings, complete with wings (the evolution of angels, their wings, and ideas about what they look like could be an entire separate essay!). At the time-out-of-time of our play, they are only future emissaries to humanity, because humanity does not yet exist; for the same reason, they cannot be the heavenly incarnations of the earthly deceased. Our angels have two clear functions: they are to be companions for God, and to worship him.

This is, presumably, in addition to any specialised duties they might possess, for the same theologians who argued for or against angels possessing corporeal bodies also devised a system for organising varying species, if you will, of angelic beings. The Bible mentions ‘angels’ and ‘archangels’, ‘cherubim’ and ‘seraphim’ in both testaments; these are clearly angels that are different from one another in some way. Colossians 1:16 may add to their ranks: “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers…” I confess that I struggle to see this as a listing of further supernatural beings and fail to see why this can’t reference earthly things (read in place of those words: ‘whether they be governments, or kingdoms, or states, or rulers’ to understand what I’m getting at), but medieval angelologists read that passage as listing more angelic types. And thus was born the Nine Order of Angels, a hierarchy of heavenly beings who served distinct functions for God. That seraphim and cherubim were in the “top tier” of this, while archangels and angels were at the bottom, is the one thing theologians more or less agreed on; the rest- thrones, powers, dominions, principalities, and virtues (the last of which seems to have been added outside of Biblical precedent, perhaps simply to make up the number nine)- are ranked differently by different theologians, in the middle. Most of them are depicted as feathered and winged human forms, but Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones (usually the highest trio) look least like humans, possessing multiple wings, faces, and hands. 

There are two implications for all of this with regard to our play. The first is that our angels do not need to- in fact, probably shouldn’t- be identical. We can represent different types of angels, including angels that don’t appear as humans. The second is that our angels can be not only distinct physically, we can look at the script and see how it might suggest different characters. This latter is especially important for actors, but also uniquely challenging: how can you be an individual when, by definition, you exist with the purpose of “praising God”? I would argue that it’s in how you choose to read the script, and what subtleties you can create out of it. One angel seems to praise God for the beauties and blessings of heaven, while another finds their own angelic existence awe-inspiring. A third simply feels grateful to be proximate to the deity. These are different focuses and can suggest different personalities. And let us not forget the fourth angel, at the start of the play: Lucifer begins as an angel (some angelic hierarchies consider him a tenth type; others suggest that he was either a cherub or a seraph), so there must be something different about him which makes him vulnerable to his own ego, while the angels who follow him must also possess, or be lacking, some essential quality that leads to their downfall.

In addition to their relationship with God, we may consider how the angels relate to one another, in trying to make sense of them as personalities. The good angels must be bewildered by the abandonment of their brethren, an abandonment which takes place both in presence and in ideology. If you are an angel whose greatest character note is “grateful to be near God”, how would you feel about a sibling angel who deliberately chose to turn away from God and worship someone else? Does heaven feel strangely empty without the angels who have fallen? What does the fact of their fall mean for you own angelic capacity to fail? Sorrow, anger, confusion… these are emotional options for the post-fall angels that actors can pick up and run with. I don’t buy these angels as mindless drones who can only praise God and nothing else; if that were the case, either the fall itself would be impossible (which it clearly isn’t) or it would be meaningless, for if the angels have no choice there is no virtue in their decision to follow God rather than Lucifer. The question of angelic free will is another favourite among those who study them and their biblical precedents, but in our play I think it has to be read as present.

For our angels, the answer to “what’s my motivation” may start with “to paise God”, but it doesn’t end there. And that’s what makes “The War in Heaven” a little bit different, and hopefully for those actors a whole lot more fun.

A Farce Bibliography, Part 2

Posted on by under Academic Curiosity, Farces, French Farces, Musings

Continuing from our last #FridayFarces, here is the second installation of our farce director’s lengthy reading list!

If last week wasn’t enough book list for you, here is the second half, which includes most, though possibly not all, of the editions which I consulted in trying to carve out our translation. I don’t assume you’d want to read all of these, or possibly any, but I have once again put asterisks by those books that were especially helpful in getting my head around this project, and at the bottom you’ll find a list of editions that were consulted in preparing our translation. I sincerely hope that our plays will have a similar effect on you that they did on us: a kindling of curiosity, a window that beckons towards you and whispers, “I want to know more about this.”

Jacob, P.L. Recueil de Farces, Soties et Moralites du Quinzieme Siecle. (1859) Adolphe Delahays: Paris.

** Knight, Alan E. Aspects of Genre in the Late Medieval French Drama. (1983) Manchester University Press: Manchester. 

Knight, Alan E. “The Condemnation of Pleasure in Late Medieval French Morality Plays”, The French Review, Vol. 57 No. 1 (1983), pp. 1-9.

