When Katherine Brewed: a play
Mark O’Brien and John Cresswell, editors
Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers
Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
78 pages
https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0456
Review author: Dónall Mac Cathmhaoill
Perhaps it is the state of our politics, the growth of the tech oligarchy, or just the sense of vast wealth inequality that permeates society, but the social movements of history seem increasingly to be called into service to offer perspective on our present.
The Peterloo protests of 1819 gave Mike Leigh the subject of his 2018 film, and Stewart Pringle’s The Bounds was a great success at the Royal Court in 2024. A new film by Paul Greengrass on the Peasants’ Revolt is imminent. This play, When Katherine Brewed,written by John Cresswell from a devising process in collaboration with historian Mark O’Brien, covers the same material as the upcoming Greengrass film, and is accompanied by a substantial introduction and useful historical analysis. It is based upon the book, When Adam Delved and Eve Span: A History of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, by O’Brien.
Perhaps one of the most significant jobs it does is to reconfigure our thinking about the events of 1381, and to correct the misnomer by which they have become known. What happened in Essex, Kent and London in that year was not strictly speaking a revolt and involved more than just the peasantry. The movement involved artisans, agricultural workers, women, and dissenter clergy: a cross-section of the society in fact, with the exception of the landed class, whose privileges were the subject of the protests.
Cresswell and O’Brien make clear in their notes that the revolt was more of an ongoing social movement than a revolt. While the protesters were clear in their opposition to economic exploitation and social inequality, one of the surprising features of the movement was its loyalty to the teenaged king, Richard the Second. The movement attempted to reset the structures of medieval English society: but an anti-royalist rebellion it was not. Perhaps in retrospect, this is where it went wrong.
The play itself is an energetic and politically astute reenactment of what is undoubtedly a key episode in English history. In response to relentless taxation, and demographic changes resulting from the Black Death plague some years before, the conditions were created that allowed the agricultural workers of the southeast of England to challenge the laws that bound them to work, often as serfs, in the estates of the wealthy nobles. A shortage of workers because of the population loss meant workers were in an unprecedented position of being able to demand rights, and better wages. Simultaneously, a reduced population meant less tax income for the crown, at a time when much more money was being sought to fund the war with France. The mix of circumstances produced a new confidence in the workers, particularly in Kent and Essex, where they benefitted from charismatic leaders, such as Wat Tyler and John Ball.
Cresswell builds the background to the events using a flexible casting of five ‘mechanicals’ taking on a variety of roles including the King, the Earl of Salisbury, Archbishop Lord Sudbury, and Lord Mayor of London, William Walworth, on one side; and a variety of labourers, peasants, and rebel leaders, including Tyler and Ball, on the other. Across an hour and a half, we see the circumstances develop that make confrontation between the peasants and their rulers inevitable.
Despite its ruthless critique of medieval English society, the play is often very funny. The parallels with contemporary society, though never emphasised, are persistent and troubling. The action is relentless, never flagging for long enough to allow the audience to grow bored. However, there are moments when the role changing becomes difficult to follow. As well as the named principals, there are a variety of soldiers, court functionaries, and unnamed peasants, and often these have only a line or two before they disappear from the story.
Though it rarely impedes narrative comprehension, sometimes this multi-role structure makes it difficult to engage with the significance of a moment, and across the play as a whole, it tends to give the piece a gang show energy which, it could be argued, somewhat diminishes the empathy we feel for the characters. Sometimes, the effect is to make the action difficult to imagine. The problem becomes particularly acute as the play comes to a climax, when the actors have to switch rapidly from the roles of the rebelling peasants to those of the lords and nobles oppressing them. Finally, a single actor is required to become a parade of ‘caricatured peasants’. Inevitably, the consequence of this caricaturing is a weakening of the emotional power of the depicted action.
While the play is still highly enjoyable, this structure seems needless. Given that the writers encourage the production of the play by communities, as a means of spreading the message of this episode of history, one cannot help but wonder why this strategy of loading the actors with multiple roles was retained for the published script. While it might have been a necessity of the original production with its limited funding, much of it drawn from trades unions, with productions in community groups, schools and workers organisations, one can assume there would be enough participants to stage the play with individuals playing the principal roles.
To the credit of the writers, the reader is well served with extensive historical notes, and the footnotes alone are a fascinating addition to the script. At every significant point, the evidence for the accuracy of the facts (or for liberties taken with them) are catalogued. The opening notes also offer useful historical context, and the appendices list the chronicles and histories that have been used as sources.
There is much to enjoy in the book, and with its abundant notes and historical referencing, it is a welcome work of theatre on historic themes. The writers and those involved in the development of the play (and the publication) have created a work that seeks to activate communities and use theatre to assess the challenges of the present through the injustices of the past.
