Going medieval

"Creation/Doomsday: Selections from the Chester Mystery Cycle," directed by Edmund Lingan, UT associate professor of theatre, is "a sequence of 24 individual plays of biblical episodes from the 15th and 16th centuries; the cycle presents Christian history from Creation to Doomsday," according to Christina Fitzgerald, dramaturg and associate professor and director of graduate studies in English.

In an amusing prelude of things to come, one "audience member" begins the afternoon by being dragged into the mouth of hell after answering her cell phone — an attempt to discourage cell phone use throughout the production.

The play is introduced with angels chanting "Ego sum alpha, alto et omega," followed by a rendition of, "Jesus loves me this I know," which is one of the few modern additions.

Audience members then get to watch Lucifer's (Phillipe Taylor) fall from grace.

"Pride is your fall," says God. Taylor's was one of the more enjoyable performances of the play.

During "Creation," the actors donned the guise of various organisms, including fish, plants, birds and a particularly comedic sheep, whose bleats evoked laughter from the audience.

A scene pulled from Leviticus is offset by the killing of Abel by Cain.

The cast then goes into a tangent shouting out the various trespasses that man should not commit, after which a waterfall of fog cascades down from the ceiling illuminated by white light from above while God says, "Behold I shall destroy them with the earth," in effigy of the great flood.

There was a particularly comical scene when Joseph is distraught over the apparent "amiss" of the Virgin Mary.

"I am old and cold," he says, contemplating whether his possible sterility and inability to perform in the bedroom pushed her to commit adultery.

Other amusing segments included Mary riding onstage on the back of another cast member on her journey to Jerusalem and the appearance of an obviously makeshift camel.

There is also a proverbial "shepherd smack-down" where the four shepherds who take gifts to the newborn Jesus are involved in a slap-stick fight amongst themselves. The shepherds, who take on a confusing mix of Midwest, southern and British accents, are then confronted by the angel Gabriel who instructs them that their savior has been born and they must pay him homage.

They bring Jesus a bell, flask and cap, though one shepherd brings his savior a pair of his wife's old "hose."

At the end of the first half, King Herod, the only role throughout the play that benefited from extreme over-acting— is informed by the Magi of the birth of Jesus and quickly calls for a knight to come and slay all the newborns of the land. And, after Herod has a rather bizarre intimate moment with one of the dead infants, he is pulled into the mouth of hell by demons. Screams are all that are left when the stage goes to blackout.

Post-Intermission, the adult Jesus (Pat Miller) is tempted by Lucifer. In the second half of the play, which takes on a more "serious tone," according to Sal Simione, sound designer, Jesus travels around spreading the holy word and gaining disciples.

After the crucifixion of Christ, the crucifiers dance around Jesus mockingly singing, "Na, na, na, na, na, na…," to the tune of "Ring Around the Rosie."

Mary then sings a beautiful song about her sorrow at the death of her son, which ends with Jesus exclaiming, "Father, why hast thou forsaken me?"

The play concludes with the division of souls between heaven and hell—Jesus accepting the faithful and casting out sinners, who were subsequently dragged to hell by demons.

Overall, the play was an interesting take on the biblical stories. The infusion of humor kept the mood light and prevented it from feeling like a sermon.

Although there were many funny moments, few audience members laughed throughout the play. "I think [the audience] is afraid to laugh," said Simione.

"The plays were originally sponsored by the city of Chester, England, and its merchant and craft guilds — not the church…," Fitzgerald warns. "Although the subject matter is religious, the style of the Chester plays will surprise many…from the sacred to the profane, the tragic to the comic, the solemn to the raucous…if you hear something that shocks, it is almost certainly original to the play and not of our making."

The low budget yet functional set included pearly gates as well as a hell mouth that glowed with red back-lighting and emitted fog.

The cast utilized the stage well, entering from above, below and behind stage in all directions, and from behind the audience, using the entrances to the seating area. The lighting and effects were also smooth and prompt without any noticeable mistakes.

While the language of the play may be difficult for some, the modernization created by Fitzgerald and the glossary added in the playbill allowed for laymen to figure out what was going on from context.

However, since the vocabulary is somewhat unfamiliar to Present-day English speakers, the acoustics of the stage made some of the script difficult to understand when the actors were yelling or failed to enunciate properly.

The ensemble for "Creation/Doomsday" features: Jillian Albert, Ahmad Atallah, Megan Beckett, Starr Chellsea Cutino, Lauren Eaton, Elif Erturk, JoEllen Jacobs, Pat Miller, Daniel Partin, Kari Thomas, Phillipe Taylor and Emily Emily Wessendarp.

—"Creation/Doomsday" will be performed at the Center for Performing Arts Center Theatre April 21-24 at 7:30 p.m. and April 25 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $13 for adults, $11 for seniors and UT employees and $9 for UT students. For more information, contact Angela Riddel at 419-530-2452 or send an e-mail to TheArts@utoledo.edu.