Knight, Alan E. “The Medieval Theatre of the Absurd”, PMLA, Vol. 86, No. 2 (1971), pp. 183-189.

Koopmans, Jelle & Darwin Smith. “Un Théâtre ‘Français’ du Moyen Âge?”, Mèdièvales, No. 59 (2010), pp. 5-16.

Koopmans, Jelle. “La farce, genre noble aux prises avec la facètie?”, Cahiers de recherches médiévales et humanistes, Vol. 32 (2016), pp. 147-163.

Kramer, Femke. “How to Deal With Farces?” Medieval English Theatre, Vol. 21 (1999), pp. 66-78.

Langle, Paul Fleuriot de. Les sources du comique dan “Maître pathelin”. (1926), Librairie du Roi René: Angers, France.

Lejeune, Rita. “Pour Quel Public ‘La Farce de Maistre Pierre Pathelin’ A-T-Elle Été Rédigée?”, Romania Vol. 82 No. 328 (1961), pp. 482-521.

Lemercier, P. “Les Éléments Juridiques de ‘Pathelin’ et la Localisation de l’oeuvre”, Romania vol. 73 No. 290 (2) (1952), pp. 200-226.

Lewicka, H. “Pour la Localisation de la Farce de M e Pathelin”, Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, T. 24 No. 2 (1962), pp. 273-281.

Maddox, Donald. “The Morphology of Mischief in ‘Maistre Pierre Pathelin'”, L’Esprit Créateur, Vol. 18 No. 3 (1978), pp. 55-68.

Maddox, Donald. The Semiotics of Deceit: the Pathelin Era. (1984) Associated University Presses: Lewisburg, PA and London.

Manzour, Charles. “Vingt ans de recherches sur le théâtre du xvie siècle: deuxième partie: le théâtre comique, les genres nouveaux, les spectacles de cour, le théâtre scolaire”, Nouvelle Revue du XVIe Siécle, Vol. 17 No. 2 (1999), pp. 301-318.

Maskett, David. “The Aesthetics of Farce: ‘La Jalousie du Barbouillé”, The Modern Language review, Vol. 29 No. 3 (1997), pp. 581-589.

Meyerhold, Vsevolod & Nora Beeson. “Farce”, The Tulane Drama Review, Vol. 4 No. 1 (1959), pp. 139-149.

Nitzie, William A. & Preston Dargan. A History of French Literature. (1938) Holt, Rinehart & Winston: New York.

Norland, Howard B. “Formalizing English Farce: Johan Johan & Its French Connection”, Comparative Drama (1983), pp. 141-152.

Oliver, Thomas Edward. “Some Analogues of Maistre Pierre Pathelin”, The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 22 No. 86 (1909), pp. 395-430.

Peters, Edward et al. “A Feast of Law: A Symposium on the Teaching of Medieval Legal History”, The History Teacher, Vol. 22 No. 1 (1988), pp. 7-31.

Philipot, Emmanuel. “Remarques et Conjectures sur le Texte de ‘Maistre Pierre Pathelin'”, Romania, Vol. 56 No. 224 (1930), pp. 558-584.

Picot, Émile. Recueil Général des Sotties (3 vols.). (1968) Librairie de Firmin Didot et Cie: Paris.

Pinet, Christopher. “French Farce: Printing, Dissemination and Readership from 1500-1560”, Renaissance and Reformation, Vol. 3 No. 2 (1979), pp. 111-132.

Redmond, James, ed. Farce. (1988) Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

Roques, Mario. “Notes sur ‘Maistre Pierre Pathelin’: I: Manger de l’Oie”, Romania, Vol. 57 No. 228 (1931), pp. 548-560.

Roy, Bruno. “Quand les Pathelin Achètent du Drap”, Médiévales, No. 29 (1995), pp. 9-22.

Schaumburg, K., et al. La Farce de Patelin et Ses Imitations. (1889) C. Klincksieck: Paris.

Schoell, Konrad. “Humour in Farce, Sotie and Fastnachtspiel“, European Medieval Drama, No. 4 (2000), pp. 9-22.

Schreiber, Cècile. “L’Univers compartimenté du théâtre médiéval”, The French Review, Vol. 41 No. 4 (1968), pp. 468-478.

Schumacher, Joseph. Studien Zur Farce Pathelin. (1911) C. Hinstorff: Rostock, Germany.

Segre, Cesare & John Meddemmen. “Maistre Pathelin: Manipulation of Topics and Epistemic Lability”, Poetics Today, Vol. 5 No. 3 (1984), pp. 563-583.

Small, Graeme. Late Medieval France. (2009) Palgrave Macmillan: New York.

