Mankind is approaching swiftly, and all of us at HIDden are running about making sure things are in order. The weeks leading up to a production are always exciting, and busy, but I wanted to take a moment to reflect on some of the more delightful aspects of our process thus far. It’s a snapshot of a bit of our “behind the scenes” life. Here are a few of my favourite moments:

• While everyone works on Latin pronunciation, during blocking rehearsals we all just shout “Latin!” where a big chunk of it is in the script.
• Trying out lots of different characterisations for Titivillus- because demons can be just about anyone.
• Those moments where actors you’ve worked with before manage to take their work to a new level and surprise you with an even better performance than expected.
• Getting to know and witness the incredible talents of new (and personally very lovely!) people.
• When, as the director, I’ve read a line so many times and yet an actor comes in and reads it with a totally new delivery, and it brings out extra layers of meaning I hadn’t imagined.
• Falling back in love with the play. By the time we hit rehearsals I’ve read it so often it’s lost a lot of its freshness, but as soon as it’s in the hands of the actors, I remember all the reasons I loved it in the first place.
• That instant where I know that an actor understands their character perfectly and is bringing it to life in all the subtle and colourful ways that make it real.
• Watching the cast bond. You always wonder, “Will this group work well together? Will they be able to support and challenge one another?” It’s always exciting to see that come into being.
• Being constantly impressed by how quickly the actors weave little adjustments and ideas into their characters, and how it instantly clarifies things.
• Group enthusiasm. Everyone’s been off learning lines and thinking about their characters; the energy of getting everyone in one room and starting to put it together is always special.
• The surprise that comes when we hit the somewhat more bawdy parts of the play. Not all the actors had realised that medieval plays could be quite so “colourful”!

There is much left to do, but everyone is working really hard, and I think we’re all enjoying the process. I can’t wait to see what the next week will bring- and I hope you’ll join us at the performance, because all the signs thus far are pointing to a really great production!

On these posts I try to give you some insights into the plays we’re working on- the backstory, the history that informs our work, and the occasional behind the scenes “here’s how we we’re doing it and why” perspective. This might give you the idea that the HIDden approach is a very academic, as well as theatrical one. There’s a fair bit of truth in that, but I don’t want you to think that everything is ultra-erudite or heavy going. Sometimes, the things that inspire us or make things click into place don’t have footnotes, and that’s what I wanted to share today.

Every time I am faced with medieval characters whose primary definition is “being a medieval peasant”, there is a book I grab off the shelf. It’s fiction- well informed, heavily researched fiction, but the point isn’t that it’s true or not, but that it speaks to something evocative that sometimes historical documents can’t reach. The book is called Down the Common, by Anne Baer, and almost twenty years after I first read it, I still absolutely love it for its non-romanticised, down-to-earth story of life in a medieval village. And it’s the first thing I will turn back to when working on the character of Mankind.

The people in the story are ordinary: some are more clever or introspective (Mankind might have understood them) and some are foolish; some are looking for adventures and some never want to leave their patch of earth. All of them are engaged in the everyday struggle to keep body and soul together: getting in the harvest, surviving the cold of winter, bringing up children who know how to behave in ways that won’t be destructive to the community. Their lives are in so many ways completely different from ours, but the getting on with every day is what most of us do today, too.

I think about those fictional peasants when I try to imagine Mankind’s life on an ordinary day, when maybe he hasn’t just heard a sermon in church and isn’t quite so anxious about the state of his soul. After all, despite his initial self-abasing monologue, we also see him carrying in with the plowing and planting of his fields, so we can assume that he does not spend all of his time bemoaning the state of his everlasting soul! It’s also easy, though, in reading this tale of the struggle of medieval peasantry, to see why someone like Mankind might yearn to achieve whatever behaviour will earn him a place in a heavenly afterlife. Their bodily existence is not one we modern folk would consider pleasant.

