The Passion, 2020 was originally written for performance in church on the eve of Passiontide: full of music and colour, darkness and light, it was a play to be “in” for audience as much as actors. It included Seraphim and Cherubim, hymns, glorious costumes: an immersion of the senses which in a “radio” play must be left largely to the imagination. 

This year, when none of us can be in church, many of us are keeping Holy Week alone for the first time in our lives. For those of us accustomed to spend much of the week in services or preparations there is a great grief in this, the loss of our home as well as each other: it is difficult to know how to “keep” the week, we are not accustomed to being so much alone with God.

And yet in this strangeness nothing has changed. It is only our hope that falters: God does not. We have a play this year with voices only: but as Jesus alone in Gethsemane spoke to his Father in an agony of despair, as Mary Magdalene wept alone in a garden and heard her name called to witness a new world, so may we also through this shared Passion and the witness of each other’s voices find hope and courage and know the love of God who never leaves us.

The Play was recorded using videoconferencing, some of the cast using this technology for the first time. There are 27 voices, brought together on Good Friday onto one "stage": we hope you will be encouraged by our Play and are delighted to share it with you.

ThePassion2020

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