City's historical' legaicy becomes a mystery.

Byline: David Charters

The soul of Liverpool is to be revealed in a cycle of mystery plays, which will draw on an ancient religious tradition in telling the city's story. David Charters reports

SSHH. There is nothing, nothing at all' no past and no present, no sounds or smells or sights, nobody to touch, just the void, and an idea that there should be a future.

The idea is the seed. Slowly, a great orange yolk creeps up the black, casting light all around it and the eyelids of man and all the creatures open on the world.

Suddenly, a gospel choir begins singing George Harrison's song, Here Comes the Sun. For, little darling, it has been a long and lonely winter.

Could it be the Creation on Hope Street, between the cathedrals in Liverpool? For, a cycle of mystery plays is being written to help the city celebrate 2008, when it will be European Capital of Culture.

There were many variations in the medieval mystery plays as they developed in different parts of Christendom, absorbing and blending folk customs with Biblical stories, but many ran from God's Creation to Judgement Day, taking in the Fall of Lucifer, the Flood, Abraham and Isaac, the Nativity, the raising of Lazarus, the Passion and the Resurrection, all told in rhyme.

And, of course, the Chester cycle of 24 pageants is among the most famous in Britain.

Jen Heyes, a theatrical director and producer, has been commissioned by the Liverpool Culture Company to carry out the research and development necessary for a week-long series of mystery plays to be staged in Liverpool in Easter 2008 and then repeated biennially.

"The concept is to create an original cycle for Liverpool and the 21st century," says Jen.

"Liverpool possesses a rich diversity of cultures which will become the ingredients of this new cycle. The plays will be a fusion drawing on the spectacular vision of the founding of this city, of its dreams, aspirations and radiant faith' of human will and determination, of small stories and enormous stories, of the riches of experience and the sharing of hopes."

In this way, Jen hopes to open the soul of the city, allowing people to see how it has matured through sorrows and triumphs, always proud of its heritage, but also independent in its spirit, willing from time to time to take a rebel stand.

Well, these are mighty sentiments from the young woman, who is drinking tea, barely strong enough to crawl from the pot in the cafe serving the city's magnificent Walker Art Gallery.

But she is determined and has a track record in local drama to back her confidence. Additionally, Kevin McMahon, a Liverpool poet, is already writing scripts in verse form.

Here is a passage of his writing about the Creation dealing with the fifth day and his city's place in the world. The verses are appreciated best if read aloud.

And here amidst this sea of detritus blood

A single green and perfect bud nestles

And reaches for the kiss of morning sun

Whose golden rays a gilded cradle spun

Housed like an infant who from her mother's womb is gently eased

Begins the cycle, Goddess Earth now stands appeased

The precious petals open in the balmy glow

Defying barren ground where nought should grow

This city carries in its name a legacy that spans the world

A global dictionary of references are unfurled and scribed

As like barren landscape once described

That now belies the present beauty of that land

And so they named that River Mersey part in tribute

Park in rebuke...

As she approaches, the next verse, Jen's eyes moisten. This, she feels, expresses the emotions of the city's people.

In Syracuse, New York, a small town breathes

The air of a distant heritage leaves there

An echo in its name of maritime fame

A quiet place whose summer air hangs cool

A town that has the name of Liverpool.

Jen, who says her age is somewhere between that of Madonna and Britney Spears, was brought up in Widnes, where she went to the Wade Deacon Grammar School. She has a first-class BA honours degree in drama from the Liverpool John Moores University and eight distinctions in a National Diploma in Performing Arts from Halton College. Her three A-levels were in theatre, film and communications.

Although she began her career as a singer, Jen founded the Bare Face Cheek Theatre Company in 1998, remaining its artistic director. In 2002, she founded Cut to the Chase Productions, which has the commission from the Culture Company.

