Author Archives: ismurphy

Performance for Christmastime: An American At Pantomime

Posted on by under Academic Curiosity

Our Artistic Director continues her seasonal exploration of performance during times of traditional celebration – particularly those at Christmas – this week she reflects on Pantomime through her eyes as someone brought up outside the UK.

Every year, as the holidays roll in, so does one of the most uniquely British phenomena: the pantomime. And every year I think about what an interesting phenomenon it is, and wonder if, as an American, I will ever fully understand it.

America doesn’t have it. The word exists, but in America it means ‘miming a performance, without speech’, not a beloved Christmas tradition. In that sense it shares at least a root with the British version. But as a form of performance itself, “pantomime” simply doesn’t exist in America. So I didn’t see it until I was in my thirties, thereby probably missing out on a certain aspect of magic which is dependent upon the nostalgia of the childhood theatrical experiences.

The only pantomime I’ve seen is that of York Theatre Royal. I’m lead to understand (it was even mentioned in a recent lecture on Victorian Pantomime I attended, which took place in London) that this one is quite a unique thing unto itself, an especially remarkable version of the form. I’ll be honest: I went in a bit warily. My expectations included words like “zany”, “absurd” and “over the top”. I’m not sure those words were wrong, just that they were only a tiny part of the picture. As an American I’m still not sure I understand pantomime, but I’m also not convinced that my British friends and colleagues understand it either. It’s not about understanding. It’s about doing what comes hardest to me – giving up the need to analyse, and just entering into the spirit of the thing. And if you can do that, it’s really something quite special.

Like much British comedy, pantomime is a mixture of physical, slapstick comedy, and really intelligent humour. The topicality of it is remarkable, and possibly not more than a handful of the audience gets 100% of the jokes. In fact, trying to keep track of the variety of references can be a game in itself. If you want to “get” all of pantomime, you’d better be well up on your news-watching, pop culture, non-pop culture, theatre and music etc. It really does have something for everyone. If you want to see someone get dropped into a tank of water, you’ll get it (at least at York Theatre Royal); if you want to play “how many music theatre jokes can someone work into an evening”, you can do that, too. It’s that mixture that makes it different from a lot of American comedy, where things tend toward either “high” or “low” comedy, without the same mixing of the two; they play to different audiences, and there probably isn’t anything as universally appreciated as the pantomime.

I’m told that performers will test out their audiences at the opening of the night, and adjust the improvisational elements of their performance in accordance to whether the patrons seems engaged or “dead”, sleepy or excited. And they periodically talk to the audience, directly, while at certain points it is completely expected – almost scripted – that the audience will talk back. That kind of interaction within a “traditional” (as opposed to experimental or avant garde) production would be very uncommon in America – the only analogy I can think of is the way people go to screenings of Rocky Horror, which, being a film, isn’t the same thing at all.

This comparison brings me to the aspect of pantomime that probably makes it the hardest to translate to America: the Pantomime Dame. The notion that there’s just something inherently funny in a man dressing up as an elderly woman doesn’t translate across the Atlantic. Drag in America is almost always coded in terms of sexuality, which isn’t really the point in pantomime. I find it quite refreshing, actually, that it can be a simple exercise in the ludicrous, without mocking any particular group or lifestyle.

Ultimately, I’m not sure that pantomime is something I’ll ever fully appreciate. I think you have to grow up with it (and this may be especially true at York Theatre Royal, where people attend annually for years, even decades; it references previous years in the entirely reasonable assumption that much of the audience will remember). But what really sold me on it was the sheer joy of the performers. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen actors having so much unabashed fun in their work. You simply couldn’t watch it and not catch that kind of contagious enthusiasm. I was watching people break an awful lot of the rules of theatre that I was raised with, and they were selling it like hotcakes, and we were all buying. If letting go of any meanness or pettiness, if replacing them with joy and delight and laughter, is what the holidays are meant to be about, I can think of no greater example than the pantomime.

Performance for Christmastime: The Nativity Play

Posted on by under Academic Curiosity

With the holiday season upon us, our Artistic Director has been thinking about the ways that performance is so often linked to our celebratory traditions. So for the next few weeks she’ll be musing on the history and continuation of those events. While they may not be the kind of theatre we tend to work on at HIDden, who knows how their influence may be felt upon our own projects!

