Tag Archives: the war in heaven

The Mystery Plays: A Wrap-up

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

It’s in the spirit of #mysteryplaymonday, even though it’s midweek. We’re saying farewell to the York Mystery Plays 2026, to our wonderful cast and creatives, and we’re also in the middle of a clear-out of stuff! But, with a few days to process behind her, our play’s director is taking a few minutes to reflect on the ups, downs, and joys of “The War in Heaven”.

What happened to Mystery Play Monday- isn’t this a Wednesday? I can hear you asking, and you’re right. The answer is simple: we all needed a couple days to rest, recover, dismantle, and let go. I for one have been a puddle of emotion about the ending of the mystery plays: pride in what we accomplished, joy at a successful run, happiness for having met so many new, wonderful people who I hope will stay in touch… that all runs right up against the wall of ending, saying goodbye, and physically pulling apart something that you’ve spent months building. It’s very abrupt, and it’s a lot to process.

That’s theatre, always has been and always will be, but I never really find it any easier. So I needed a bit of breathing space to mentally process everything before I could sit down and write my reflections on it.

The mystery plays are incredibly central to my life and my story, they’re the genesis of HIDden as an organisation, but I can’t pretend they are always an unalloyed blessing. Street theatre is difficult. Amateur theatre is too. Throw in processional staging through the streets of a busy city, and eight or nine different companies, and there are a lot of moving parts; even if we, as HIDden, don’t have to deal with all of those things, the totality of the whole means that there is a lot to organise, and a lot which can fall through cracks. There were definitely days where “frustrating” is the only answer I could have given, if someone asked me how things were going. It would be a misstep for me to paint over that as if it weren’t a truth just as real as the good parts. It was hard work- incredibly hard- and it’s always done by far fewer people than is ideal.

But it’s also a moment to feel incredibly proud. Our cast and crew were amazing. Nine performances without a single line blip or choreography mistake (I’m not saying there weren’t a few minor issues, but they were largely mechanical or entirely out of our control, like having a building alarm go off in the middle of the Shambles performance on Wednesday night, through which the cast sailed with imperturbable grace). I’ve heard nothing but positive comments from people who saw it, so while there are always things one knows one could do better, I feel safe in saying that the production did what all theatre is meant to do, first and foremost: it engaged and entertained its audience. 

I can’t praise the people in our group enough. The waggon master and crew did an incredible job of moving Large Rolley, our waggon, through the streets, with a smooth elegance. (This may sound like an odd thing to say but trust me, I’ve seen waggons struggle!) The volunteers who helped with costumes and puppets leaped in with both feet and weren’t afraid to offer suggestions for how to achieve the end goal, which I always appreciate, because we’re all in this together! The creative team brought ideas and viewpoints that were fresh and unlike anything we’ve ever done. And the cast- amazingly, I just read through a journal entry I wrote right after audition week, where I said that I had such confidence in our cast that I wasn’t nervous about the production from that very early date! That’s awfully early to be counting any dramatic chickens, but that instinct that we had a very solid group of people proved out through the rehearsal and performance process. They really were delightful and interesting people, whose enthusiasm for acting and the Mystery Plays in particular made me feel utterly secure. They were also wonderfully flexible, as we reworked scenes and hammered out technical difficulties, like how to change Lucifer from a white feathered angel to a singed and burnt denizen of hell. Their suggestions and insights also helped shape the show.

It’s always the people that make the Mystery Plays what they are. I imagine that has always been true: the guilds that originally staged them were communities, bound together by a shared trade, a shared city, and often close family ties as well. I think about those people a lot during our production and its development, because I feel like they are part of it, too. In fact, if someone asked me to sum up why I love the mystery plays in one word, that word would be connection. It’s the connections that we make between different companies, working together for this large-scale shared event, and even more  the connections among the people we work with directly. Hopefully, new friendships are formed that will last beyond just this play, maybe for years or even a lifetime. We find connection with the guilds and their members, and we connect with audience members, who are part of our story even if we never know their names. And I think we connect with everyone who has ever been part of the plays in previous years, or even previous centuries, be they twentieth-century or fourteenth. When we work on the plays, we’re stretching our hands out to touch theirs, just as they were, perhaps unconsciously, reaching forward to us, their posterity. We’re all connected, everyone who has had some contact with these plays, as part of York’s story. I know it’s Rome that is called “the eternal city” but if you’ve ever lived in York, you will appreciate that the name feels right for it, too.

The Mystery Plays can sometimes be the concentrated distillation of those features of theatre which drive us most to despair- but they are equally intensely the kind of event that brings out all the best aspects of theatre as well. It tends to be the latter that we remember the most clearly: the shiver of excitement when your waggon rolls by York Minster and you feel the weight of history on you, the adrenaline of performing several times in quick succession under incredibly varied conditions, the happy rush (and tears) when you realise that it’s finished and you’ve all done so brilliantly. I hope everyone involved will treasure these memories, as I will, for the rest of their lives. And I hope we’ve made it an experience that will bring them back for more historic drama, because there are so many more stories to share.

