or, Further adventures in Team Wrightington’s personal history through culture

Long-time Denizens may recall that there would be no Wright History were it not for the York Mystery Plays, via the University of York’s Centre for Medieval Studies’ Lords of Misrule drama group.

As our inaugural Ars Ludendi for Wright History course on said plays is nearly upon us (there’s still time to book, O Denizens!), we felt that now was the time to complete one of the many blog posts-in-progress which are languishing on the For When I Have Time backburner - partly because I threatened promised some time ago that I would continue the saga of Life Before Wrightington Towers for them as have asked along the way (spoiler: other plays are also responsible), and partly to explain what/who on earth Ars Ludendi is, and why we are not only confident but also delighted to hand over the reins to Ars Ludendi for this Wright History course.

So. Back to history…

Having been seduced by the smell of the greasepaint, the fun of rehearsals, and the lure of a steel-boned corset for 2000’s A Midsommer Nights Dreame, I was now, like Robert, hooked on the amateur thesping experience (that the next role I was offered was Lechery in the autumn production of Mankind - a medieval morality play - is of course, entirely unrelated…).

Having been similarly seduced by the sundry excitements of a larger-than-usual-scale summer production, now-Drs. Robert Wright and Mike Tyler proposed that moʃt pleaʃaunt conceited Comedie, The Merry Wives of Windsor, for summer 2001. Cue pratfalls aplenty, a buck basket, what must, surely, rank amongst the finest Franco-New York Welsh parson’s accents in the history of Shakespearian performance,* Mike sporting a Falstaffian padded stomach, Robert as a hard-of-thinking Master Ford, and, as the eponymous wives, me and Katherine (regular readers may recall that it was now-Professor Katherine Lewis who first enticed Robert into joining Lords, and who would, many years later, give The Speech at the Wrightington nuptials).

*[I draw a discreet veil over this now-professor’s identity - as I do with regard to all now-established-and-respected citizens and academics who are mentioned en passant, whose permission as to being outed on Wright History I’ve not yet requested.]

Much fun was had by all,* but Lords’ new Summers of Shakespeare tradition took a year off, to allow full focus on Angels and Shepherds in the 2002 wagon cycle of the Mystery Plays.

*[Recte: Much fun was had by all of the cast. I cannot vouch for the audiences’ fun levels, but the laughs at the time seemed happy rather than derisory.]

Nevertheless, there were plenty of smaller-scale performances to keep us all in mischief. In addition to the usual rhythm of a production per academic term, Lords were invited to reprise Angels and Shepherds for King’s College London’s Cultures in Context seminar series. This was an exciting development, because even though we were but fledgling academics, we were contributing to pedagogical and scholarly conversations about medieval literature, drama, and history from a performance- and practice-led perspective* (which would soon be continued with Ars Ludendi).*

*[Sidebar 1: I know of two now-established medieval academics who have explicitly cited our KCL “gigs” as having inspired them to go into academia, on the grounds that they realized that intellectual rigour, value, and fun weren’t mutually exclusive.]

*[Sidebar 2: This instinctive awareness of the importance of performance as well as content is, as many of you have noted, at the heart of Robert’s courses. Only last week, one of Great Archaeological Discoveries’ attendees messaged me to re-commend his ability to not only provide excellent content (which is, obviously, not unusual on other courses) but also to deliver it in such a fluid, coherent, and engaging way (which is, I gather, rarer).]

Morality plays had been a mainstay of the Lords’ repertoire since the 1970s - reflecting a medieval penchant for a good ol’ tussle between personifications of good and evil over Man’s soul, with its attendant scope for ribaldry (the latter, I’m certain, being as relevant to medieval dramatic choices as to Lords’ choices over the decades). Wine, Wool, and Spices alumni may recall mention of one of our favourites from this time, namely Mary Magdalen and the Seven Dedly Synnys.*

*[My role in this (Satan) was perhaps my favourite ever, in that it entailed not only just 60 lines to learn and dominion over Belfagour, Belzabub, and the Seuen Dedly Synnys, but also hair-entwined devil-horns, three whips, a corset, two tutus, a walking cane, and a cloak.]

