Mysteries of today

The SFX was the venue for the extraordinary five-hour performance of the Australian production of Cloudstreet, the hit of the Dublin Theatre Festival this year. Epic productions seem to be a feature of the SFX at the moment: on Wednesday next, the four-hour Mysteries 2000 opens - and sandwiches are promised in the interval yet again.

Records of the original medieval Mystery plays date from as early as the 1400s, the most famous cycles of which are the York Cycle and the Chester Cycle. The plays were a series of interconnecting Biblical stories, which tell the story of Creation through to Judgement Day, and were usually performed outdoors.

At their longest, the cycle of plays would run to 10 hours, although no one play in the cycle would be longer than about 15 minutes. Authorship was always collaborative, with a range of guilds and associations of craftsmen taking different parts of the story and writing it up in turns, usually in rhyme.

The full 10-hour cycle must have been something like the equivalent of the sprawling Hindi films that originate from Bollywood today, and which are phenomenally successful for precisely the same reason that the Mystery plays were - they are epic visual spectacles that educate, inform, and entertain a largely illiterate audience.

Michael Scott, artistic director of The Machine, has been interested in doing something contemporary with the Mystery plays for about five years. "They're the beginning of modern theatre. They predate Shakespeare," he explains. "Since the Mysteries are defined by the Christian calendar, which started 2,000 years ago, I thought the Millennium was an appropriate time to revisit and renovate the plays."

Two months ago, Scott approached several Irish writers and asked if they would be interested in contributing to Mysteries 2000. "I was lucky. I seemed to catch a lot of them between deadlines. I think they were encouraged by the fact that the scenes are so short, just 10 or 15 minutes long."

It's a collective project, rather than a collaborative one, since none of the writers will see each other's work until the opening night. Among those who have written the 28 plays - which are really scene length - are Joe O'Byrne, Pat Kinevane, Mary Elizabeth Burke Kennedy, Gavin Kostick, Joe O'Connor, Michael McCaffrey, Fergus Linehan, Deirdre Purcell, and Nuala Ni Dhomhnail. Some of the plays, such as the Adoration of the Magi, will be purely visual, with no text at all.

Although the writers follow the story faithfully through its traditional path from the Fall of Lucifer to Judgement Day, those turning up at the SFX expecting a Jesus of Nazareth-type experience are bound to be disconcerted. "Well, the Nativity scene is of Mary giving birth in a toilet surrounded by drug dealers. And the Last Supper is set in the Warsaw Ghetto," Scott recounts cheerfully.

"There are three people playing God, but one of them is a woman, so everything is quite fair. All the plays are different. Most of them are written in rhyme. The Irish have always been good storytellers and I hope these new Mystery plays will lay open the consciousness of a generation." Actually Scott, who in his role of director is the only one who's read all the plays, and whose overseeing eye pulls the whole fragmented production together, could well qualify for the role of the fourth God.

Joe O'Connor has written a piece entitled The Temptation. "I was tempted by it," he quips. He was attracted to the project by the millennial aspect of it. "They are among the oldest stories in our culture, and almost every novel or play deals with the topics in the Bible.

"The thing about the Devil is that he's such a great character," he explains. "Jesus is a bit of a wuss in the original text. The Devil definitely has the best lines. My Jesus takes a stand against the dispossessed and unfortunate." O'Connor has used Dublin rhyming slang, hip-hop references, and the language of advertising in his piece. "I wanted to make it entertaining," he stresses.

Mary Elizabeth Burke Kennedy has written Pilate's Wife. "I saw the York Cycle in York years ago, and I thought it could be great fun to write something new." Burke Kennedy's scene is set in Pilate's bedroom. Pilate's wife is an alcoholic, waking up after a killer hangover, and spoiling for a fight. "It's about the politics of marriage, within the wider context of the politics of Jerusalem."

Gavin Kostick has written three plays: Lazurus, Buffeting, and The Harrowing of Hell. "I was really excited by this project because I was brought up in Chester, where one of the medieval cycles was written. It's the only set of plays I know that directly challenge audiences's lives. When you watch the Mysteries, you have to reconsider your own life and your faith at the end of it. The audience should go on a hard-line spiritual journey."

Kostick's Jewish background provided him with a different perspective on the Biblical stories. "I can read them and get the pure drama out of them," he explains. "I have a detachment that lets me see them purely as stories." He revels in his opportunity to rewrite some of the Mysteries. "You look at the Christian calendar. It's always repeating and recycling itself - Easter, Christmas - the same every year. Yet the world is changing every year, against this backdrop of religious rituals. In the Mysteries, we're looking at these rituals, but from a contemporary perspective and settings."

Lazurus is set in Jennings Funeral Parlour on the North Strand. "I see Jesus as a Roddy Doyle decent type of bloke. He's inside, having a chat to Lazurus, while the wake is going on outside. Tony Gregory is outside at the wake."

The Harrowing of Hell tells the little-known story of what happened to Jesus during the three days he was in the tomb. "He went to Hell and released all those who had been faithful to him. Before the Crucifixion, there was no Heaven. So Jesus blows apart the gates of Hell and lets out Adam and Eve."

Gostick's set-piece challenge between the Devil and Jesus is conveyed through a song-and-dance routine. "I see Jesus as a high-class drug dealer. The Devil is a sort of Gene Kelly. He's cool and cheeky - he's wearing an Aids awareness ribbon. But think about it. Who's offering the more realistic option? Jesus is offering the ultimate drug - eternal happiness. But the Devil offers pain and suffering. It's much more honest and true to human experience."

Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill's piece, Song of Songs will resound through the entire cycle. "I don't know what Michael has planned for it," she says, although the plan seems to be a libretto, which will weave in and out of the scenes. "My piece is a dialogue between the Dark Woman and her lover. What have I done to make it contemporary?" She laughs. "I've jazzed it up!" At the time of writing, she had not yet finished writing her piece, in common with some of the other contributors. Which probably makes Deliverance the last unlisted play in Mysteries 2000.

Mysteries 2000 opens on Wednesday at the SFX and runs for a month, with previews on Monday and Tuesday. Further information from 01- 8554673.