The War in Heaven: Bibliography

Posted on by under Academic Curiosity, Drama, History, Mystery Plays, York Mystery Plays 2026

For our #mysteryplaymonday, our play’s director shares the research that has helped to inform our production.

Both fortunately and unfortunately, a full bibliography of the York Mystery Plays would be far too large to list here! There are many wonderful books that I would recommend to anyone who isn’t especially familiar with the Plays, and many of them have informed our play in the long term, since they have also gone into my academic work over the last twenty years. But of necessity I’ve chosen to focus here on those studies that were either especially helpful or are specific to our project with The War in Heaven. If you are interested in reading about the York Mystery Plays on a more general level, please email me (Laura) and I would be happy to offer suggestions!

Ashton, Gail. “Bridging the Difference: Reconceptualising the Angel in Medieval Hagiography”, in Literature & Theology, vol. 16 no. 3 (Sept 2002), pp. 235-247.

Auffarth, Christoph and Loren T. Stuckenbruck, eds. The Fall of the Angels. (2004) Brill: Leiden and Boston.

Berefelt, Gunnar. A Study on the Winged Angel. (1968) Almqvist & Wiksell: Stockholm.

Butterworth, Philip & Katie Normington. Medieval Theatre Performance. (2017) D.S. Brewer: Cambridge

Chase, Steven. Angelic Spirituality. (2002) Paulist Press: New York.

Davidson, Clifford. Staging the York Creation and Fall of Lucifer. (1976) American Society for Theatre Research: Pittsburgh.

DuBruck, Edelgard. “The Devil and Hell in Medieval French Drama: Prolegomena”, in Romania, vol. 100, no. 398 (1979), pp 165-179.

Eszenyi, Edina. “The Edge of Heaven: Revelations 12:7-9 and the Fall of the Rebel Angels in Anglo-Norman Apocalypse Illustration”, in Arts(2022), vol. 11, p. 41.

Fox, Michael. “Alefric on the Creation and Fall of the Angels”, in Anglo-Saxon England (2002), Vol. 31, pp. 175-200. 

Gabor, Ittzes. “Spirits Immortal In and Out of Time”, in The AnaChronisT (2004), vol. 10, pp. 1-30.

Gathercole, Patricia May. Depiction of Angels and Devils in Medieval French Manuscript Illumination. (2004) Edwin Mellen Press: Lewiston, NY.

Gill, Meredith J. Angels and the Order of Heaven in Medieval and Renaissance Italy. (2021) Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

Harkins, Franklin T. “The Embodiment of Angels: a Debate in Mid-Thirteenth-Century Theology”, in Recherches de theologie et philosophie medievales (2011), vol. 78, no. 1, pp: 25-58.

Hoffman, Tobias, ed. Companion to Angels in Medieval Philosophy. (2012) Brill: Leiden.

Hoffman, Tobias. Free Will and the Rebel Angels in Medieval Philosophy. (2021) Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

Iribarren, Isabel & Martin Lenz. Angels in Medieval Philosophical Inquiry. (2008) Ashgate: New York.

Koszkalo, Martyna  and Robert Koszkalo. “What the Fall of Angels Tells Us About the Essence of Morality”, in Religions (2021), vol. 12, p 920.

Lyle, Marie Caroline. “The Relation of the Lucifer Tradition in the Literary Composition of the Middle Ages to the Story of the Fall of the Angels in the Mystery Plays”, unpublished thesis, University of Minnesota (1912). 

Martin, Dale Basil. “When Did Angels Become Demons?”, in Journal of Biblical Literature (2010), vol. 129, no. 4, pp. 657-677.

Medicus, Gustav. “Some Observations on Domenico Beccafumi’s Two ‘Fall of the Rebel Angels’ Panels”, in Artibus et Historiae (2003), vol. 24, no. 47, pp. 209-218.

Murphy, Mary Agnes. Representation of Angels & Angelic Orders. unpublished MA thesis, University of Leicester, Jan 2010.

Norcross, Katherine R. “Counter-Empathy and Elegiac Critique in the Old English Christ and Satan“, in Philological Quarterly (2017), 96.2, pp. 143-170.

Ogilvie, Sheilagh. “The Economics of Guilds”, in Journal of Economic Perspectives (2014), vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 169-192.

Pagels, Elaine. “Christian Apologists and ‘The Fall of the Angels’: An Attack on Roman Imperial Power?”, in Harvard Theological Review (1985), vol. 78, no. 3/4, pp. 301-325.

Parma, Mariana Valeria. “Entre los Signos del Cielo y las Voces de los Hombres: la Vision Medieval del Cielo y Su Representacion Apocaliptica”, in Espacio, Tiempo y Forma (2019), pp. 473-498.

Raiswell, Richard & David R. Winter, eds. The Medieval Devil: a Reader. (2022) University of Toronto Press.

Rice, Nicole R. & Margaret Pappano. The Civic Cycles. (2024) University of Notre Dame Press.

Rosser, Gervase. Crafts, Guilds and the Negotiation of Work in the Medieval Town. (1997) Oxford University Press for the Past & Present Society.

Schall, James V. The Politics of Heaven and Hell. (2020) Ignatius Press: San Francisco.

