Howard Barker’s Ursula, produced by the Wrestling School in 1998, contends with the conflicts between sexual ecstasy and ascetic denial of the body. Based on a fifth-century legend narrating the story of the saint, the play was inspired by a Dresden altarpiece by Cranach the Elder. Barker discusses the genesis Ursula at the Wrestling School Web page for the play:

The play took its inception from an image, The Massacre of the Virgin Martyrs in the sixteenth century altarpiece by Cranach the Elder in Dresden. Cranach revolutionised the subject by shifting the attention of the viewer from the victims to the perpetuator, the Prince. Far from being a parody of a pagan barbarian, he is infinitely cold and beautiful, leaning on his unused sword and observing the massacre with the moral detachment of the SS Officer. He thus affirms those extraordinary continuities that shock and dignify European culture. In a similiar way, I chose to again strip and reconstruct the legend, moving the focus to a different place.

“In Howard Barker’s own production for the company,” the Web page explains, “the emphasis was on the elaboration of the physical and spiritual journey that forms the central theme of the work. The work’s rich, poetic text was matched by a playing style incorporating stylised movement and vocalisation by the chorus of virgins in a development of the choral speaking technique successfully employed by the company in previous productions.” All this is evident in the below excerpt from the production, which edits together several scenes from the play: