In Autumn '93 we created a three-week devised experimental musictheatre piece with an all male cast of non-professional actors and musicians from the community in Glastonbury, Somerset. The piece celebrated the Celtic festival of Samhain, exploring masculinity in the late 20th century, through movement, dance, music and text, in their Victorian Assembly Rooms.

 

Male Mysteries

The aim of the piece was to explore the concerns of the burgeoning men's movement, through workshop-ing on the cyclical myths of the male mysteries. We took the stories of the Wild Man from Robert Bly's "Iron John," and the legends of the Hero's Journey, as our starting point. 'Pumpkin Fool' became a play about five men, aged between 18 and 43, who live in Glastonbury; their own journeys in modern life, as men - covering the full spectrum of sexuality - and the wider social issues to which they had been prey. The general feeling in the audience was that a profoundly important statement had been made in the community.