She has directed performances of Talking Heads by Alan Bennett, with a regional tour starting soon, featuring Dean Sullivan, Ethne Brown and Pauline Daniels. Her other directorial credits include Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid, Esther Wilson's Trapped, Emile Zola's Therese Raquin and DH Lawrence's Women in Love, all at the Unity Theatre, Liverpool, and Stephen King's Misery at The Brindley, Runcorn.

She also directed A Film In Our Own Backyard, by Jane Barnes, a play about children in World War II, at the Imperial War Museum North, Salford Quays.

Sitting by Jen is her partner, Brian Dodd, 34, a theatre and radio actor, who, some years ago, played Jesus at a play in Peckforton Castle, Cheshire.

"The medieval mystery plays and traditions will be used as a model from which to carry out a new cycle of plays," she says. "We will fuse the historical legacy of the creation of Liverpool with the stories hidden away in the nooks and crannies of the city, in the old pubs on the side streets and the estates. The work will explore a spiritual and moral ideology. Tasters of the new cycle will be performed all over the city, over a six-day period leading up to the main event on the seventh day. It is envisaged that a group of travelling performers will use the modern equivalent of the pageant wagon, the car, as transport.

"Bursts of stories will be staged in pubs, clubs, coffee bars, factories, office car parks, galleries and museums, as well as going further afield in Merseyside, not just the city centre. There will be no warning of this. The audience will in most cases already be in the playing area or will just stumble across the happening. The style of the tasters will be influenced by the original mystery plays and will be striking, highly theatrical, a combination of comedy and tragedy with a narrative that presents moral reflection. They will be undeniably recognisable as the Liverpool Mysteries."

"I put the idea of the mystery plays to the Liverpool Culture Company, when it was putting together the bid for 2008," says Jen.

"I know they discussed the project with the judges when they came over to look at Liverpool and talk about possible events. It has been ticking over and I have been revisiting it. Last year, I did a feasibility report and now they have come back and commissioned research and development, so that I can do a smorgasbord of ideas for the possible creation of new Liverpool mystery cycle.

"It will be on a number of streets, but the main one will be on the Street of Hope, coming down from the Anglican Cathedral to the Catholic Cathedral, to be performed on the site of Liverpool University. I have to stress that these are ideas, not yet set in stone, but I think it is a very good idea.

"But for me the passionate thing is bringing the performance out to the people. The original mystery plays, which brought the Bible stories to a largely illiterate population, were highly spectacular, bringing a sense of something that was supernatural, God-like, and would arouse fear, so that people would think the magic of God in Christ was being presented right in front of their eyes."

The main difference in Liverpool will be an opportunity to introduce great people from the city's past and present into the narrative. These could be figures from sport, music, politics, business, human rights etc. So familiar faces like the Beatles, Ken Dodd, Bill Shankly, Dixie Dean, Agnes Jones, Kitty Wilkinson, Father James Nugent and many others could be included. But their appearances would be almost abstract, or fleeting references.

"That is what is driving the research and development," says Jen. "How can we make these undeniably the Liverpool Mystery Plays for the 21st century to be repeated and to be accepted not only by people who have an appreciation of classical literature, but by everyone in the city. The challenge is fitting the famous people into the narrative."

Mystery cycles are, of course, Christian in their roots, but Jen will be talking to people from other faiths about the development of the city's spiritual qualities. Songs will be central to the production and is immediately enthused by the idea of Here Comes the Sun being considered for the Creation.

A large cast is envisaged. "But the city itself is the most important character with those who helped make it what it is today," she says.

Readers with suggestions should contact Jen at cttproductions @hotmail.com or visit www.cutto thechaseproductions.co.uk

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CAPTION(S):

God, Mary and Jesus in one of the Chester plays' Jen Heyes stands by the Angel of Truth at the Gladstone Memorial in St John's Gardens, Liverpool. The angelA scene from one of the Mystery Plays showing the has a sprig of laurel in her right hand and the Book of Knowledge in her left' The Last Supper in a Chester play from the mid-60s' The devil tempts Eve with an apple in the Garden of Eden