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2013 December - The Chester Mystery Plays at St George in the East


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The Players of St Peter are pleased to present their annual performances of scenes from the medieval mystery plays, which in their entirety illustrate the biblical story from Creation to Doomsday. This year the scenes are taken from the Chester Plays texts.

We open with a Prologue in which God shows the danger of pride causing one corps of angels (and later mankind) to fall from grace and be cut off from paradise.

The plays we have chosen to do this year then focus on aspects of the Christmas story as portrayed by the craft guilds of the Wrights, the Painters, the Vintners and Mercers of Chester. They deal with the coming of Christ sent to restore mankind’s way to heaven.

The plays feature prophecy, imperial commands, mystical visions, journeys, miraculous cures and escapes, feasting, fighting, diplomatic visits, regal plots, gift-giving, singing and the quiet coming of the Christmas child. The biblical characters are brought to life as 15th-century Englishmen and women in these traditional plays which ring true as much for our time as when they were first performed by ordinary citizens to their fellow townsfolk more than five hundred years ago.

We hope that you will enjoy these plays as much as we do, and that they will provide a happy start to your Christmas season.

Here is the selection we shall be presenting

  • Prologue (Barbers, Tanners and Drapers)
  • The Salutation and Birth, including Octavian’s Court (Wrights)
  • The Shepherds (Painters)
  • The Three Kings from the East (Vintners)
  • The Offering of the Kings (Mercers)
 

 
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