Smith, Darwin. “About French Vernacular Traditions: Medieval Roots of Modern Theatre Practices”, Journal of Early Modern Studies, No. 8 (2019), pp. 33-67.

Smith, Darwin. Maistre Pierre Pathelin: Le Miroir d’Orgueil. (2002) Tarabuste: Saint-Benoit-du-Sault.

Stephenson, Robert C. “Farce as Method”, The Tulane Drama Review, Vol. 5 No. 2 (1960), pp. 85-93.

Symes, Carol. “The Appearance of Early Vernacular Plays: Forms, Functions, and the Future of Medieval Theatre”, Speculum Vol. 77 No. 3 (2002), pp. 778-831.

Urwin, Kenneth. “Pathelin ‘Pendable'”, The Modern Language Review, Vol. 42 No. 3 (1947), pp. 359-361.

Watkins, John H. “The Date of the ‘Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles'”, The Modern Language Review, Vol. 37, No. 4 (1942), pp. 485-487.

EDITIONS

Allen, John. Three Medieval Plays. (1953) Heinemann Educational Books: London.

Bowen, Barbara C. Four Farces. (1967) Basil Blackwell: Oxford.

Champion, Richard T. Maistre Pierre Pathelin. (1970) Librairie Honore Champion: Paris.

Coustelier, Antoine Urbain. La farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin. (1723) Antoine-Urbain Coustelier: Paris.

Dondo, Mathurin. Pathelin et Autres Pièces. (1924) D.C. Heath & Company: Boston.

Dufournet, Jean. La Farce de Maître Pierre. (1986) Flammarion: Paris.

Eliot, Samuel A. (ed.). Little Theatre Classics, Vol. 2. (1920) Little, Brown & Company: Boston.

Enders, Jody. Trial by Farce. (2023) University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor.

Faivre, Bernard. Les Farces Moyen Age et Renaissance, Vol. 1. (1997) Imprimerie Nationale: [unknown].

Fournier, Edouard. La Vraie Farce de Matire Pathelin. (1881) E. Dentu: Paris.

Frappier, Jean & A.M. Gossart. Le Theatre Comique au Moyen Age. (1935) Larousse: Paris.

Gassies, G. Anthologie du Théatre Français du Moyen Age. (1925) Librairie Delagrave: Paris.

Hankiss, János. Farce Nouvelle. (1925) JHE Heitz, GE Stechert & Co.: New York.

Harden, A. Robert. Trois Pièces Médiévales. (1967) Meredith Publishing Co.: New York.

Holbrook, Richard T. Master Pierre Pathelin. (1914) Walter H. Baker & Co: Boston.

Holbrook, Richard. The Farce of Master Pierre Patelin. (1905) Riverside Press: Cambridge, MA.

Jacob, P.L. La Farce de Maitre Pathelin. (1876) Librairie des Bibliophiles: Paris.

Jagendorf, Moritz. The Farce of the Worthy Master Pierre Patelin. (1949) Walter H. Baker Co.: Boston, MA. 

Jodogne, Omer. Maître Pierre Pathelin. (1983) Peeters: Louvain, Belgium.

Leteissier, Anne. La Farce de Maître Pierre Pathelin. (2001) Magnard: Paris.

Malaunoy, Marion de. Maistre Pierre Pathelin: Hystorie, Reproduction en Fac-smile. (1904) Librairie de Firmin Didot Etc.: Paris.

Marin, Fanny. La Farce de Maître Pathelin. (2000) Hachette Livre: Paris.

Pickford, C.E. La Farce de Maistre Pierre Pathelin. (1967) Bordas: Paris.

Picot, Guillaume. La Farce de Maistre Pathelin. (1972) Librairie Larousse: Paris.

Relonde, Maurice. The Farce of the Worthy Master Pierre Patelin, the Lawyer. (1917) R.G. Badger: Boston.

Robert-Busquet, L. Farces du Moyen Age. (1942) Lanore: Paris.

Snook, Lee Owen. The Fourth Yearbook of Short Plays. (1938) Row, Peterson & Co.: Evanston, IL.

Tissier, André. Farces du Moyen Age. (1984) Flammarion: Paris.

Unknown. The Village Lawyer. (1809) D. Longworth: New York. 

On Being God

Posted on by under Academic Curiosity, Musings, Mystery Plays, York Mystery Plays 2026

As we get started with our rehearsals and our cast, we’ll be sharing some of our thoughts on who the characters in our play are. This #MysteryPlayMonday, we’re kicking this off with reflections on God- what makes ours unique, and what challenges the part offers for an actor, medieval or modern.

