The Angel of Death appeared in the foyer of Coventry's Belgrade theatre last week, its black wings almost brushing the shoulders of the West Midlands' Business in the Community organisation. Some of the people in suits looked a little uneasy. They had come expecting an awards ceremony, and yet the city's Middle Youth theatre was asking them to switch off their mobiles and contemplate the end of the world.
We were witnessing a rehearsal for a performance of Judgment Day at the Belgrade, organised by the theatre's community and education team. It's an updated version of Coventry's medieval Mysteries; the Business in the Community group had bravely offered themselves as potential sponsors. The original Mysteries were a means of making Bible stories accessible to ordinary people, many of whom were unable to read. Fast-forward six centuries or so, and The Mysteries in Our Own Words, as the reworked Coventry plays have been dubbed, aim to involve many different communities at once.
Strikingly, they include passages from the Qur'an. It was associate director Justine Themen's idea to look at the creation myths from the point of view of another culture. Her forthcoming production focuses on the shared heritage of Christianity, Islam and Judaism. The Jewish population of Coventry and, indeed, the West Midlands is comparatively small, but there is a sizeable Muslim community here and a much bigger one in nearby Birmingham.
We were about to hear one of the many Bible stories also found in the Qur'an. Judgment Day having come and gone, we shuffled into the Belgrade's B2 studio to see Shahida Aslam from the Birmingham-based women's theatre group Ulfah Arts tell the story of Maryam and Isa. It turned out to be remarkably similar to the New Testament's take on Mary and Jesus – a virginal mother produces a remarkably prophetic offspring. Not quite as remarkable as Muhammad, according to Muslim teaching, but a prophet all the same.
I found myself pondering all of this while Aslam padded around the Belgrade lobby afterwards, reflecting on her performance and the polite applause she had received from an overwhelmingly white audience. "I've never seen so many suits in one place," she said with a smile. The same could almost certainly be said of the members of Canley Youth theatre, one of 10 companies attached to the Belgrade's community and education programme, who staged the story of Samson and Delilah in a hairdressing salon run by one Phil Stein (Philistine, geddit?).
The evening's performance was part of the ongoing rehearsal process – a chance to run through three of the plays in front of a captive audience of potential donors. The Mysteries in Our Own Words, an admirably ambitious project, will be performed in promenade throughout the Belgrade building. Around 150 community actors will take part, aged between eight and 40. Suits are optional: there is no dress code, even for the end of the world.
