A Times (UK) article on the York Mystery Plays, about to be performed again:
York was holding such performances as early as 1376. Usually they were on the feast of Corpus Christi, which falls on the first Thursday after Trinity between May 23 and June 24. The 12 plays presented this year are based on a manuscript by a single scribe. Thought to have been completed in 1463-77, it is entitled The Register of the Corpus Christ Play.
The Dean of York, the Very Rev Keith Jones, is a patron of both the guild cycle and those of York Minster, which, it is hoped, will be enacted in the nave in 2010. York Minster, the largest Gothic cathedral north of the Alps, has hosted static productions, as have the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey and the stage of York Theatre Royal.
Jones says there is a tradition of telling the Christian story in a public forum, which helps to impart a new understanding of the Christian faith. “The text is a marvellous quarry,” he says, from which each generation presents its interpretation.
His tolerance contrasts with views of a predecessor, Dean Hutton, who banned the plays in 1568, declaring: “As I find manie thinges that I muche like because of the antiquite, so I see manie thinges that I cannot allowe, because they be disagreinge from the senceritie of the gospel.”
In the modern era the plays were restarted in 1951 as part of the Festival of Britain, attracting an audience of more than 26,000 that year. Until recently Christ was portrayed by professional actors — and a young Judi Dench played Mary in 1957.
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