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Little Acts of Faith: Katie Mitchell's ‘The Mysteries’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2009

Katie Normington
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Abstract

The success of Katie Mitchell's production of The Mysteries for the Royal Shakespeare Company has again demonstrated the appeal of the plays for a modern audience. Most revivals trim and otherwise adapt the texts of the original, sprawling cycles: but Mitchell and her dramaturg, Edward Kemp, more calculatedly addressed the problems of updating not only the texts, but also the acting style and attitudes towards the dominant issues – notably those of gender representation. The original cycles often intriguingly juxtaposed religious faith and local politics in an assertion of civic pride which none the less also acknowledged the dominance of the established Church: and in the following article Katie Normington assesses the relevance of Mitchell's production for the secular, depoliticized society of the 'nineties. Katie Normington is a freelance fringe theatre director who is currently researching the role of women in the mystery plays and lecturing in drama at Royal Holloway College, University of London.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Theatre Quarterly , Volume 14 , Issue 54 , May 1998 , pp. 99 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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References

Notes and References

1. Elliot, John, Playing God: Medieval Mysteries on the Modern Stage (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989), p. 142–3Google Scholar.

2. Harrison, Tony, The Mysteries (London: Faber, 1985)Google Scholar, introductory note.

3. Stevens, Martin, Four Middle English Mystery Cycles (Princeton University Press, 1987), p. 63Google Scholar.

4. Kemp, Edward, The Mysteries, Part One: The Creation (London: Nick Hern Books, 1997), p. vGoogle Scholar.

5. Unless otherwise indicated, all Mitchell's statements are taken from a personal interview with the author at The Other Place, 15 March 1997.

6. Marshall, John, ‘Modern Productions of Medieval English Plays’, in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre, ed. Beadle, Richard (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 310Google Scholar.

7. Tushingham, David, Live One: Food for the Soul (London: Methuen, 1994), p. 89Google Scholar.

8. Spencer, Charles, ‘Mystery Stripped back to the Basics’, Daily Telegraph, 10 03 1997Google Scholar.

9. Edward Kemp, op. cit., p. vi.

10. Kemp notes that the structure of the texts owes more to episodic than linear plot development: ‘In some strange marriage of Brecht and Beckett the story emerges not through any conventional unfolding of the plot, but through the coincidence of a series of highly charged episodes.’ Ibid., p. xi.

11. Ibid., p. xiv.

12. Charles Spenser, op. cit.

13. Peter, John, ‘Acting in the Best Faith’, Sunday Times, 16 03 1997Google Scholar.

14. Twycross, Meg and Carpenter, Sarah raise the issue of the effect of the stylization used in medieval drama in ‘Purposes and Effects of Masking’, in Medieval English Drama, ed. Happé, Peter (London: Macmillan, 1984), p. 171–80Google Scholar.

15. Charles Spencer, op. cit.

16. For comments about the political correctness of the production see Peter, John, Sunday Times, 16 03 1997Google Scholar, and Curtis, Nick, Evening Standard, 10 03 1997Google Scholar.

17. For the most comprehensive account of the establishment of the Corpus Christi festival which the mystery plays celebrated, see Rubin, Miri, Corpus Christi: the Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge University Press, 1991)Google Scholar.

18. Mill, Anna Jean suggests antecedents for the stubborn wife in the Jewish and Mohammedan tradition in ‘Noah's Wife Again’, Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, LVI (1941), p. 613–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19. Billington, Michael, ‘God's in His Heaven’, The Guardian, 10 03 1997Google Scholar.

20. Hanks, Robert, ‘Soft Targets’, The Independent, 27 03 1997Google Scholar.

21. Personal interview with John Retallack, 14 May 1997.

22. Robert Hanks, op. cit.