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Joe Offer What's a Mummers Play? (87* d) RE: What's a Mummers Play? 26 Dec 15

Malcolm mentions the "Traditional Drama Research Group" above, but the link he gave is dead.

I found a "Folk Play Research Group" at http://www.folkplay.info/. Checking the old link at archive.org, it's clear the new link is the same organization, with a slight name change. It's a good Website to spend some time with.

-Joe-
Up above, DMcG gave a definition of a Mummer's Play:
    Thread #49704   Message #751442
    Posted By: DMcG
    20-Jul-02 - 01:52 AM
    Thread Name: What's a Mummers Play?
    Subject: RE: BS: What's a Mummers Play?

    A mummer's play is a traditional play, usually performed at either Easter or Christmas (but these days at any opportunity!) It has a cast consisting of most of the following and perhaps a few more

    - St George
    - A Turkish Knight
    - A Doctor
    - A fool
    - A 'wife' which is a man dressed as a woman

    The action is usually a short speech by each character:

    In comes I, St George the hero bold
    With my bloody spear I gained a thousand pounds in gold
    I fought the firey dragon and brought him to the slaughter
    And by that means I won the Queen of Egypt's daughter

    then a fight bewteen St George and the Turkish Knight during which St George gets killed. The doctor is called and brings him back to life by his medicine:

    I can cure the itch, the stitch, the palsy and the gout
    All aches within and pains without

    .. is a typical sort of declaration. Once St George is resurrected, all sing. The song "Come Write me Down (The Wedding Song)" is from a mummer's play and is the wedding between the fool and the wife.

    There is a lot of variation, but the basic structure is pretty common

That sounds like a perfect description of the annual (chiefly Mudcat) Mummer's Play at the FSGW Getaway, produced by the inimitable Jacqui Morse. Do you mean to tell me that Jacqui's giving us the Real Thing? It's always fun, but I had no idea it was authentic.
There's a database of play scripts at http://www.folkplay.info/Texts.htm. Anybody have any favorite scripts they'd like to post here. Jacqui, where'd you get your script from?

-Joe-

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