The Mysteries

Chris Thorpe

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781786826312
• eBook ISBN: 9781786826367
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Six plays, six places: Eskdale, Staindrop, Whitby, Boston, Stoke-on-Trent, Manchester. Chris Thorpe's cycle of six warm, witty new plays crosses Northern England, from a sheep farm in Eskdale via a tourist information centre in Whitby to Manchester. A fort on a hilltop, a landowner's estate, a tourist information office, a bird sanctuary, a re-developed factory, a public square, silent and remembering. Chris Thorpe's cycle of six new plays explores the landscapes that surround us and how we live with each other. In an ambitious original production by Sam Pritchard, each of the six parts of The Mysteries was made and premiered in the place it was written. During its run in Manchester, two day-long performances of the whole cycle took place in the Royal Exchange Theatre space.

Eskdale

Music. Aotearoa / God Defend New Zealand. A MAN enters, leading a sheep. He shears the sheep, quickly and efficiently. He leads the sheep offstage.

The Roman Fort at the western end of Hardknott Pass in Cumbria. Mid-morning. Late May.

AMY, with a camera. A woman in her late forties, wearing jeans and a jumper. She looks down the valley. She takes a photograph. GINNY, late teens.

GINNY: I can see your house from here.

AMY: Can you.

GINNY: This wall could do with a bit of work. How old do you think it is?

AMY: Dunno. Why don’t you lick it and have a guess? I think that’s how they do it on Time Team.

…

There’s information boards, you know.

GINNY: All these men up here.

AMY: How many?

GINNY: Don’t know.

AMY: I bet it says on the boards.

GINNY: All these men, probably doing all sorts.

…

What was this bit?

AMY: Bath house.

GINNY: Doing all sorts in the bath house. All that oil.

AMY: What oil?

GINNY: They brought it in stone jars. Landed it at Ravenglass.

AMY: How do you know that?

GINNY: Did that school project. Only time you refused to help me with my homework.

AMY: Did I?

GINNY: Yeah.

…

They told us they used to sweat.

AMY: Long walk from Ravenglass.

GINNY: In the baths. They used to get clean by sweating.

AMY: They told you that at school?

GINNY: I suppose they thought we’d find it interesting.

AMY: About the oil?

GINNY: No. Well about the oil coming up here. Not about them oiling each other up.

AMY: Invented that yourself, did you? With your dirty little mind?

GINNY: It’s hardly unlikely, is it? Given the Romans.

AMY: Given the Romans what?

GINNY: Had a famously open attitude to sexuality.

AMY: I haven’t thought about that in years. You studying this place. When I was at school they never even brought us up here. Not that I remember, anyway. We never even really thought of it. Just up the road.

GINNY: Maybe if they’d brought you you’d have stayed.

AMY: I’m not sure a lack of school trips is what drove me away.

GINNY: Well. We’re here now.

ANDY, in a pub in the valley. Note – the metre used for ANDY’s verse in this section is modelled on the Wakefield Stanza from the Wakefield Mystery Plays.

ANDY: When light breaks, as it will and always has

Crests Eastern fells to spill along the pass

The shadows latched in ghylls begin to loose

And dark flees from the hills at daybreak’s force

The fort begins

To rise from rocky ground

Find shape from formless mound

Its weathered walls around

To close us in

This first enclosure in a foreign land

Built to designs perfected far to south

Projecting power from Empire’s outstretched hand

The boats drawn up at sandy river-mouth

Then, stone by stone

To guard the valley head

To claim where conquest led

To keep the soldiers fed

To stay, to own

And on the valley floor life carried on

The clearing trees, the creep of sheep and cow

The slow acceptance that one world was gone

A larger world connected with it now

Once sealed away

The trails of commerce grew

Cut by a wind that blew

And spliced and forged anew

Those roots that lay

There used to be poets here.

MONA: Fucking skype.

ANDY: Eh?

MONA: I fucking hate it.

ANDY: Who you trying to talk to?

MONA: Grant.

ANDY: Oh.

MONA: Fuck New Zealand.

ANDY: Delivery coming at ten.

MONA: It’s unreasonably far away.

ANDY: Thirteen hours ahead.

MONA: Thirteen hours ahead.

ANDY: I’ll just sort it on my own then, shall I?

MONA: Can you sort it on your own? I want to speak to him before he goes to bed.

ANDY: No problem.

MONA: I wish he hadn’t gone back.

ANDY: Yeah.

…

There was a bit of frost on the top this morning.

MONA: Carrying it all. It’s not good for me.

ANDY: Going to be a busy weekend.

MONA: She’ll love it if I don’t get to speak to him.

GERRY enters.

GERRY: I’m assuming you’re open.

ANDY: Door’s unlocked, so I guess we are. Semi-legal breakfast pint, Gerry?

GERRY: Tea.

ANDY: Working today?

GERRY: Aye.

ANDY: How’s things at the plant?

GERRY: Progressing. Safely. And as cheaply as possible.

ANDY: Good to know you’re spending my taxes wisely.

GERRY: I’m in no rush. Decommissioning’s a slow process.
Suits me fine. Longer I live here the happier I get. My plan is, by the time they run out of spent fuel rods, you’ll have accepted me as one of your own.

MONA: You bought your house yeah, Gerry? I’m remembering that right?

GE...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Chapter 1: Eskdale
• Chapter 2: Staindrop
• Chapter 3: Whitby
• Chapter 4: Boston
• Chapter 5: Stoke-on-Trent
• Chapter 6: Manchester