Among the many traditions of the Christmas season, there is one to bring either joy or dismay into the hearts of all involved, largely dependent upon their age and relationship to the event. This is the Nativity Play, a staple of primary and Sunday schools throughout Britain and, to a lesser extent, America. Young children get excited at the prospect of putting on a play; the adults may heave a sigh at the prospect of the cat-herding that will be involved, and grin and bear it for the delight that their offspring have in the process. From a professional or commercial standpoint it is a stretch to consider this holiday phenomenon “theatre”, but it is inarguably one of the most common performative traditions associated with the holidays – and, one suspects, the first occasion when many professional performers trod the boards! There is also a fairly good likelihood that their existence owes something to the medieval drama traditions of so many centuries earlier, and their sudden revival at the turn of the twentieth century.

Christmas play-making has an extensive history. Performance has always been part of the holidays, particularly at the royal courts. Perhaps surprisingly, these were generally not the religious story of the Nativity. They were also performed for and by the adults, but we do well to remember that children were treated as mini-adults, without particularly special consideration, until the Victorians came along. One might therefore guess that it would be the nineteenth century which created the nativity play as we know it today, but thus far I’ve found no evidence of them until the early twentieth century. Possibly this is owing to the Victorian wariness about showing the deity on stage, an issue still effectively legally curtailed until the 1950s. The Victorians tended to hold sacred things as precisely that, and the idea of entrusting their performance to children would likely have been met with a cold reception, if the idea of performing holy things was even seriously considered.

The beginning of the twentieth century brought on a new interest in reviving medieval drama on the professional level (William Poel’s 1901 Everyman leading the way), and a general trend towards religious drama on the whole followed in its wake. Perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the first modern religious plays to be performed after it was about the Nativity. Dramas of faith began to proliferate, and church groups had an advantage when it came to staging them: as private organisations, they were exempt from the censorship laws. Another factor which probably fed the development of nativity plays was the fashionable pageant, a large-scale community spectacle which was popular during precisely the same time. Both children and adults were frequently involved in these events, which usually presented episodes of local history in a chronological progression. In fact, performing as a serious hobby seems to have been very much a part of life in those pre-television years, with drama groups of all sorts springing up across Great Britain.

By the mid-1920s, scripts for Nativity plays which were not dependent upon a medieval antecedent were beginning to emerge. These weren’t necessarily for children – when they became the province of the young remains elusive, although it seems possible that the disruption of World War II, and the quickened pace of life which followed it, may be a turning point in that direction. Certainly it makes sense that Christmas should be the particular occasion for drama: its purely festive atmosphere lends itself to play making in a way that is not true of Easter (inevitably accompanied by the sombreness of Good Friday). Moreover, family members are more likely to turn out if one of their children is in the play, making it a good chance to re-engage with those who aren’t normally involved in the church community otherwise. And it’s a story which, even if somewhat anarchic due to the very young age of participants, will still be sufficiently familiar to the audience.

Given its ubiquity, it might be expected that the nativity play would be the product of a long and richly documented history, but one of the interesting aspects of considering its history is the way that it reflects a common problem among theatre history studies. By virtue of being a true “folk” play, something put together by ordinary people among their own, for their own small community, it remains largely undocumented. The folk plays of medieval England are almost entirely lost to us; so it seems likely to be with the nativity play in the future. There are innumerable events every winter, yet practically no trace of them after the fact. Seemingly eternal yet ultimately elusive – perhaps this renders them a good metaphor for both the childhood which is so much at their heart, and the truths of faith which are their theme.

In Memoriam: Remembering Charles Hunt

Posted on by under News

Theatre can be a strange social world. As often as not, due to the off-kilter hours, the particular demands, and the immense dedication it takes, it becomes one’s life, not just one’s work. Friends within that world matter especially, because they understand it. But friendships within theatre are also sometimes peculiar. It creates intimacy rapidly, but its usually transient nature means that those friendships frequently don’t remain close. The ones that do manage to stick, however, become precious. So the loss of those people is keenly felt.

On the morning when we were waking up for the day of the Mankind performance, we were greeted with the sad news of the death of Charles Hunt, an actor with whom the HIDden team has worked for several shows. We were looking forward to seeing him at the performance, and so it came as quite a shock. Our last communications were his offer to loan us costumes if we needed them, and his good wishes for the show; which he hoped to attend. That, right there, summed up Charles. He was always supportive, always encouraging, and enthusiastic about medieval drama in a way that is somewhat uncommon outside of the academic community.

The comments which poured onto his Facebook page, maintained by his family, all seemed to speak of the two most profound qualities with which we too remember him: Charles was a true gentleman, and a devoted theatre person. It always seemed fitting that, at Christmastime, he annually portrayed Charles Dickens for evenings of dramatic readings; for Charles was the modern-day embodiment of the courtly Victorian Gentleman: a soft-spoken, kindly individual, who carried himself with a quiet grace.

