Miracle Play for Moderns

Miracle Play for Moderns Medieval man went to church for his theater as well as for worship; "mysteries," "moralities" and miracle plays had their origins in churches and were often performed there. A wing of the modern British theater seems to be going back to church. This year, stimulated by the Festival of Britain and the enthusiasm of the Religious Drama Society, churches all over England are opening their doors to plays and players, masterpieces of the Middle Ages are being revived, and new religious plays are being produced, among them Novelist-Playwright Dorothy L. Sayers' The Emperor Constantine.

Last week first-nighters crowded little 199-year-old St. Thomas's (Anglican) Church off Regent Street for the London opening of another church play--by Poet-Playwright Christopher (The Lady's Not for Burning) Fry.

Into A Sleep of Prisoners, Quakerish Playwright Fry has done his earnest best to pack a van load of meaning about the state of modern man. Four prisoners of an unidentified war are locked up in a church and bunk down for a restless night. Most of the action consists of their separate dreams, each one involving the others, a series of merging playlets stretched on the frames of familiar Bible stories (Cain and Abel, David and Absalom, Abraham and Isaac).

Climax of their dream-allegories acted out on the straw-strewn altar steps is the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Instead of Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace "heated seven times more than it was wont to be heated," three of the modern heroes walk unscathed through atomic fury to discover that "to be strong beyond all action is the strength to have."

London audiences and critics, pinned to hard pews without intermission for an hour and a half, tended to be cool or puzzled, or both. Churchmen tended to be pleased at the fresh evidence of a partnership between godliness and grease paint. Said St. Thomas's vicar, the Rev. Patrick McLaughlin: "A first-class play by a first class author is worth more than a thousand sermons--even mine. Religion ought to be a clue to living. The old methods are no good."

Though Poet Fry's new play may rank well below his own high par in the entertainment field, its lines contain plenty of material for concerned Christians to chew on. Sample: Thank God our time is now when wrong Rises to face us everywhere, Never to leave us till we take The longest stride of soul men ever took. Affairs are now soul size. The enterprise Is exploration into God, Where no nation's foot has ever trodden yet. . . . It takes So many thousand years to wake, But will you wake for pity's sake, Pete's sake, Dave or one of you, Wake up, will you?

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