We all enjoyed Mary Mag so much that we did it twice - first in York, à la the standard Lords of Misrule rhythm, and then again at KCL, having been invited again in 2004.*

*[That there was a conversation at one of THE international conferences in my field which entailed another academic very loudly saying in a very public space that “I KNEW I recognized you from somewhere else! You’re the DOMINATRIX!” has long been a source of both professional faux-embarrassment and (no-longer-secret) pride. Sorry-not-sorry.]

Along the way, there were many Lords’ productions (which may warrant a future post for those of you with an interest in things medieval and early modern), such as Beowulf, Cain, The Wife of Bath, and a pantomimesque Gawain and the Green Knight - the latter of which featured our friend, fellow doctoral student, Lord of Misrule stalwart, and eventual Ars Ludendi founding member, Carolin Esser, as a thigh-slapping principal boy Gawain.*

*[Robert and I co-directed Gawain. Sharp-eyed Denizens may even have spotted the non-comestible parts of our directors’ gifts from the cast - which lived separately in Robert’s study and my successive university offices until eventually reuniting in Bishopthorpe. Yes. I know. Do feel free to reach for the anti-nausea meds…]

Robert would also go off-piste and play with others (I didn’t take it personally. …Much…) - having been lured by the irresistible offer of being Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses for Settlement Players, directed by one Paul Toy (expert on - inter alia - medieval and early modern literature and drama, established luminary of York’s dramatic scene, former Lord of Misrule, and eventual Ars Ludendi founding member). This bit of local PR - featuring Mr Toy and Dr Wright is worth flagging - partly because I think Robert’s evident glee at the role is quite sweet (don’t tell him I said that), but primarily as an indication of how Paul works with literary and dramatic texts (which is directly relevant to his parts of our upcoming Mystery Plays course).

For our present purposes, our next stop is Lords’ Summer Shakespeare in 2oo3: Twelfth Night. It won’t, perhaps, surprise you to learn that Robert was Malvolio (rumours that he’d looked into getting yellow stockings for cross-gartering before the audition may or may not be true. You might very well think that. I, however, couldn’t possibly comment, etc….), or that I was delighted to be cast as what may well be the perfect role (in terms of relatively little line-learning + maximum opportunity for ribaldry and general minxiness) of Maria. Those of you who have been following our shared history here may also have guessed that Mike was Sir Toby Belch (of course he was!), and Carolin strutted her stuff wonderfully manfully as a cross-cast Orsino.

Due to a confluence of respective work/research pressure and life-in-general factors, this was perhaps the most fun run of rehearsals in our time with Lords, in which we got to revel in ridiculously fun roles, in-rehearsal picnics, and living up/down to our reputation as The Bad Kidz (OK. That last bit may have been mainly Robert and me). That we ended up having not only large but also exceptionally appreciative audiences for the finished product (including regular belly-laughs - no really! - and rousing rounds of inter-scene applause in addition to the usual applause points!) was a huge and most welcome cherry on the cake.

The following summer’s Shakespeare rehearsals were equally fun, but Robert and I felt rather more pressure than we had in previous summers. This was partly because I was in the final throes of preparing my doctoral dissertation for submission (beyond which lay the daunting prospect of seeking the elusive Holy Grail of an early career academic post - not least to take the pressure off my husband, who had above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty supported me throughout my under- and post-graduate studies), while Robert - increasingly disenchanted with his temporary and precarious post in academia - was moving towards an alternative path in adult education with the WEA. And partly because we’d landed the roles which just about everyone else wanted - namely Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing - and were both fully mindful that we really couldn’t screw this up.

