Tags
#ReadingForParity, Creature, Female Playwrights, Heidi Schreck, Juliana of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Parity Play Reading Project, Parity Raid, Women Writers
Creature takes place in a heightened, historical world, rich with symbolism and spirituality. At times it almost feels like an epic poem, brimming with symbolism and motifs (such as references to fire and water, angels and devils, etc). And yet, without seeming anachronistic, the storytelling manages to feel incredibly relevant and relatable to contemporary audiences. The play, based on true events, takes place in the year 1400 in an England that was technically just emerging from the medieval era. Margery Kempe has been hallucinating devils ever since she recently gave birth to her first child. When she has a vision of Christ instead, she becomes possessed by a spiritual fervor of a different kind. Believing herself to be like a saint, she seeks spiritual guidance from Father Thomas, a preacher who has read a forbidden English translation of the bible. Eventually Margery must risk her place in the community, and even her own life, for her faith.
Margery Kempe is a fascinating protagonist because she is a sinful and all too human saint, a fallible, inquisitive heroine in a world in which people were not encouraged to ask questions. She is very much a victim of society’s gaze; her status as an outcast is cemented less by her initial visions than by how she handles them, i.e. her refusal to adhere to social norms. From the top of the play, Margery is unable to fulfill some of her basic domestic duties, such as taking care of her baby (a nurse has been employed to help). Margery’s behavior is considered increasingly worrisome as she becomes unfit to run her household or her brewing business and, perhaps most significant of all, she refuses to sleep with her husband John (she is attempting to belong solely to God). The implication is that women who conform to social norms have a narrow but considerable amount of power in the community. Woman possess the keys to their cellars and even work alongside their husbands in certain businesses (as with Margery and John’s brewery). In fact, John actually admits to his wife that he has trouble running their business without her.
But women were only permitted so much freedom. Married women were not supposed to wear virginal white, as Margery began to do. Nor were women supposed to travel alone. Margery, however, walks from her hometown of Lynn to Norwich all by herself in order to visit the anchoress Juliana, who commends Margery for undergoing the journey on her own.
Juliana’s spirituality and religious beliefs are much more closely aligned to Margery’s burgeoning understanding of faith than were the conventional dogmas of the time. Not only does the anchoress read and write about religion in English (as opposed to Latin), she believes in a close connection between God and the individual, similar to the connection between mother and child. In addition, Juliana has a different understanding of hell than the nightmarish version that has been tormenting Margery throughout the play:
JULIANA. Do you know what Sin is?
MARGERY. The evil that we do?
JULIANA. No, no that’s such a little thing, the evil that we do- it’s so tiny, it’s as tiny as we are. True Sin is the terrible distance between ourselves and God. There’s no harder Hell than this. Do you still see your mother’s face?
MARGERY. Yes.
JULIANA. Try to remember that face when you are thinking of God.
Only after receiving validation from Juliana can Margery go home and focus on her family instead of on her visions. It was wonderful to see a female mentor of sorts for Margery. (The only other woman in the play, the nurse, covets Margery’s husband and meddles in witchcraft. To use some of the symbolism from the world of Creature, if Juliana is an angel, the nurse would be a devil.) Juliana’s spiritual philosophy regarding the maternal quality of God is both a fitting and empowering image, particularly in the context of this play.
I love how Heidi Schreck has painted a complex portrayal of a world on the cusp of a spiritual renaissance. She does not belittle the superficial beliefs of the time, nor does she dismiss the lifestyle and accomplishments of that society. Furthermore, she tells Margery’s story without judging her protagonist by medieval or contemporary standards. In doing so, Heidi reveals a complicated, contradictory world where women, if they were savvy, careful and willing to make sacrifices, could obtain a significant degree of spirituality and autonomy over their own destinies.
Click here to read #ReadingForParity Week 1: A Lifetime Burning by Cusi Cram