The Mysteries

Thirteen multi-talented drama students from Mercer County Community College (MCCC) play a total of 54 roles in The Mysteries, a series of marvelous mystery plays that hail from Medieval times. The productions takes audience members from the creation of man and woman to the last judgment, complete with an apocalyptic scene of demons and hellfire.

Mystery plays are a major form of Medieval European drama, with plots and characters drawn from the Bible. A precursor to Shakespearean theater, they blend the sacred with the humorous, sometimes getting the story hilariously wrong while making their point. The MCCC student production includes modern touches such as God’s entrance in an SUV and other actors arriving on scooters and bikes. While most of the pieces are from the Middle Ages, contemporary works from Nobel Prize-winner Dario Fo and Academy Award-winner Ingmar Bergman offer a more modern religious perspective.

This show contains some mild violence and off-color language.