Folk plays such as Hoodening, Guising, Mumming and Soul Caking are generally verse sketches performed in countryside pubs, private houses or the open air, at set times of the year such as the Winter or Summer solstices or Christmas and New Year. Many have long traditions, although they are frequently updated to retain their relevance for modern audiences. Hoodening, also called Hodening, is an East Kent tradition vaguely related to Mumming and the Morris dance, and dating back at least to the mid-18th century. ... This article needs cleanup. ... Mummers Plays (also known as mumming) are seasonal folk plays performed by troupes of actors known as mummers or guisers (or by local names such as rhymers, pace-eggers, soulers, tipteerers, galoshins and so on), originally in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales (see wrenboys), but later in other parts of... Illumination of Earth by Sun on the day of the northern hemisphere winter solstice Illumination of Earth by Sun on the day of the southern hemisphere winter solstice In astronomy, the winter solstice is the moment when the earth is at a point in its orbit where one hemisphere is... “Summer solstice†redirects here. ...
The play had its origins in a chance meeting at a New York conference in 1990 between Joy Jinks of Colquitt and Richard Owen Geer, at that time a Northwestern University doctoral student in performance studies.
When she mentioned that her community wanted to do a play celebrating its history, Geer told her of his dissertation research on performance as a community-building tool and suggested that they work together to develop a play for Colquitt based on stories from the lives of Miller County residents.
The community play was to be a musical based on the stories of Miller Countians, fl and white, captured on tape and transformed into a script by Tennessee playwright Jo Carson.
There are two major branches to the tradition of the Mummers' Play (also known as mumming, and by various other regional names): firstly, the folk tradition of troupes of mummers performing theatre, sometimes in the street but more usually as house-to-house visits and in public houses; secondly, the more formal Christian Mystery plays.
Although usually broadly comic performances, the plays seem to be based on underlying themes of duality and resurrection and generally involve a battle between two or more characters, perhaps representing good against evil.
In mummers’ plays, the central incident is the killing and restoring to life of one of the characters.
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