Ordinalia

Some history

In September 2000 the first play in the cycle - The Creation - was performed and in 2001 The Passion played to just over 3,000 people from all over the world.  The third and final play - The Resurrection - was performed to great acclaim in 2002; nearly 4,000 people came to see the show.  In 2004, as a culmination of the previous 4 years' work, the full cycle was performed as it was intended to be shown, probably for the first time since the early 1600s.  It seems likely that the traditional performances died out then, partly as part of the process of the gradual loss of the Cornish language and partly as a result of the turmoil and suppression of traditional religious and theatrical practices associated with the Civil War period.

What is the Cornish Ordinalia?

The Cornish Ordinalia is a unique cycle of Miracle Plays written in the 15^th Century.  First written in the Cornish language, it consists of three plays that together tell the stories of the bible from Genesis to Revelation.  The plays were written by secular canons at Glasney College in Penryn with the intention of teaching ordinary people tales from the Bible.  As such they are great fun - hugely entertaining, colourful and sometimes even bawdy - in order to appeal to the local people of the time.  The plays are akin to the famous Mystery Cycles of York, Chester and Wakefield, but unlike them these plays were performed by local people together, not in guilds, in the spirit of a festival.  We performed them in new English language versions with some Cornish retained, especially in the songs.  The scripts were commissioned from local playwright Pauline Sheppard.

Why St Just?

In 2000 the Millennium Festival offered us the opportunity to take on the challenge of producing the Ordinalia plays.  This was as a result of many years of preparatory work by a separate organisation, the Ordinalia Trust, which had worked under the leadership of Mavis Spargo to fulfil her vision of the plays being brought back to life for Cornwall today.  The Ordinalia Trust was offered the Millennium award, but was unable to take the project forward.  We took it on and began a process of collaboration with a number of theatre professionals and the community of St Just, where there was a ready-made group who were keen to be involved.  St Just - a town of some 2,000 people on the north coast of Cornwall a few miles east of Land's End - was particularly appropriate because preserved in the town centre is one of just two remaining medieval playing places left in Cornwall.  The Plen-an-Gwary (Cornish for ‘place of the play') is a grassed circle surrounded by earth banks; every Cornish town would probably have had one, but nearly all have gone, preserved these days only in street or village names.  These would have been the venues for the Ordinalia plays and other community events and celebrations; in St Just's case, the parish church was held by Glasney and it's likely that the Plen was as well, so these plays were almost certainly performed here some 500 years ago.  In a very real sense we brought them home again.

The Future

There are no immediate plans to revive the cycle again, although a long-term aim is that the community of St Just (or indeed other communities in Cornwall) will want to take it on again at some time in the future.

There's a range of DVD and VHS films of the productions and the making of the shows available for purchase.  All prices plus P&P. Please call 01209 313200 to order.

Origi Mundi (2000)
Documentary by B Santi Available on VHS £3

The Passion (2001)
Full length by 3S Films Available on VHS £3

The Passion (2001)
Documentary by B Santi Available on VHS £3

The Resurrection (2002)
Full length by 3S Films Available on VHS £3

The Resurrection (2002)
Documentary by B Santi Available on VHS £3

Creation, Passion, Resurrection
Triple Documentary by B Santi Available on VHS £3

Ordinalia, "The Full Cycle" (2004)
Full length by 3S Films Available on DVD/VHS £10/£3

Ordinalia "The Full Cycle" (2004)
Documentary by B Santi and
The Young People of Penwith Available on DVD/VHS £5/£3

Origi Mundi
Music CD £3

There's an active programme of events in the Plen each summer and there's also a locally-led campaign to purchase the wooden building beside the Plen that used to be the St Just telephone exchange - this has been used as the production base for shows in the Plen and it's now threatened with sale to developers which might make putting on theatre there very much more difficult.  For ways of donating to this good cause, please visit the website.