But neither are their lives unrelieved misery, which is something we may forget if we think of the Monty Python mud-peasants when we picture everyday medieval life. The Vices are the extreme end of the spectrum, but to use Mercy’s favourite word, within measure they represent the amusements- singing, dancing, joking, drinking, festivals, celebrations. The other thing I love in Down the Common is the delight people find in little things that today we would probably overlook. A sunny day means more. Freshly baked bread is a genuine treat. Someone like Mankind, clearly of a naturally spiritual turn, might find God in those moments- and perhaps he will value those things more, now that he knows what excess can bring.

I can’t tell you what will be in an actor’s head when playing the character (nor should I try!), but in directing it, the world created in that book is in the back of mine. It’s also just a really good read, and I recommend it to anyone, especially if you’ve ever wondered what’s going on way, way behind the scenes in “director brain” during the process of putting together Mankind.

The “imbalance” of good and evil figures in Mankind is something often noted in academic writing about the play. There are five villainous characters to the sole virtuous figure of Mercy, and given that Mercy does tend to embody some of the issues of which the others make fun, the actor playing him has a tough row to hoe, if Mercy is somehow to come out as a balance to the others.

The other difficulty, though, which is also well noted, is that the three N’s are relatively indistinct. It could be argued that they are an inversion of the holy trinity: three bodies with one essential being, and I think this is the likely reason why there are in fact three of them. But not all theological intention translates perfectly to the stage. If, in fact, the Vices were completely indistinguishable, this feature of the play might be more successful. There are, however, three ‘N’s’ but two characters. Nought stands apart as the “lesser” of the group, the one who is mocked by the others, who seems the most bumbling; Nought also says less than his fellows. Meanwhile, New-Guise and Nowadays are almost impossible to tell apart.

We’ve thrown various ideas around for different ways to work on this issue, most of which are concepts added on; the text just doesn’t support much obvious distinction between them. And somewhere along the way, someone asked, “Did these parts used to be one character?”

There is no evidence to suggest that Mankind had a previous incarnation with only two Vices. I want to state that very clearly. But looking beyond Mankind specifically, plays do get changed, often in terms of character numbers. I daresay it’s less common in the professional world (though I recall seeing a production of Hamlet years ago where the character had been split into three, so it does happen), but certainly in amateur theatre, parts are often split up, or new ones created, if there is a desire to have greater participation. The general consensus is that Mankind was not an amateur production, but a product of the early days of professional, touring theatre troupes in England. And yet it is generally understood that the parts of Titivillus and Mercy can be played by the same actor- and, presumably, can be played by different actors, depending on cast numbers. So while the N’s might not be where Mankind has demonstrable flexibility, there is at least some degree of it built into the play.

So… what would happen if the two indistinct characters were simply rolled into one? Having had the question raised, we decided to play with it. As far as the script goes, the answer is “relatively little”. Because of the patterns with which the three Vice characters speak, it’s quite easy to reassign most of Nowadays’ lines to New-Guise. In a few- perhaps five- cases they work better if shifted to Nought. And it ends up strengthening both remaining Vices as discreet individuals. It also cuts down, at least slightly, the numerical opposition to Mercy.

Auditions, as the first occasion of seeing actors’ spin on parts, sometimes give you brand new ideas. Sometimes they come in to read for a part and have an interpretation that you haven’t thought of, but that makes so much sense as to make you rethink the character altogether. (And this is the collaborative phenomenon that makes theatre so engaging.) We wanted to take that chance… and we saw really good people read. But we didn’t see New-Guise and Nowadays emerge in great difference, which confirmed the feeling that the two characters are just not unique. That’s not a failing in any of the actors who read the parts; it may be argued that it’s a failure on the part of the writer (though neither he nor contemporary audiences likely didn’t see it as important; these are, after all, broad allegorical types). Actors create a role, but they shouldn’t stray completely out of what the text offers them; if the text doesn’t offer anything, it’s fair to wonder if there isn’t a different way to do things.

The result is that we’re being a bit non-traditional in our Mankind, which was never intended to be an attempt at re-creation anyway. We’re going to try to see how the play changes if the redundant characters are merged, and hope that it gives the actors playing the Vices more to sink their teeth into, which in turn translates into more dynamic performances, and a play that’s just that much more entertaining.