Schmindt, Gary D. The Iconography of the Mouth of Hell. (1995) Associated University Presses: Selinsgrove, PA.

Shinners, John Raymond. Medieval Popular Religion, 1000-1500. (2009) University of Toronto Press: North York.

Sowerby, Richad. Angels in Early Medieval England. (2016) Oxford University Press: London

Tamburr, Karl. “The Dethroning of Satan in the Chester Cycle”, in Neuphilologische Mitteilungen (1984), vol. 85, no. 3, pp. 316-328.

Toulmin Smith, Joshua & Lucy Toulmin Smith, English Guilds. (1870). Trubner: London

Vos, Nienke & Willemien Otten. Demons and the Devil in Ancient and Medieval Christianity. (2011) Brill: Leiden.

Walker, Greg. “‘In the Beginning…’: Performing the Creation in the York Corpus Christi Play”, in The Oxford Handbook of Tudor Drama, ed. Thomas Betteridge and Greg Walker (2012), pp. 36-54.

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.

On the Joys of Auditions

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

After a busy week of auditions, it’s #MysteryPlayMonday! Our show’s director looks back on what made this such an enjoyable process.

It was auditions week here at HIDden, a time of equal parts stress and delight. This week, it’s been more the delight than the stress.

I’ve written previously about the fact that auditions are one of my least favourite parts of directing, because it’s such an imperfect process, but one where a casting mistake can lead to real problems for a production, not to mention distress to all involved. But auditions can also be really brilliant, and I thought today would be a good chance to talk about what’s been so amazing about them.

First of all, new people! Despite being a very shy person by nature, I actually really love getting to know new people, and actors are some of the most delightful folks in the world. They bring such diverse backgrounds and interests to a project, gifts which shape a production in large and small ways that you can’t imagine until they’re there in front of you. No two people will approach a character in the same way. Actors’ interests tend to be wide-ranging, maybe because you never know what aspect you’ll need to portray a character somewhere down the road; this also tends to make them natural psychologists or sociologists, interested in people and their quirks, the way their minds work, the way that small and large decisions can impact a character. That makes them fascinating people to talk to, and I come away from auditions feeling unusually positive about humanity in general, that if everyone is like the actors I’ve spent the week meeting, then people are more intelligent and insightful than I generally admit. 

I learn from them in a way that can change the shape of how I see the characters and the play. I’m not saying even the most brilliant audition would make me radically overturn the basic concept of the show, but in almost every individual audition, there was a moment where a lightbulb went off in my head. Maybe it was “oh, that line, that emphasis really gives God an extra nuance that’s fascinating!” or a particular small gesture that makes a demon seem particularly creepy and menacing that would be worth incorporating into their choreography. Not all ideas will make it into the final production, and not all interpretations will fit into the overall vision for the play, but the ideas that come to the table get considered and played with and that process refines it as a whole. My auditions notes have lots of scribbling in the margins about ideas that have been generated by the way audition pieces were presented.

The actors are the engine that drives the play in a very literal sense, but this is also true in a more subtle way. Actors at auditions give the process an injection of enthusiasm and excitement. This is even more pronounced with something like the Mystery Plays, which is a passion project for everyone involved. With all that goes on behind the scenes from a production end, it’s easy to get exhausted- endless rounds of design and re-design, meeting after meeting after meeting, hiring things and sourcing material and filling out paperwork and policy and and and… Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy 99% of the whole theatrical process, but even what you love can be exhausting. Meeting the actors in auditions is like a delightful caffeine injection, a much-needed influx of pure joy, and a reminder of how fortunate we are to be involved in a production that is almost entirely unique in the world. 

Enthusiasm and delight are emotional factors that auditions reintroduce at a much-needed juncture, but there is also an intellectual component to this. They appreciate the historicity of the Mystery Plays just as much as we do, and that in turn reminds me: this is their moment of immortality, of being a part of a tradition that started more than six hundred years ago. I owe it to them to give them the best circumstances for performing, to help them creature a performance worthy of that place in history. I often ponder- many of them will have heard me pose the question- what people will write about ourmystery plays in five hundred years, just the way I spend time thinking about the experience for our fifteenth-century forebearers. (“They won’t be able to say much, everything will have been digital and lost,” is a response I hear quite often, which is a conversation my friends in academia often entertain as well.) I am never unaware that we are, as the title of Margaret Rogerson’s book about the modern York plays says, “playing a part in history”, but at auditions I become extra conscious that what I owe to history comes through the actors, so those actors need the very best work that I can give, so that they in turn can do theirs.

In writing this and reflecting on the week, and what comes next, I realise that it’s not actually auditions I dislike at all, it’s casting. Making decisions about who will play what, knowing that I have more good people than big roles, and that some people will inevitably not get the part they would have preferred. That’s the part that’s stressful, both because it doesn’t feel great to disappoint anyone, and because it’s where mistakes are costly. But the auditions themselves? They were pretty damn fun! And now we have a whole team of new people to get to know, work with, and share in the process of creating something exciting for our contribution to the history of York. Yeah, that’s a pretty good week in the office, by any measure.