Interview with Les Ellison, writer of Riding Lights' new passion play Redemption Song, which has its first night in Malmesbury Abbey, Tuesday March 4th at 7.30pm.
Q: How does this play come about?
A: The Dean and Chapter of York Minster have traditionally included drama as an integral part of their Good Friday meditations. I suppose it echoes the great church sponsored mystery plays of the middle ages. I like to think Redemption Song evolves the tradition for a twenty first century audience.
Q: How did you get to write it? A: I was invited to submit a draft to Riding Lights and to the Dean and Chapter and they liked it. I think because it says things and asks questions that are of concern to everyone. And - seven drafts later, it's ready for performance.
Q: Have you written for Riding Lights before?
A: Yes. I wrote their play for the 300th anniversary of John Wesley's birth, Saving Grace that toured in 2003. And some sketches they've used in York Minster at Christmas a few times.
Q: Other plays? A: Yes. Yes quite a few now.
Q: So Redemption Song, what's it all about?
A: That's an awkward question. It's like asking, 'Titanic, what's that all about?' Well it's about a ship that sinks. But it isn't. It's about the relationships between a bunch of people and how those relationships change in the face of a cataclysmic event - well cataclysmic to them in their world which happens to be contained in a ship called Titanic.
Q: Which sinks. A: Yes, but their world - the survivors' world, goes on. And some are affected by what they've experienced - deeply and in different ways, and some aren't. If you wrote a play where the survivors are asked 'What do you think the Titanic was to you?' then you might be getting close to what Redemption Song is about. Actually, it's more about the answers they'd give before the event - before the crucifixion.
Q: Crucifixion, right so it's got Jesus is in it, then?
A: Yes. It's set around the time he begins... well, begins his life of talking really, and the time when that ends - with the crucifixion.Q: Right, your 'cataclysmic event'. So who else is there?A: Well there's Judas, obviously he has pretty set ideas on what he thinks about Jesus, even before -
Q: Obvious? A: Sorry, yes. It's difficult not to fall into cliché and label people by their traditional role. I mean in this play, my character of Judas.
Q: You mean your creation of Judas? A: Yes, he represents people who want to mould Jesus into what they want him to be, who won't let Jesus' words speak for themselves, who put a... 'spin' on everything he says, who won't let anyone think for themselves about the words. I think, perhaps, all religions - and none, have tried to do that in the last 2000 years.
Q: And isn't that just what you're doing; with your 'creation'?
A: I hope not. I really do hope not, though of course I might not be in the best position to judge.
Q: But you must have your own view on Jesus. Aren't you just promoting your own 'spin'?
A: Of course I have a view, if I didn't I wouldn't be able to write a play - any play, I'd have nowhere to stand, I'd have nothing to challenge or test. There'd be no alternative view to try out, nothing to discover. I'd have no mind of my own, either to make up or to change.
Q: Then Redemption Song's a play for people who've made up their minds? A: No.
Q: So it's for people who haven't made up their minds?
A: Look, Redemption Song doesn't tell you who Jesus is - no genuinely engaging drama will. It lets you look at him and asks you 'who do you say he is?'
Q: It's a cop out then.
A: It's not a cop out, we all see him differently - just like the people he meets in the play, and we all have to make our minds up. And then, like them, we have to decide what we're going to do about it.
Q: Surely we don't have to do anything, not about this.
A: No. Every decision has a consequence. If you decide Jesus was a... some crazy bloke, I don't know... a do-gooder, a wise teacher, some kind of radical activist or what... the son of God, there's a consequence; your answer can't help but affect the way you live, one way or the other. It's in the play, come and see it.
Tickets £7 and £3 (children and students) available from the Abbey Bookshop
- e-mail Rob to reserve your tickets.