A Cornish Passion Play
see also The Story of the Rood

Composer: Tim Porter. Play with incidental music,1979

"A Cornish Passion Play" is essentially the second, New Testament, half of "The Story of the Rood", with a couple of entirely new scenes and some new incidental music to enable it to stand alone.

Author's note

The three mediaeval plays known collectively as the "Ordinalia" have suffered long neglect for the simple reason that they are chiefly in old Cornish, an inaccessible language if ever there was one. There have been several translations, from the 17th century onward; until recently, however, there were no acting versions (now there are several) but merely literal renditions into English for scholarly use. My playdoesn’t claim to be a new translation. It takes the Ordinalia as a starting point, utilises the broad outline, and follows certain episodes closely, but at other times, fertilised by the traditions of English pantomime, mumming and mystery plays, it grows into something quite separate. On the whole, those sections dealing with the Holy Rood, and other apocryphal matter, paraphrase the original fairly closely; the treatment of the better known Bible stories, however, tends to be my own invention.

The old Cornish plays were originally produced in the round (literally, for vast circular earthworks known as "rounds" were constructed for the purpose) with a huge cast and much pageantry. In modern times, Dr. Neville Denny has mounted a production of the full cycle in St. Firan’s Round, using his own fine translation. Unfortunately, such occasions, subject to the restrictions of outdoor performance and a cast of several hundred, have to be rare.

In adapting this subject matter to our humbler resources, I have adopted a style, and presentation, more in keeping with the English mystery plays. I have, nonetheless, tried to preserve something of the spirit of the Celtic original. For example, characters are developed to a degree that was never possible in the short separate plays which make up the English cycles. The treatment of God is particularly interesting, and though I have used my own words, the conception of a well-meaning despot who finds the World to be something of a Pandora's Box, is an invention of the unknown 14th century author. The mediaeval mind concluded that if God created man in his own image, then he presumably shared man's failings and foibles. This artless and therefore totally un-blasphemous approach has its own logic, and carries all manner of non-Biblical and comic matter cheerfully along with it to an inevitable conclusion

The incidental music which I have written for this production is designed to reinforce this direct and simple view of things.

Tim Porter several hundred, have to be rare.

In adapting this subject matter to our humbler resources, I have adopted a style, and presentation, more in keeping with the English mystery plays. I have, nonetheless, tried to preserve something of the spirit of the Celtic original. For example, characters are developed to a degree that was never possible in the short separate plays which make up the English cycles. The treatment of God is particularly interesting, and though I have used my own words, the conception of a well-meaning despot who finds the World to be something of a Pandora's Box, is an invention of the unknown 14th century author. The mediaeval mind concluded that if God created man in his own image, then he presumably shared man's failings and foibles. This artless and therefore totally un-blasphemous approach has its own logic, and carries all manner of non-Biblical and comic matter cheerfully along with it to an inevitable conclusion.

The incidental music which I have written for this production is designed to reinforce this direct and simple view of things.

Tim Porter

Character list

Band

flute, oboe, violin

Productions

Mar/Apr 1980: Tour