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Sep. 26th, 2009 09:42 amSo yesterday I went to see one of the Junior Performance Projects, which are these 90 minutes plays that are kind of the juniors' introduction to the school as actual performers. (Actors and musical theatre majors aren't allowed onstage until they've done two years of training. That's conservatory programs for you.)
This year, the two JPPs are Floyd Collins, a musical about a guy trapped in a cave, and Two Medieval Mystery Plays. That's the one I saw yesterday. The Mystery Plays, if you haven't come across them before, are a group of short plays performed in the pre-modern and early modern periods by roving bands of actors. They vary in style from very serious retellings of Biblical stories, like the fall of Lucifer, to utterly hilarious slapstick like the story of Cain and Abel.
They're fascinating to read from a sociological standpoint. They're teaching plays, after all -- they generally end with a moral -- and they're written to appeal to peasants. One of the weirdest results of that is that everybody is a Christian. in "Abraham and Isaac," Isaac tells his father that he's been contemplating the Trinity. In "The Second Shepherd's Play," the shepherds about to hear that Christ is born wander around cursing how cold it is by using saints' names. It's kind of hilarious. It makes sense, too, though; the characters are poor, working class Christians, just like the audience members.
So the two plays they did were "Abraham and Isaac" -- particularly awesome because God Himself is in it -- and "The Second Shepherd's Play." (Although there is indeed a Second Shepherd in the cast, the play is actually just the second play about shepherds in the cycle.) Everything is very presentational: a lot of masks and effigies, a lot of very theatrical, ritualized gesturing, a lot of drums and music and singing, a lot of mime.
Talking about all the hilarity of "Second Shepherd's" would take a long time, but the central joke is thatthe Devil Mak steals Jesus a lamb from three shepherds. When they come looking, he hides it in a cradle. The shepherds briefly mistake it for a really ugly really smelly baby, and then go "No, wait, that is TOTALLY our sheep," throw Mak out of heaven the house, and take their sheep home. At that point an angel appears to the shepherds, singing Gloria in excelsis deo, and the shepherds follow the star to Bethlehem and pay their respects to the Christ-child.
A few awesome things about the shepherds. They're incredibly human -- they complain about the cold, they drink, they complain about being married, they fall over, they freak out when they lose a single sheep, they play pranks on each other, they have a running tradition of singing together and figuring out who's going to take what part.
I like that last part especially, because after the angel appears, singing his Glorias, the shepherds say, "Did you hear how he sang it?" "I think I've got it, let me sing it for you--" and they troop off to Bethlehem singing.
Now, what really amazed me about the actors was the scene where they approach the manger. It was so . . . joyful. So reverent. So wondering. Kudos to the actors, because I doubt any of the three of them are particularly religious -- and yet, they were so sincere in their wonder that when the first shepherd brought out cherries to give Jesus, and the second shepherd a bird (a squeaky toy), and the third shepherd a ball (tennis) . . . no one laughed.
It all made me feel a little like I'd been in church.
This year, the two JPPs are Floyd Collins, a musical about a guy trapped in a cave, and Two Medieval Mystery Plays. That's the one I saw yesterday. The Mystery Plays, if you haven't come across them before, are a group of short plays performed in the pre-modern and early modern periods by roving bands of actors. They vary in style from very serious retellings of Biblical stories, like the fall of Lucifer, to utterly hilarious slapstick like the story of Cain and Abel.
They're fascinating to read from a sociological standpoint. They're teaching plays, after all -- they generally end with a moral -- and they're written to appeal to peasants. One of the weirdest results of that is that everybody is a Christian. in "Abraham and Isaac," Isaac tells his father that he's been contemplating the Trinity. In "The Second Shepherd's Play," the shepherds about to hear that Christ is born wander around cursing how cold it is by using saints' names. It's kind of hilarious. It makes sense, too, though; the characters are poor, working class Christians, just like the audience members.
So the two plays they did were "Abraham and Isaac" -- particularly awesome because God Himself is in it -- and "The Second Shepherd's Play." (Although there is indeed a Second Shepherd in the cast, the play is actually just the second play about shepherds in the cycle.) Everything is very presentational: a lot of masks and effigies, a lot of very theatrical, ritualized gesturing, a lot of drums and music and singing, a lot of mime.
Talking about all the hilarity of "Second Shepherd's" would take a long time, but the central joke is that
A few awesome things about the shepherds. They're incredibly human -- they complain about the cold, they drink, they complain about being married, they fall over, they freak out when they lose a single sheep, they play pranks on each other, they have a running tradition of singing together and figuring out who's going to take what part.
I like that last part especially, because after the angel appears, singing his Glorias, the shepherds say, "Did you hear how he sang it?" "I think I've got it, let me sing it for you--" and they troop off to Bethlehem singing.
Now, what really amazed me about the actors was the scene where they approach the manger. It was so . . . joyful. So reverent. So wondering. Kudos to the actors, because I doubt any of the three of them are particularly religious -- and yet, they were so sincere in their wonder that when the first shepherd brought out cherries to give Jesus, and the second shepherd a bird (a squeaky toy), and the third shepherd a ball (tennis) . . . no one laughed.
It all made me feel a little like I'd been in church.
