From pile-up to frame-up at Westminster

JOHN GREALLY reports on the "Mod" Passion Play, This is for Now, produced in Westminster Cathedral this week.
YOU hear the pile-up of 200 quid's worth of motorbike, and you see the young mods, Tony and Joan, trotting gaily away from the debris they have left by the roadside. The whole incident is a bit of a giggle for them. Or is it?
The thin end of the wedge comes when they meet Andrew the apostle somewhere near the lay-by. Andrew gives them a short, unwelcome sermon. Tony, in studded leather wind-cheater, is the one who tells Andrew exactly what a 20th century youth thinks of Gospel talk.
But the wedge begins to bite when Tony and Joan find themselves actually watching Annas and Caiphas plotting the frame-up of Jesus. This is how a modern mystery play gets going,
This is for Now by Terence Cooling opened its three-day run at Westminster Cathedral on Monday of this week. It was trying to do the impossible: to be both a good play and a good Church sermon. But it worked. It was a total success in both.
A programme note on the play showed that the actors went into it first and foremost as an act of devotion. At the same time this was no amateur parish cast. Tony Jackson, especially, gave a firstrate character drawing of the chip-on-the-shoulder Tony.
From the moment of his carefree "escape" from the pileup and his intelligent bawling against "them", up to his final act of reverence to the risen Christ, he made us aware of a flesh-and-blood person, not just a soul to be saved.
The pageant itself was equally impressive. Especially well handled were the crowd scenes. When the crowd exploded into their "Hail, Caesar" ritual there was the alarming sensation of being among a crazy Hitlerite mob.
Christ was a non-speaking part. The most difficult sequence to stage in the whole play-the Way of the Cross and the Crucifixion—was exactly right in effect.
The Way of the Cross lay through the middle of the congregation.
The congregation went away obviously moved by Mr. Cooling's pageant. Much of the credit goes to the cast, and, of course, to the producer, Alan Rye.