Playing God, in the dramatic sense, must always have come with challenges, maybe even more so in the Middle Ages when acting wasn’t a profession in the way we know it, and faith and religion were so woven into the fabric of everyday life that they almost didn’t exist as separate concepts. If you were a medieval tanner playing God, for one day in the middle of the British summer, what did that mean?

Well, what does it mean today? 

The theological implications of that question aren’t actually more readily apparent today than they are from six hundred years ago; the very concept of a deity will vary from person to person (and possibly from moment to moment within the same person!), and I suspect to at least a degree that was true even back then. The character of God, in a religious sense, even varies within the Biblical source text: the dichotomy between the vengeful, often condemnatory God of the Old Testament versus the “love thy neighbour” doctrines preached in the New, and that frustrating issue of making sense of a trinitarian God who is both the same entity as Jesus, and separate.

But the God of the Mystery Plays, or rather the Gods in them, can be pinned down somewhat more readily because we can simply choose to read them as characters in a script, without the bigger implications coming into the conversation. It’s unlikely that medieval guildsmen would have taken this approach But for us, it’s far more useful. And because each group presents its own play, in somewhat atomised circumstances (we don’t get together to agree on using identical costumes, for example) we can see the Gods who appear in different plays as different versions, as well. 

Medieval drama can be difficult for modern actors, used to looking for more rounded characters who have imagined histories and subtexts; medieval plays weren’t written that way, their characters are designed to fulfil a “type” rather than be seen as specific individuals. But the God in “The War in Heaven” is one of the more complex iterations of the deity. He begins by way of introduction: “I am gracious and great… /All might is in me…/ I am life, the way unto wealth winning/ I am foremost and first. As I bid, shall it be.” This may, in the story, be entirely true, but it’s not exactly humble. God doesn’t need to be humble, of course, simply by virtue of being God. But as the play moves on, we have Lucifer saying, “All wealth do I wield. So wise is my wit.” These… aren’t terribly different words from God’s. And yet Lucifer can’t be holy and God can’t be arrogant. What makes them different, for a viewer, beyond “God is right because he’s God, Lucifer is wrong because he’s Lucifer”? To say that the audience has to like God feels absurd, because the idea that “God = good” and “good = something I should like, maybe without question” is so baked in to our culture. But from a theatrical standpoint, we can’t ever assume that audiences will just do something, we have to give them a reason and make our case for it, dramatically. Our audiences have to like God enough to empathise with him.

One thing which sets apart God from Lucifer is that God is a creator. He’s making Heaven, creating a world and the beings in it, contributing. Lucifer isn’t; all he does is boast. He may say that “above all shall I be building” but he doesn’t actually do it (and presumably he can’t). Put another way, God’s putting his money where his mouth is; he can back up his words. Lucifer has nothing to put behind his bragging. To quote from the musical Rent, “the opposite of war isn’t peace, it’s creation”: Lucifer simply isn’t adding anything to the sum total of the world, and that automatically makes God’s claims to being “foremost and first”, borne out through his actions, superior.

God’s reaction after Lucifer’s fall (our play does not show him explicitly “cast down to hell” by God) can be read several ways, giving actors lots of choices to make. Is he angry, or sorrowful? Does he feel betrayed, or disappointed? How do Lucifer’s choices make him view what he has created- is everything now marred by what has happened, because Paradise was not, in fact, perfect? Are we looking at an Old Testament God of fury and punishment, or a New Testament deity who actually wants to be forgiving, if Lucifer would only humble himself enough to ask? Maybe it’s a mixture of some or all of these!

I personally think the simple fact that these choices are available at all suggests that, rather than a majestic, magisterial God On High, the God of “The War in Heaven” is quite a human God, capable and willing to have complex emotional responses to events and to himself. And that’s what helps the audience see that, even in moments when his words may seem similar to Lucifer’s, God’s are reaching out, to them, the mortals watching the play, effectively saying ‘I am creating all of this for you’. This is not the wildly white-maned, aged, authoritative deity of, say, the Sistine Chapel painting. This God is, subtly, a reminder that in Christian theology he is also the same entity as Jesus; the seeds of his incarnation in mortality are planted from the very beginning, from within himself.

Unless a miraculous personal diary surfaces someday, telling us about the inner thoughts of a medieval tanner in York who held this role, we will never know if he might have thought about any of this, and given the distance in theology from a pre-Reformation world to ours, it seems unlikely. But medieval Catholicism did encourage people to think on the humanity of Jesus and his followers, rather than viewing them as almost too holy to have been real. (We probably wouldn’t have the Mystery Plays if a more Victorian touch-me-not religion had been dominant at the time!) So it’s not so difficult, really, to imagine a tanner, faced with the daunting task of playing God one warm summer day, contemplating how he’d feel in God’s place. After all, for that one Corpus Christi Day, on the waggon, God’s place was, for a moment, his.