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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
With the recent publication of such books as Richard Southern's The Medieval Theatre in the Round (London, 1957) and Glynne Wickham's Early English Stages 1300 to 1600, Vol. i (London, 1959), the medieval English drama has come to be examined with much greater emphasis on the circumstances of its performance. While the Wakefield cycle has not been of focal interest to these studies, it has nevertheless attracted renewed attention as a dramatic work. Of special concern to students of the Wakefield plays is Martial Rose's introduction to his recently published modernized edition of the cycle. Mr. Rose sets forth the interesting theory that the Wakefield plays were not enacted processionally on pageant wagons as is generally believed, but rather that they were performed “in one fixed locality, on a multiple stage, and in the round.” This hypothesis, supported as it is by a very convincing body of arguments, is likely to have a far-reaching effect on Wakefield criticism. At the very least, it chalenges a number of widely-held opinions concerning the dramatic experience which the performance of the cycle provided. As a case in point, I should like here to focus on the Annunciation pageant and to demonstrate that, in an enlarged setting, its dramatic action becomes even more successful than it has hitherto been regarded. First, however, it will be necessary to review the “fixed-stage” theory and to examine its bearing on Wakefield criticism in general.
1 The Wakefield Mystery Plays, ed. and trans., Martial Rose (London, 1961), p. 26.
2 See Wickham, i, 150–153, 171–172, and Arnold Williams, The Drama of Medieval England (East Lansing, Mich., 1961), pp. 96–99.
3 The Characterization of Pilate in the Towneley Plays (East Lansing, Mich., 1950), p. x.
4 British Poetry and Prose, 3rd ed., ed. Paul Robert Lieder, et al. (Boston, 1950), i, 183–184. Italics added.
5 Drama and Religion in the English Mystery Plays (Stanford, Calif., 1961), pp. 54–56.
6 All references to the Wakefield plays are taken from The Towneley Plays, eds. George England and Alfred W. Pollard, EETS, E.S. 71 (Oxford, 1897).
7 Pollard observes that it should “change places with the Pharao,” the play which immediately precedes it in the MS. See p. xxiv.
8 The Cornish plays present an interesting parallel. Though they do not include an Annunciation episode, nor, for that matter, any of the Nativity plays, they do bring the Origo Mundi part to its conclusion with a strong emphasis on typology. The Solomon play features the search for a gigantic tree that will serve as a “beam” for the temple (l. 2493). In the final episode, Maximilla is martyred for her prophetic vision of Christ. She is stoned to death by the “crozier-bearers,” who, after the execution, carry the tree out of the temple. Significantly, the play ends the first day's performance, and Solomon invites the audience to witness the Passion on the next day. In the Cornish version, then, there is at least a parallel for the larger division which I detect in the dramatic action of the Wakefield play. See The Ancient Cornish Drama, ed. and trans. Edwin Norris (Oxford, 1859), i, 180–217.
9 Lucy Toulmin Smith misnamed the play “The Annunciation, and Visit of Elizabeth to Mary”; see York Plays (Oxford, 1885), pp. 93 ff. Actually, Mary goes to Elizabeth, a fact which Mrs. Smith recognizes in the stage direction after l. 196: “Mary visits Elizabeth.” Mary, thereafter, tells Elizabeth: “Therefore I comme þus in þis hast” (l. 200). The Wakefield play of the Salutation is similarly set at the house of Elizabeth.
10 See Ludus Coventriae, ed. K. S. Block, EETS, E.S. 120 (Oxford, 1922), pp. 5–6.
11 Stephen S. Stanton observes, “Each act of The Glass of Water, or of any play by Scribe, comprises the same pattern of action as the whole.” See Camille and Other Plays, ed. Stephen S. Stanton (New York, 1957), p. xix.
12 York Plays,-p. 100.
13 The Chester Plays, ed. Hermann Deimling, EETS, E.S. 62 (Oxford, 1892), p. 109.
