Introduction

Medieval English drama is removed from our contemporary American audience temporally, geographically, and ideologically. The printed forms of the plays that we possess were for the most part written down between 1500 and 1600, and represent plays produced on an island across the Atlantic Ocean as early as the middle of the fourteenth century. They were put on as cooperative efforts by civic and religious guilds that organized annually to engage in an act of worship as well as to outdo one another. How may we, in the last decade of the twentieth century, relate to a performance of these plays?

Religion and Daily Life

There are a number of problems inherent in the attempt to communicate this kind of drama to a modern audience. The English language has changed significantly since the fourteenth century when these plays were regularly performed.(1) Our society has changed as well. The most significant societal change in terms of its effect on modern productions of these plays concerns the relationship between "secular" and "religious" life. When these dramas were being performed, they were an outgrowth of the work of the church. Even those plays that were performed entirely by craft guild members and sponsored by the town government had a religious purpose. In Medieval Theatre Glynne Wickham asserts:

the drama associated with Corpus Christi was directed towards the frivolous rich and the covetous tradesman in an effort to re-dedicate society to Christ and Christ's service in the remembrance that Christ had died to save mankind…the Corpus Christi Cycle plays were as much a civic response to this message as an ecclesiastical initiative. Market-squares were thus as [page 112] appropriate a platea or acting-place for these performances as convent churchyards, laymen more desirable as actors than clerics, and civic wealth as necessary to finance productions of these ludi as clerical scribes to provide the texts.(2)

Guild performers, clergy or laity, considered all of their work, whether farming, preaching or shoeing horses, to be the work of God. As Wickham has written,

a mentality which regarded toil as itself a devotional exercise, a return of thanks to the Creator for the endowments of skill and bodily health…was the unquestioned view of the guilds, all of which existed in the service of a Patron Saint as well as for the better conduct of trade and the regulation of employment.(3)

Though being at church was not the same as being at work, the harsh, black-and-white distinction we make today between "Church and State" or "Religion and Society" did not exist.

Festivity and Celebration

There is another element that distances modern audiences from this drama: the festive, celebratory experience of the plays. Meg Twycross acknowledges that:

There was no such thing as casual theatergoing: each of these plays was the centrepiece of a special occasion for a close-knit community. The mystery plays were at the same time a religious festival and a tourist attraction: their players could draw on a charge of heightened religious emotion and civic pride which we can never recreate.(4)

[page 113] R. T. Davies describes the "celebratory function" of the cycles that functioned "as a species of both worship and self-realization…[to act] out the destiny of mankind under God." The medieval people who came together for this experience were enjoying a summer festival that "indulged "an entire community's many-sided and diversely satisfying activity on a public holiday".(5) And John Marshall has written, "What distinguishes medieval drama from that of our own time as much as anything else is its religious sense of festive occasion".(6)

Contemporary Revivals

Some of the twentieth-century occasions on which full cycles have been produced have attempted to recreate this "festival" atmosphere. Among them have been English town revivals(7) and the occasional cycle festivals at the University of Toronto, sponsored by their resident production company, Poculi Ludique Societas (PLS). This group of students, faculty, and alumni of the University of Toronto's Medieval Drama Program produces local and touring productions of short medieval plays as well as organizing occasional international festivals at which entire cycles are produced. For example: the York Cycle was produced there in 1977;(8) the N-town Passion was performed there in 1981;(9) and the Towneley Cycle in 1985.(10) These festivals feature performance groups from the United States, Canada and the world. Together they play one whole cycle or parts of one over a period of days. This shared experience creates a bond among the participants. Milla Riggio describes the 1985 Toronto Towneley Cycle performance and its effect this way:

[page 114] even when divorced from its religious origins, a communal event such as this production powerfully creates its own ambience. The festival transcends the particularities of production. . . . the event created a sense of shared community that gave it momentum to absorb weak productions and dramatic inconsistencies.(11)

Riggio's comments suggest that this festive, community celebration may be one of the best ways to approach these plays in the twentieth century, whether it is possible to recreate the exact medieval experience or not.

Harvey Cox's study of modern festivity suggests that our summer concerts and art shows can only approximate the experience of these celebrations. He claims "our celebrations do not relate us, as they once did, to the great parade of cosmic history or to the great stories of man's spiritual quest".(12) Cox goes on to define "festivity" as "the capacity for genuine revelry and joyous celebration,"(13) attributes which seem uncommon today. However, this idea of bringing together a group of people for a collective community effort, whether that community is intellectual, religious or geographic, is probably one of the best possibilities for understanding what medieval cycle production might have been like.

Medieval "Time" in Religious Dramas

Another challenge to the modern producer of medieval drama is the idea of time. The medieval mind understood time differently than modern man does. Eleanor Prosser has described it this way: "the crowds that gathered to watch the mystery plays were not witnessing a dramatized 'history' of a dead past, but a living demonstration of present truth".(14) Time was not linear and causal; but time as presented in the cycles: time which began because God caused it to begin in creation and which will end when God causes it to end at [page 115] Doomsday. God's "time" is "an eternal present in which yesterday is as much today as tomorrow, for He is outside time and knows all always"(15) and man's time is only a brief second of eternity. The cycles connect the audience with eternity by reminding them of the relative insignificance of human history and achievement. Harvey Cox says much the same thing about the function of celebrations (which is what the cycles were) for a society: "Celebration…reminds us that…history is not the exclusive or final horizon of life".(16) Man's potential for good is greater in this view of time, for Man can do anything when connected with the Eternal Creator. The present is important because choices made in it will affect eternity. The past is interesting and valuable not because it illustrates mankind's achievements or demonstrates the causes of social conditions, but because it may provide the impetus to remedy the present. The future is the hoped-for bliss of Heaven, the Eternal.