Robert had been banking on a minor role which would allow us to just muck about and have fun for what was meant to be the last outing for Robert, Mike, and me.*

*[The usual Lords of Misrule MO was for doctoral students to provide continuity for three or four years, putting on the first production of each academic year to welcome successive intakes of MA students, then handing over to said MA students for the rest of the year’s activities, and joining the rest of the year’s productions as required/necessary until the next academic year. The recent innovation of Summer Shakespeares called for larger casts, which meant All Hands On Deck for any current or past Lords who were in York over the summer rehearsal period, but summer 2004 was meant to be our last hurrah.]

I am embarrassed to say that secretly, despite my well-known penchant for smaller roles (the better to minimize line-learning/limelight stress whilst having shameless fun in rehearsals), I’d fallen hard for the Beatrice and Benedick dynamic at an impressionable age (O level). At the audition stage, there were many options and permutations on the table, but it’s more than possible that my (possibly ill-concealed. Ahem) miffedness at how lightly Robert took the audition and his evident befuddlement thereat led to the lovely Alex (our 2004 directrix) casting as she did.

Truth to tell, O Denizens, it wasn’t all plain sailing…

(a) Robert spent a good deal of the rehearsal process alternating between defensive, petulant, and befuddled (perfect for getting into character, daaahlings! But still…);

(b) Joanna-at-37 found Beatrice far more annoyingly smug than Joanna-at-15 had realized;

(c) summer 2004’s weather made it increasingly apparent that we wouldn’t be able to perform open-air as usual, then flood damage to the original indoor fall-back venue meant we had to stop doing any PR because the Plan C venue was so small; and

(d) although neither of us could work out why at the time, the dramatic dénouement felt very weird (I know… but believe it or not, we’re actually not bad people!).

But the end result was very well-received (if you’ve stayed this far, you may find this review amusing. Chemistry?? What…?), and lo - fifteen years later, after a lot of Other Things, our wedding readings clearly had to include Much Ado, with the assistance of Ars Ludendi.

And thus we reach Ars Ludendi…

Most importantly for our present purposes, Much Ado confirmed that Robert, Mike, and I didn’t want to waft away from each other and not somehow work/play together. It transpired that because of the respective circumstances of the next academic year’s CMS intake, there wouldn’t be the usual handing-over to the next generation of continuity, so we (with other old-timers) were faced with the choice of letting Lords wither or lurking for a bit longer, trusting that others would continue Lords in due course. Hurrah, before long, for the next carriers of the Lords’ torch!

That unexpected ‘extra’ year confirmed that our respective post-doctoral lives meant that we could no longer rehearse and perform in the usual am-dram way, but we felt that academic expertise plus rehearsed readings might be of interest to some (as did Carolin, Paul, Gillian, and Lesley, whom we shamelessly commandeered to the cause, along with other willing recruits as subsequent productions required). Our first production, in 2005, was a dramatized adaptation of a famous late medieval epistolary collection, The Paston Letters (including the actual Sir John Falstaff… What goes around comes around!). We moved on to a potted adaptation of The Decameron (not at all because of the ribaldry. Oh. Hang on… My mistake. Totally because of the ribaldry…).

2006 also saw Ars Ludendi deliver the first of what would become many taught courses/lectures/academic conference contributions on the Mystery Plays and medieval drama in general, illustrated throughout with rehearsed readings. Before long, we were also gaily throwing ourselves into adaptations of more modern texts, such as renaissance miscellanies, Puritan Christmases, C18 adulteries, C19/20 ghost stories, and things Sherlockian and Wodehousian (can you guess who was Bertie Wooster, I wonder…?), amongst many other things which may or may not warrant being mentioned here in due course.

For now, however, the most salient point is that we at Wright History have a long history with Ars Ludendi, and it would be remiss of us not to add a new chapter to that history by offering the Denizens of Wright History a chance to enjoy Paul and Mike’s insights into the Mystery Plays!

I can neither confirm nor deny that Robert and I doing the front-of-house bit of this course together will allow the Bad Kidz to ride again…