Newbies in the World of Mud

“Ahhhhhhhh!” We scampered for our lives, holding our skirts up and jumping over the benches as mud splattered everywhere. Just moments before I had leaned over and asked her why we were the only ones sitting in the first few rows. I now knew the reason.

     First timers at The Sterling Renaissance Festival, Lili, my best friend, and myself were completely unprepared for The Mud Beggars’ Show. We had arrived at the mud pit almost ten minutes before the show was supposed to start. The rickety wood plank stage was crude and mud encrusted, scraps of material and primitive yet versatile props hung on nails in the stockade-style fence that served as a backdrop to the stage. Directly in front of the little stage was a large pit filled with soup-like mud. Rows of wooden benches set in gravel on a very gradual slope under an artistically ramshackle roof structure faced the stage and pit.

     Culturally conditioned that seats closer to the show are better, Lili and I took seats in the third row as we mused over our morning spent watching Don Juan and Miguel, a Pirate Show and just perusing the faire like the newbies we were. The spectators that arrived after us filled in the benches behind us, not a single one in front of us but we were too absorbed in our discussion to really notice. The show began without us realizing that we sat alone in the third row, an island of 21^st century hygiene far too close to a mud pit.

     As the two men portrayed the classic tale of Hercules, they gradually got muddier and muddier. Every once and a while the audience would be called upon for some sort of vocal interaction as the men hopped around and fought, spewing mud everywhere in the process. It was so intriguing to watch the minimalism and coarseness of the performance that was nonetheless artistic and accurate, not to mention fully amusing. The audience got into its Medieval character, egging them on and cheering when one was pushed into the mud pit, especially when it involved falling in face first. Like everything else at the fair, it was very authentic.

     As laughter erupted again, I looked from side to side and saw no one; I sneaked a look back to see the crowd sitting two rows behind us. I had just leaned over to ask Lili her if she’d noticed, when the Mud Beggars started to chase each other around the pit, up onto the makeshift stage, then, to our dismay, into the audience and straight toward us.

     “Ahhhhhhhh!” We scampered for our lives, holding our skirts up and jumping over the benches as mud splattered everywhere. We left everything that wasn’t attached to us; Lili abandoned her purse and I dropped the map we were only worried about escaping the mud monsters, complete with dripping sludge, coming straight at us.

     Lucky to escape mostly unscathed, with just a few small flecks of mud on our persons, we watched the remainder of the show from the far side of the seating and well outside the range of mud splattering. Our senses returned as the crowd dispersed and Lili remembered that she left her purse behind, her purse with her cell phone, ID, money and souvenirs all inside. Carefully we picked our way across the gravel and in between the mud splattered rows to where we had been sitting. While we may have fled in time and suffered only minimal mud marks, Lili’s purse and the map were not so lucky.

     Lili’s purse has never been the same and neither has my white blouse which even the small mud flecks sufficiently stained, the map didn’t survive at all. Our chaperon has yet to let us live down our shrieks and facial expressions as we raced away from the Mud Beggars. Now whenever I see mud in my day-to-day life, I can’t help but remember that fiasco, and smile.

     This was just the first of many times I would return to The Sterling Renaissance Festival, although I no longer sit in the third row at the Mud Beggars’ Show, but I don’t warn the people that do either, I’ve come to think of it as a rite of passage in the world of Renaissance Faires and, of course, great source of amusement for us old hands.