Making Merrie
A free, bilingual performance project exploring the folk theatre of the Wales/England border, inspired by mummers' plays and masked traditions.
Making Merrie is a new performance project by artist and basketmaker Lewis Prosser, exploring the material culture of folk theatre. Inspired by mummers' plays and masked traditions along the Wales/England border, Making Merrie combines craft, performance, and language to reflect on cultural heritage and exchange.
Mummers' plays are traditional folk performances with roots over 500 years old, often tied to Christmas and New Year. Full of humour and spontaneous revelry, these plays were staged in streets, homes, or pubs by amateur troupes, telling simple stories of combat, death, and miraculous revival. Unlike the religious Mystery Plays, mummers' plays are secular, carnivalesque, and performed for community fun.
The project features large-scale wicker costumes, handcrafted using regional willow basketry techniques, highlighting basketry as an essential human skill we're at risk of forgetting—a skill that, if lost, means losing part of what it is to be human.
Scripts blend Welsh and English in a garbled nonsense dialect, combined with improvised movement and carnival procession. Unrehearsed and set within communities, the performances invite spontaneity, joy, and humour.
