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Angelic Chorus in the
Second Shepherd's Pageant,
Christmas 1966

SCUNA history » Concerts » Christmas 1966

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Programme

Page 1


Page 1 of Second Shepherd's Pageant concert programme. Transcription follows.

 

THE SECOND SHEPHERDS' PAGEANT
presented
by
The Inter-Church Committee

 

ABOUT THE INTER-CHURCH COMMITTEE

Our object is to help the members of the different congregations in Canberra to get to know each other, so that we may come to enjoy the Unity which Christ wills in the way in which He wills it.

The committee is made up of lay people and clergy from the Protestant, Anglican and Roman Catholic churches. We are trying to do together anything which will benefit the community and make us all better friends. So far we have arranged the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity,the Blake Prize Exhibition of Religious Art, joint parish census undertakings and the celebration of the great religious festivals of Christmas and Easter with displays and music in the shopping centres. At Easter we staged 'Everyman' in Civic Square. To-night we are bringing the 'Second Shepherds' Pageant' into your own area.

Page 2


Page 2 of Second Shepherd's Pageant concert programme. Transcription follows.

 

ABOUT THE PLAY

This is a Miracle Play written by an unknown author in the fifteenth century. It is based on a few verses from St. Luke's Gospel, beginning: 'There were shepherds abiding in the field ...'

The playwright put into his play the shepherds he knew on the English moors. He made them talk about the kinds of things that worried them: high taxes, harsh landlords, nagging wives, miserly masters. The adventure they have is one they would be familiar with -- a sheep stealing episode with a border sheep-stealer. Here it is turned into comedy in a pseudo-nativity scene, instead of ending, as it might have done, in a hanging. The comedy dissolves into the tenderness and joy of the true Nativity.

Our ancestors were less solemn than we; to them laughter was praise and a form of worship. The Incarnation of the Lamb of God came close to them in the pantomime of the shepherds.

Page 3


Page 3 of Second Shepherd's Pageant concert programme. Transcription follows.

Inset: newspaper photograph of Dorothy Green1

THE SECOND SHEPHERDS' PAGEANT

The Players:

Coll, the First Shepherd .......... Phil McKenzie
Gib, the Second Shepherd .......... Rodney Lander
Daw, the Third Shepherd .......... David Brennan
Mak, a sheep-stealer .......... Michael Britten
Gill, his wife .......... Michèle Setter
The Angel .......... Kevin Green
The Virgin Mary .......... Virginia Lee
 
Angelic Choir .......... A.N.U. Choral Society
 
Music .......... arranged by Judy Clingan
Costumes .......... Harriet Green
Lights .......... Graham Daley
Business and Stage Manager .......... Phil McKenzie
Properties .......... David Jones
 
Production .......... Dorothy Green
 
Acknowledgements: Our thanks are due to Mesdames Burgess, Kelly, McKenzie, Ryman and Warren for making the costumes.

Review by Hope Hewitt2


Second Shepherd's Pageant: Review by Hope Hewitt. Transcription follows.

 

On Monday evening the Inter-Church Commitee gave the first of four performances of the Second Shepherd's Play from the 15th Century Wakefield Miracle Cycle.

Producer Dorothy Green thought up a welcome variation from modern or home-made Nativity plays when she organised this project. This, the most famous of the surviving Mediaeval pageants, is a moving and picturesque version of the Christmas story; it also demonstrates the enduring feeling for the dramatic which the anonymous author possesed.

The play is being presented at different "stations" round Canberra in keeping with the mediaeval tradition which moved the plays from one acting area to another in the same town. On the opening night, St Ninian's Memorial Garden made a near-English equivalent of a city green; the Rosary Primary School, the architectural equivalent of Church precincts.

The production showed the timeless appeal of procession, colour and music, as the Angelic Choir in long scarlet, black and white robes materialised out of the shadows, carrying candles and singing the Gloria. It also showed the lasting humour of sheep-stealing and rough-and-tumble.

Down to earth

In contrast with the formal gravity of Christ's Nativity, Mak, the sheep-rustler, played with vigour and an Irish accent by Michael Britten, made a down-to-earth contrast; yet at the same time the Palestine of Our Lord, Mediaeval Yorkshire and modern Australia all met in the unprotesting corriedale at the centre of this comic scene.

Much of the distinction of this production came from the music, arranged by Judy Clingan and sung by the ANU Choral Society; and from the visual pleasure in the costumes (Harriet Green) and lighting (Graham Daley). Symbolic gold, scarlet and white were emphasised at key points in the action against a general darkness and low-tone colour scheme.

Tonight's performance of the play will be at the sound shell at the Methodist National Memorial Church, Forrest, at 8pm. Tomorrow night the venue is St Peter Chanel's Primary School hall at Yarralumla. The fifth performance at the Church of Christ has been cancelled.

Notes

Larger version of the Dorothy Green photo

1These pages were scanned from one of Judith Clingan's scrapbooks. The newspaper photograph of producer Dorothy Green which appears above and, in larger form, on the left, appears to have been cut out and superimposed on the programme.

Dorothy Auchterlonie AO (also known as Dorothy Green) (1915–1991) was an English-born Australian academic, literary critic and poet.

2"Hope Hewitt made her mark as a university lecturer, theatre critic and book reviewer". Source: Sydney Morning Herald, 3 May 2011, Career woman led life of learning: Hope Hewitt, 1915-2011.