A Few Thoughts On Mumming:
In case anyone is curious, the origins of theatre are in religious ritual. Slowly, over time, theatre becomes distinct and more secular, though the subject matter often remains religious. Greek dramas were religious spectacles, wheras Roman theatre was far more secular in its nature. Theatre was then abolished by Christians, because it is evil. Apparently.
Fast forward a few centuries, and Christian ritual started to play with theatrical elements. But quickly the spectacle was forced out of churches and onto the church steps because it distracted from the Eucharist. A story of Noah and his Wife, for example, was basically a Punch and Judy Show. Religious figures quickly became an excuse to clown around onstage. And so Saints George and Nicholas somehow got paired up to clown around in what are called "Mummings".
Benefiting from what is called a college education, Pat Murphy and Bohrs Hoff were determined to revive this tradition of dressing up for Christmas and barhopping with a random show about Saint George and a Dragon and some Turkish Knight and a Princess. But, in order to make it slightly more relevant to Americans, St. George was replaced with Uncle Sam.
This is what Bohrs Hoff said about the Chicago run:
The Chicago Mummings went off pretty well! Some notable events
included getting paid in comic books and a hardback copy of Pride and
Prejudice and Zombies at Third Coast Comics, being interrupted by a
Nigerian actress who delivered a long Shakespearean monologue while we
waited for the show to start up again at the Sovereign, and making
people laugh so hard they cried at Popeye's Chicken. Man, Popeye's
Chicken was a good show. And nothing against the Oasis, they're the
only bar in the neighborhood open until 4am which is quite useful at
times, but some of the most depressed people in the world go there to
drink. Both nights: glassy blank stares.
Friday night was
certainly livelier, yielding a fairly impressive $49.10 from
donations. There were simply more people out, and for whatever reason
everyone's energy was higher. We ended the night at Cuneen's where we
were able to celebrate with a few pitchers and a Giant pizza. Saturday
only yielded about $6, but that's not including the DC Holiday Specials
and the book that we got. They really single-handedly made Saturday
night worth it, and it was a fun and receptive audience at the comic
book store. They especially loved our dragon. We shambled over to
Deluxe Diner, my personal favorite restaurant in Roger's Park, and
grabbed some dinner. We also used the company funds to share a giant
frozen margarita... green is a holiday color, it makes sense.
I
think that, if we do make a yearly tradition out of this thing, the run
will be two big Friday barhoppings. There just seem to be more people
out and about at all sorts of establishments, and there were just more
curious onlookers. Even if we didn't ask beforehand if we could
perform at a place, if people were looking at us through the window
with a mixture of awe and confusion, we usually took it as an
invitation to come in and do a show. And we were never actually asked
to leave a business, which was surprising. Some workers just stared
on, unamused, as they performed their duties, but for the most part
they were really glad to have something like us to break apart the
monotony of their workday. The kids at Starbucks even gave us a
standing ovation! Some places, like Carmen's Pizza, the employees
seemed to be more interested than the customers and so we wound up
performing more for them. It's always nice to get a tip for
performing, but the main venture of this show was to spread the joy and
have fun. Even places like Stella Espresso Company, which only had two
customers and a lone employee, had very receptive audiences that made
it worth our while.
Tom Foran also got shanghai'd into doing a production, in CT:
It was fun. I don't know if I ever want to do it again, but I'm glad we did.
The Connecticut Mumming Plays went fairly well, with one minor awful
show in Bridgeport where some guy tried to fight Bryan, our friend playing Uncle Sam. But, that same night, we also did a show at Ziggy's where our friend Mare is a bartender. She had just found out that she had a brain tumor, so we were really glad to be able to give her a laugh, and a sincere one at that.
The highlight of the whole run was a show in Naugatuck in the basement of the Tetonka Fortress with Wood Spider, Mutiny Amongst Friends, New Year's Revolution, the Thin Heir and a few other great bands I can't remember right now. Emily Byram, who runs Connecticut DIY, let us jump on the already very full bill at the last second and we're so indebted to her. The Tetonka Warriors are a wonderful group of people.
It's not that I dislike this tradition; I like it a whole hell of a lot, but we saw that there are so many ways it can go horribly wrong. Granted, any show can go horribly wrong, but when you're invading someone else's space and time unsolicited at a bar, then there's a significantly greater chance of violence.
Over the course of the week, we made exactly $180, which we divided after the last show at the Spigot in West Hartford amongst the cast, giving everyone $36. Unfortunately, both Bryan and I got parking tickets for $45. Hurns.