We first met him as an actor who played Joseph in our London debut production. While the Nativity play we had chosen did not include the comical Joseph’s trouble about Mary, there’s no doubt he could have handled it. Charles had a good sense of the comic turn, but was also totally convincing as the protective and devoted Joseph who would be the infant Jesus’ Earthly father figure. When The Baptism came around in 2014, the decision to include God had already been made, and he was really our only choice for the part.

Our Artistic Director, Laura Elizabeth Rice, notes:

From a director’s standpoint, Charles was delightful to work with because he always had ideas and suggestions, but he wasn’t a backseat driver. He’d mention them after rehearsal, and if you wanted to try them out, he was happy to do so; if they didn’t fit in with a production, he didn’t push the matter. You could also always count on him to try what was asked and to be enthusiastic about any new project. When I remember him it will always be with the gentle smile he bestowed upon Jesus as he blessed him from Heaven in The Baptism.

The sense of history and performance that turned him into a remarkable impersonation of Charles Dickens every winter is probably what made Charles such a good fit with HIDden, but he also seemed to believe in supporting young companies as they found their way forward; in this respect we are not the only ones indebted to his kindness. It meant a lot that someone well established in the local theatre community shared our idea that the past is a rich field to mine for performance in the present.

Charles was that friend in theatre who stayed – a true character of the theatre, a fantastic actor, and an unconditional source of support – we will miss him very much.

How It Translates, Our Artistic Director’s Approach

Posted on by under News, Production

When people find out that I’m working on a medieval play, almost always the first question is, “Are you doing it in modern or Middle English?” These days the answer is almost always modern, because despite enjoying it myself, I’ve come to recognise that Middle English is really challenging for audiences, and, unfortunately, often cuts them off from really getting to grips with the play they’re seeing. The next question tends, from academics, to be “Which edition did you use?”, and from non-academics, “How did you translate it?”

Despite how different it looks on the page, Middle English is not actually that difficult to get your head or tongue around. In fact, sounding words out aloud, the way kids learn to read, is a good way to make sense of it on occasion; the spellings will be peculiar, but once you hear it spoken, you’ll usually know what it means. So I’m never entirely sure that it’s really a “translation” proper. But, if you’ve been curious, here is how it happens.

First I go through the script and change any archaic letters into their modern equivalent. (For example: something that looks rather like the modern lower-case “y” is actually a “th”- it’s where we get “ye olde” from; it would have been pronounced as “the”.) Then I change all the really obvious words into modern spelling, which will usually be about three quarters of the text. Next come the words that are definitely in Middle English but whose meanings I have come to know over the years of working with it. I usually spend the better part of a day with a thesaurus, trying to find the closest word in meaning and colour, that also keeps any rhyme schemes and meters that might be present. About half the time, I can find a good translation that keeps the poetry and alliteration intact. When I can’t, I have to make some executive decisions. Will the audience make sense of an unfamiliar word from the context? How important is that particular word, or is the primary meaning conveyed elsewhere in the line? In some instances, I’ll leave the Middle English word in, feeling pretty sure that it won’t be detrimental to conveying the story or characters. In others, I’ll have to make the decision to disturb the carefully wrought meter or alliteration for the sake of clarity.

The biggest challenge is tracking down the words that I don’t know. Middle English can be difficult to look up (absent having a university library’s resources at your fingertips, and I usually work at home) because the spellings are so capricious; in some cases the word’s definition might actually be speculative and uncertain, and in others there might have been a clerical error which muddles the picture. There’ll usually be one or two that completely stymie me, which warrants a call to medievalist friends to pick their brains. In the end, it’s pretty rare not to track down some idea of what a word should mean. With that done, I repeat the process of trying to decide if I can keep the ancient word, or wrestling through trying to find an appropriate substitute if I can’t.

Invariably, there will be a bit of Latin. This is one area where I suffer as a medievalist: my Latin is virtually non-existent. That’s more time with dictionaries, Latin translation webpages, and usually some phone calls to colleagues who don’t mind helping me with tricky bits. (The up side to this is that I’ve picked up a bit more of the language than I would probably know otherwise.)

Only when I’ve got it pretty much solidified will I pull the editions off the shelf. My purpose in doing so is simply self-editing: I want to check that I haven’t misunderstood anything, that their glosses on words match my translations. I always look at as many as I have or can get my hands on, because sometimes they don’t agree on specific words, and sometimes one will have a more precise meaning that I need to contemplate. A lot of editions will also have commentary on parts of the play, which might clue me in about why a particular scene is written in a specific way.

