In Memory of Audrey Ekdahl Davidson

Abstract

No more appropriate tribute to the memory of Audrey Ekdahl Davidson could be found than this special memorial issue of Comparative Drama. It all began at the Forty-first International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, on 6 May 2006, in a performance demonstration of the Cividale Planctus Mariae sponsored by Comparative Drama. Audrey Davidson transcribed and edited the Planctus Mariae, with an acknowledged debt to the late Fletcher Collins, Jr., for the loan of photographs of Cividale, Realo Museo Archeo-logico Nazionale, MS CI, fols. [74.sup.r]-[76.sup.v] originally from the collection of Karl Young. Audrey's husband, Clifford Davidson, Professor Emeritus of English and Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University, served as dramatic director for this demonstration performance in the Kanley Chapel on the Western Michigan University campus. Arrangements were capably handled by Eve Salisbury, the editor of Comparative Drama, with the assistance of her staff, along with the Reverend Bob Cochran and the Lutheran-Episcopal Ministry. St Luke's Episcopal Church assisted Audrey and Bob with properties; St. Luke's and the Cistercian Institute worked with the costumes. The scenic artist was Jon Reeves. Assisting with props and costumes were Eve Salisbury, Anthony Ellis, Cynthia Klekar, and Nick Gauthier. A translation of the Planctus Mariae was provided in the program, thanks to E. Rozanne Elder. The singers and instrumentalists were members of the Michigan Bach Collegium and the Western Michigan Collegium Musicum, with which Audrey, and sometimes the Society for Old Music, had collaborated in her final years of teaching. The Michigan Bach Collegium acknowledged a debt of gratitude for support from the Irving Gilmore Foundation and members of the community. The staging was very simple and moving, with ecclesiastical costuming, processional movement, and a simple visual representation of the Cross. The Planctus Mariae, being fairly short, proved to be an apt choice for performance in the chapel, leading to a lively discussion afterward. The text is from a fourteenth-century processional originating in Cividale del Fruili, incorporated in the liturgy for Good Friday. Accordingly, this performance demonstration began with a singing of Psalm 21, My God, my God, look upon me: why hast thou forsaken me, and moving on then to a singing of Ecce lignum Crucis (Behold the wood of the Cross). Next, the Lament of Mary and the Others on Good Friday dramatized the scene at the foot of the Cross following the death of Jesus. The text, though rather static, offered on this occasion the opportunity for eloquent gestures of grief by Jesus' mother and the other Marys accompanying her. …