Medieval thinkers and theologians divided time into seven ages. The first five ages include the events of the Old Testament from Adam through the prophets. The sixth age is the Age of Grace, which includes Christ's lifetime and ours. The final age will begin with Doomsday and reconnect human time with eternity.(17)

Related to the medieval concept of time is the lack of a sense of "historicity" in the Middle Ages. The English townspeople who saw these plays had little concern for the proper historical period of the drama or story. They considered time to be connected by what was outside of and superior to it, not by a succession of historical events or ideas.(18) As John Marshall asserts, "Medieval drama presents the biblical past in terms of the medieval present".(19)

[page 116] The Production Experiment

Clearly, I do believe that it is possible to make such an attempt, and that it can be rewarding and theatrically effective for an audience. In developing a recent performance of the N-town Passion sequence, I drew on: a basic knowledge of stagecraft, both medieval and modern; the interesting and complete stage directions of the N-town Passion; considerations of the space; the expected audience; and my sense of what the "occasion" of this performance might be like. The project was conceived as part of my Master's thesis research, with an eye to understanding something about the possible salutary relationship between religion (specifically Christianity) and theatre. The production was to be staged in a Presbyterian church in Lansing, Michigan, for what I expected to be an audience composed of three groups: interested Medievalists; church members; and family of the cast. The fact that the play was being produced during the Lenten season provided some immediacy that would have been lacking at any other time of year.

With these considerations in mind, I first developed a simplified and modernized script. In producing it, I employed a blend of modern and medieval methods best suited to the space, script and audience. The production attempted to communicate some "flavor" of performance as medieval audiences experienced it, though it by no means recreated the production situation.

A. Script Development

The first step in this process was the development of the script itself. The genesis of the production script for this experiment was selecting R. T. Davies' edition of the N-town plays, and specifically the Passion sequence. Writing the script involved two steps for most sections. First, each scene was shortened to its "essential" lines, updating archaic or unknown words and maintaining much of the poetry. Next, for some sections (particularly the opening and closing scenes), a complete prose paraphrase summarized the meaning in modern English. While William Marx argues that complete modernization of the language "would destroy the medieval character, meanings, and poetry of the play",(20) costume, music, and other elements [page 117] of spectacle can provide a sense of the Middle Ages for an audience unfamiliar with Middle English and Latin, while shrinking the distance between the auditors and the script.

Lucifer's Prologue

The Demon's Prologue may be taken as an example of this process, as it is the only section that was entirely rewritten. It was adapted through a process of three steps. Lucifer's original introduction reads this way:

I am your lord, Lucifer, that out of hell came,
Prince of this world and great duke of hell.
Wherefore my name is cleped Sir Satan,
Which appeareth among you a matter to spell.
I am nourisher of sin to the confusion of man,
To bring him to my dungeon there in fire to dwell

. . . .
For I began in heaven sin for to sow
Among all the angeles that weren there so bright
And therefore I was cast out into hell full low,
Notwithstanding I was the fairest and bearer of light.
Yet I drew in my tail of those angeles bright
With me into hell, taketh good heed what I say.
I left but twain against one to abide there in light,
But the third part came with me--this may not be said nay

. . . .
Behold the diversity of my disguised variance:
Each thing set of due natural disposition,
And each part according to his resemblance,
From the sole of the foot to the highest ascension.(21)

[page 118] The first attempt at modifying the language, maintaining the poetry, produced the following:

I am your lord, Lucifer, that out of hell came,
Prince of this world and great duke of hell.
I encourage sin to keep humans confused
To bring them to my dungeon there in fire to dwell

. . . .
I introduced sin to the sweetness of heaven
Among all the angels that were there so bright.
And therefore I was cast far down into hell,
Though I was most beautiful and shining with light.
But I took my share of those angels bright
With me into hell--pay attention to me here—
I left just two against one to live there in light,
But the third part came with me--this truth is clear

. . . .
Look how diverse my disguise may be seen:
Each thing perfect for its own occasion,
And each part according to my present need,
From the sole of my foot to the top of my crown.

My first prose draft of this introduction read:

Hello. I am Lucifer, ruler of Hell. My goal is to bring all humans to Hell with me. I created sin in Heaven where there was none: for that I was cast down into Hell. But I am not alone there--I took one-third of the angels with me!
See how common my costume may seem? Perfect to the occasion, convincing and disarming--all according to my purpose.

[page 119] Finally, the paraphrase of the entire speech was revised into its performance form, which began:

Good evening. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Lucifer, king of hell. Oh! I see some of you have heard of me. Good! My goal in life is to lure all of you to come and live here with me. See how normal I look? I always suit my clothes and appearance to the occasion, whatever it may be. I must seem convincing, disarming-- all according to my own purposes.

Yes, it was I who first introduced sin, there in the dull holiness of Heaven. That's what got me thrown out. Seems I wasn't appreciated there. But I was: one-third of the angels came with me to Hell. They work with me there now. (91)

Minor changes were made in the speech during rehearsal, but the sentences printed above remained practically unchanged from that step to production.