It’s only after the script has been brought into the twentieth century that I start contemplating any necessary changes or cuts. I know that to some people this is anathema, and it may seem to go against my earlier assertion to trust the text with which I’m working. That trust doesn’t mean a play is perfect, though, or that as it has come down to us it is perfect for what we’re doing. It does mean, however, that I can tell you exactly why I’m changing things, and how I’ve done it; I don’t just go in and start chopping. Our rearrangement of the Vices in our current production of Mankind is a good example of this: it may be unorthodox, but I think that it helps make the play a little bit neater for this production. (If “re-creation” or “authenticity” were our intent, I would not have made that sort of change.)

Translating is a rather tedious and fiddly process, but it has the definite benefit that, while I may not have it memorised, I do know the script really well by the time we get into rehearsals, not just conceptually, but in a structural sense, how it is put together as well as what it is saying. And it’s easier to sort out any confusion the actors have with what is still a pre-modern verse piece. In the end, we have a script I’m happy with, which stays fairly close to the original.

Mischief… and Death

Posted on by under Mankind

Of all the characters in Mankind, Mischief is the most elusive and enigmatic. Mankind and Mercy are human, Titivillus is demonic, and whether we read the N’s as demons or human who personify worldly evils, their role as vices is apparent. Mischief is not really a vice, a demon, or a person, but inhabits some world between: his presence bodes ill for Mankind, but ‘mischief’ as a concept is not tempting in the same way as the worldly indulgences promoted by the N’s.

For our Mischief we have relied heavily on a brief note in ‘Aspects of the Staging of Mankind’ by Neville Denny (in Medium Aevum, 1 January, 1974, p. 252-263). Denny equates Mischief with “ ‘calamity’, ‘disaster’, and hence with despair as well as malice”, and finally makes the suggestion that perhaps Mischief was staged as Death- a Grim Reaper, possibly as part of a lingering tradition from folk plays. While I can’t claim that this idea hasn’t been used in previous productions, I haven’t seen it with this staging, and thought it an interesting idea to consider.

A return to the script with this idea in mind gave me arguments both for and against this interpretation of Mischief. The greatest “against” is the cynical comedy and, well, liveliness of Mischief. One has a hard time picturing a cowled and scythe-carrying Death capering about and teasing the vices in this manner. Perhaps of greater weight is a discrepancy which is not limited to this play but a seeming contradiction that has often puzzled me. Mankind is, in its totality, an exhortation towards Christianity and its teachings of redemption: why, if one holds such faith, should Death be an antagonistic or fearful figure?

To both arguments I can offer rebuttals. Faith is seldom absolute; the fact that it is faith, rather than fact, means that death, for all the hope that faith is intended to offer, remains the great unknown, and inherently frightening. Moreover, in the late fifteenth century, death was a frequent and familiar visitor. This is post-plague Britain; and while the first and most horrifying outbreak was more than a century in the past by the time Mankind was written, an outbreak in 1471, nearly contemporaneous to the play, had taken out another 10% of the population. Death as calamity and disaster would have been all too easy an idea to grasp. And ‘Death’ should perhaps not be seen as a single entity: a Death which arrives when one has been behaving as Mankind does with the Vices is to be feared, whereas a Death which arrives when one is a more holy state of being might be a benevolent figure. Nor is a lively Death an anomaly to a fifteenth-century audience, for this is the era of the Dance of Death, itself an artistic allegory of the end of the life for all. While not exactly comical, it certainly refutes our modern idea of the Grim Reaper as a silent, staid, lurking figure.

What tipped me over into trying the idea of Mischief as a death figure was simply reading his lines with that in mind. To many of them it makes no difference, but to many it creates a much more interesting layer of interpretation. “I am worse than nought,” he laments, “I, Mischief, was here at the beginning of the game and argued with Mercy….” Death is, of course, the final “nought” of unbeing, and has been present not merely since the beginning of the play, but since the beginning of creation. Mischief’s threats to cut off the injured body parts of the Vices becomes far more sinister when one considers the survival rates for amputation in the era of medieval medicine, and his encounter with the law (“the chains I burst asunder, and killed the jailer, yes, and his fair wife embraced in a corner”) certainly takes on a different hue if he also personifies the end of life.

Mischief as death makes sense of his difference from the N’s, as Denny suggests, as well as adding a nice layer of darkness to the scatological levity of the Vices, and raising the stakes on Mankind’s behaviour. It also makes Mercy’s gesture of compassion something beyond a theological salvation. Perhaps, knowing what is really at stake through his encounter with a Mischief who offers him an unforgiven mortality, Mankind will think twice before spending more time in the company of the Vices.