On a cold December day during the second half of the fourteenth century, Nicholas Barber steals upon a group of traveling players who stand away from a dying man, one of their number. Fascinated by the players’ wordless empathy, Nicholas watches too long, and they spot him and demand that he come forward. It’s a dangerous time in England, where the plague rides, and suspicion and fear influence every interaction, not least with vagabonds.

But Nicholas is a vagabond himself, a priest who has left his diocese without permission. He has abandoned his good cloak in a house where he was committing adultery, and knows his way with a pair of dice in his hand. And when the actors move on toward Durham, where they are to perform Nativity plays for the lord’s court, Nicholas accompanies them.

He could have said that they’d just lost a man they need to replace. But Nicholas is also burning a bridge. The bishop of Lincoln, his patron, might take him back if he turned around right then and honestly repented his lapses. But appearing on stage violates the law. And though that scares him, Nicholas can’t resist — something about playing a part, belonging to the small, tightly knit troupe, has touched him.

However, the next village they happen on has recently witnessed a murder; a young boy has been killed, and a deaf-mute young woman sentenced to hang for it. Martin, the leader of the troupe, convinces the others to perform a play based on the killing, as it has been recounted in rumor and disputation around the village. To do so risks severe punishment, for, on stage as in life, truth comes only from God, and the players, already at society’s margin, will overstep if they pretend to interpret their world — and a profane event, no less. Nicholas, understanding the religious proscription intuitively, is appalled. But the show, as always, must go on.

What a premise, as elegant as you could want. And what a title, literally evoking the medieval mystery play while figuratively showing the changeable nature of moral choices. Further, what the medieval mind called a mystery had to do with Scripture and God’s actions, ever inscrutable. But here we have that framework and an actual mystery alongside, which the performance of the play helps to solve.

Morality Play has so much to say about the role that subsumes the player, not just the other way around, involving so many aspects of private, political, and social life, that I’m in awe. Success here hinges on the characters, and you’d have to look hard and long before you found a more finely drawn ensemble, literally and figuratively.

Besides Nicholas, whose desires outstrip his common sense (which makes him human), you have Martin, teacher, leader, and group conscience; Straw, the outwardly fragile, gifted mime; Stephen, the brooding drunk with a commanding presence; and others, each sustained in-depth without more than a line or two of backstory. Together, they create an amazing performance.

Then there’s Unsworth’s prose, simple, highly physical, conveying the time and place from the inside out. Among other things, the medieval theater comes to life in full panoply, as with a performance of the play of Adam, in which Nicholas changes roles between the Devil’s Fool and a normal one.

Morality Play is a work of genius, a mirror on human nature in the fourteenth century and now. ( )

This is the kind of book you can read on several layers.
Told by Nicholas, it is set in the middle ages. He is a runaway priest who joins a group of players on a wintery day in a forest, as one of the number dies. The players are travelling to Durham to play at the Christmas court of their lord and the events of the boo are set over a few days en route.
They stop at a village and there they hear of the death of a child and the arrest of a young woman. The village is waiting for the local Justice to come for sentencing. They play in the yard of the inn , but don't make much money. Then their leader decides they should present a new play. Rather than the morality plays presenting biblical characters and representations of vices, virtues or mankind, they will present the play of Thomas Well, the boy who has been murdered. And so they collect evidence from the villagers and combine this into their play that lunchtime. The play includes representations of actual people along side the vices and virtues of the usual plays. They find that the play seems to twist and turn under their playing as the audience responds and as new information comes to light. It becomes its own form of truth, regardless of what the actual truth of the matter is.
There was a tradition of playing biblical stories that was well established in the middle ages, and the gap between that and the likes of Shakespeare in the Tudor age is vast - this presents something that might be a step towards bridging that gap. At another level is acts as a mystery - who did kill Thomas Wells (although, to be fair, the Justice seems pretty well on the road to finding that answer himself). And then it is, in a sense, it's own morality play. As per the middle ages, evil is not seen to prosper and the state of their soul remains a preoccupation. ( )

This was a medieval mystery that was ostensibly solved by a roving band of actors who were accompanied by a renegade priest. There was some not so obvious philosophizing going on about religion, life, death, and morality. The plot moved at a snail's pace. I found out "who dunnit", but not why. Not good enough to go back and re-read and try to find out! Good thing this was short and an easy read or it would have been a DNF. 246 pages ( )

A good read, and a good length. The author does an excellent job of getting into the medieval mind of his protagonist, a 23 year old priest on the lam from his life in a cathedral that joins a troupe of players. A lot of the period detail, and the way the hero sees and interprets the world, feels just right for the period. Very evocative. Added to this milieu is a very interesting murder mystery story that unfolds as the company tries to play it and hold off starvation. Of particular interest is the description of the playing of the play: the rote hand gestures used by actors, known by both players and audience; the gathering of the 'clues' to the death of the boy; the description of the class warfare that is an undercurrent throughout the book and really seems to capture the hopelessness of a medieval serf. There is a whiff of Canterbury Tale about the book - its positioning of each trade, role, and office being described in relation to all the others. The closing, which places us all in some kind of play as players in roles, is particularly cogent. ( )

A very interesting book. What I liked the most was the descriptions of the actors playing on stage, and trying to imagine theatre in the 14th century. Barry Unsworth obviously researched a lot before he wrote the book, considering the amount of details in it. I also thought it was daring to write a novel set in the medieval period at the first person of the singular (Nicholas' point of view), and Unsworth does a good job at making the reader see the world through the lenses of a 14th century priest. I wasn't that convinced with the ending, but all in all, a very good read. ( )