The Foolish Miracle

I grew up watching the premiere British Television program Monty Python’s Flying Circus on the PBS channel with my mother. I think those latent comedic sensibilities are precisely what I drew on to create this farcical play.

This work is very loosely styled after the tradition of a Medieval Miracle play, which used to be one of three foundational categories of drama in the medieval period (Mystery, Medieval, and Miracle.) A traditional Miracle Play focuses on the trials and tribulations of a Saint figure which I think still holds true with our protagonist here, Shepherd Arthur Goodold. Our humble Shepherd seeks, perhaps vainly, to act upon a perceived sign from the Lord and inadvertently causes a series of cascading incidents that threaten to bring down the entire Kingdom.

I would love to see this play performed live, as in 2019 I couldn’t afford to travel for the inaugural performance, and I think that a piece of theater concerning the dangers of dogmatic doctrines and a cautionary tale regarding blind faith and masonic figures is more relevant than ever.