Barnes in Common

the magazine of Churches Together in Barnes
March/April 2008

Home
Current issue
Previous issues
Noticeboard
Discussion board
About CTiB

The Sun Was Darkened

by Raymond Chapman

This Passion Play was written when there was a strong interest in religious drama, even in the commercial theatre, where T.S. Eliot and Christopher Fry were drawing audiences. I can see their influence in it, and also earlier writers like Dorothy L. Sayers and John Masefield. At that time I was on the Council of the Religious Drama Society, and the play was first performed by the Chantry Players, one of the groups associated with it. This was a shorter play, beginning with the entrance of Pilate. A few years ago, Creina Foy became aware of it through mention on the cover of a book on religious drama which I had edited. She suggested that I should expand it: the play as it now exists was the result, and under her direction was performed over several years in churches in London and Southwark. We owe much to her, and also to Iain Radford, who took on most of the administration. Iain, Patrick Findlater, and myself have appeared in all these productions.

It follows the story of the Passion, taking material from all four Gospels, expanding some of their hints and adding some imaginative material. Where the canonical accounts give no names, the Apocryphal Gospels provide Procula and Longinus. I tried to present all these characters as people not so very different from us, caught up in the conflict in Jerusalem, and to seek their deeper motives and dilemmas. Thus Pilate appears as a just and decent man, unable to stand against his fear of the Emperor, Procula as a sensitive woman whose dream draws her into empathy with Jesus, Judas as a Zealot embittered that Jesus did not lead a Jewish rebellion. A mixture of prose and verse, with a few lines spoken in chorus, suggests the reality surrounding the actual events, and their timeless significance.

It is both exciting and humbling to find that a rehearsed reading of the play is still acceptable, when we are not attempting much travelling and a costumed performance. I am grateful to Rosie Findlater for giving us a gentle push in the right direction, to Ross for letting us use St Mary's, and to all who now and in the past have made it possible. I pray that this offering may help us in our choices and temptations, and draw us nearer to the time when the sun was darkened for three hours, when history turned around and the world was redeemed.

The Sun Was Darkened will be performed at St Mary's Church on Palm Sunday at 4.00pm

Back to the top