Folklore: School Nativity Plays

Subject: Folklore: School Nativity Plays
From: DMcG
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 09:40 AM

Apolgies if this has been discussed before, but 'supersearch' doesn't seem to be working at the moment.

I am going to see a version of the Mystery Plays at Canterbury Catheral tomorrow and I got to thinking about School Nativity Plays, which share some of the character of the Mystery Plays. Even today they are performed in the majority of English schools (although concerns about other religions have had the effect of downplaying the traditional Nativity story itself in many cases.)

Discussing this with my mother-in-law, she does not remember them taking place at her school in the early 1930's but of course that was just one school and it may simply be a failure or memory.

When did the Nativity Play become widespread in school? What was the driving force? Have they a long history in some area, perhaps moving from church or Sunday school to normal school?   In short, what is the history?

Subject: RE: Folklore: School Nativity Plays
From: greg stephens
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 09:56 AM

Well I'm not all that old. I can only go back to Ashbourne Staffs c 1950 when I'm pretty sure I was got up in the old Palestinian type headgear and being fourth shepherd from the left. That's as far back as I can go.

Subject: RE: Folklore: School Nativity Plays
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 10:06 AM

Ah, a terry dressing gown and a tea-towel on the head -- happy days! I've seen photos in the Black Country Bugle of NPs between the wars; can't remember if I've seen any pre-war or 19th century ones.

Steve

Subject: RE: Folklore: School Nativity Plays
From: PoppaGator
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 01:23 PM

greg stephens --

You suffer from the same delusion I do -- thinking of yourself as still "not all that old" when in fact you're a true old fart and not getting any younger.

If you were in grade school "c. 1950," you're at least two years older than me, and I'm 56 and (just recently) a grandpa!

Ooops -- back to the subject at hand. I went to Catholic school (in the US), and we definitely had a "Christmas pageant" (nativity play) every year. I'm not at all sure that the local public schools did the same, though. My own kids went to public schools in the 80s-90s, and they put on theatrical presentations every December just prior to Christmas vacation, including carol singing, etc., but I don't believe they ever put on the traditional nativity play.

I trust it is not necessary to define the term "public school" as used in America. I know that in England, the term can mean a snobby boarding school that we USAians would call "private," not "public."

Subject: RE: Folklore: School Nativity Plays
From: DMcG
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 01:30 PM

I've just realised I said something stupid in my original post (so what's new?). When I said they were performed in the majority of English schools I meant, of course, English primary schools. It would be a brave teacher who tried to get surly teenagers to take part in a Nativity play.

Subject: RE: Folklore: School Nativity Plays
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 01:40 PM

I remember that they were given in my grade school (public in American-Canadian sense) about 1934. I know that Catholic schools had them, of course. No idea of when the practice was stopped (or so I was told) in my home area public grade schools (New Mexico).

Subject: RE: Folklore: School Nativity Plays
From: alanabit
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 03:37 PM

I did them in the early sixties. I was at junior schools in Gosport, Barrow and Callington in Cornwall. Just as entertaining as the plays themselves, are the stories which emerge from them.
My favourite is the story of the little boy, who was deemed to be too small for the role of Joseph. He was allocated the part of the innkeeper. On the day of the performance, he greeted the prospective parents with the words, "Well you can come in Mary - but you can Piss Off Joseph, because I wanted that part!"

Subject: RE: Folklore: School Nativity Plays
From: Joybell
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 06:52 PM

You guys are so lucky. I only got to play a sheep! Better than a tree though. Joy

Subject: RE: Folklore: School Nativity Plays
From: mack/misophist
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 12:09 AM

I attended elementary school in Japan, Missouri, and central Texas. No nativity plays. My mother attended in Missouri. None then, either. In fact, I've only seen them in print. I don't think the Catholic schools I knew of in Texas had them either.

Subject: RE: Folklore: School Nativity Plays
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 01:20 AM

In Australia, I remember Sunday School - where the obvious depictions happened in Church on XMAS Eve - once I was older I escaped from the stage to playing the Pipe Organ for the Service.

I attended State School, and no such performances happened - I was absent due to ill health for much of First Grade though.

Subject: RE: Folklore: School Nativity Plays
From: Joybell
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 08:15 PM

The Australian state school I went to in the 1950s didn't have them either. My role as a sheep was at Sunday school. More recently (1960s-1990s)they were to be found in Kindergardens/preschools for 3-4 year-olds. They still have them out here in rural Victoria but they are less common in urban Preschools.
True-love's daughter played Mary in a Nativity play when she was 4. There were two Marys. One was played by a sweet little girl with Down's syndrome. True-love's daughter told us all she was to play , "The Ordinary Mary, not The Special Mary". They both gave a special performance as it turned out. We all cried a lot. Joy

Subject: RE: Folklore: School Nativity Plays
From: Kent Davis
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 09:38 PM

I was a shepherd in a 5th grade Nativity play in public (i.e., state) school in Orangeburg, S.C. I suspect this was one of the last in a U.S. public school, as the U.S. Supreme Court was already frowning on such events. I think I remember that the narration and dialogue of the play was taken verbatim (or nearly so) from the second chapters of Matthew and Luke. It was similar to plays that I later participated in in the United Methodist Church.