York Plays Research Articles

The Pageant Wagon as Iconic Site in the <em>York Cycle</em>

Theories of pageant-wagon dramaturgy have ranged from viewing the wagons purely as processional tableaux with no intention of mimetic performance to investing them with all the complexity of place-and-scaffold staging. This is especially true for the York Plays . The paper examines specific uses of the street as platea in the York Cycle , arguing that such use was limited specifically to its function as a contrast to the iconography of the wagon stage. Characters leave the wagon or approach it as a means of interrupting or re-establishing the iconic moment represented by that pageant. The dramatic effect on the audience derives from the disruption or reconfiguration of the stasis of the site.

Visible Words: The York Plays, Brecht, and Gestic Writing

have, perhaps, been misled by some of the apparently Brechtian elements in medieval playscripts into thinking that the ultimate effect of medieval plays upon their audiences was fundamentally different from that of great plays at any time. If that is so, then we should possibly throw away the notion that the goals of medieval acting were necessarily different in kind, or more limited, than those of other periods, and get on with the study of how these goals were taught, executed, and appreciated by their audiences. 1

The York Plays ed. by Richard Beadle

The York Plays ed. by Richard Beadle

York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling ed. by Richard Beadle, Pamela M. King

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER RICHARD BEADLE and PAMELA M. KING, eds. York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling. Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1984. Pp. xxxiv, 279. $29.95, £5.95. Richard Beadle's York Plays (1982) was, following Lumiansky and Mills's Chester Plays (1974), the second new full edition of the great English cycles, which are beginning to receive modern editorial treatment in the wake ofthe vast strides in scholarship which have occurred since the major nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century editions of the mystery plays. Beadle has now, in collaboration with Pamela King, followed up his edition with that most valuable of commodities, a volume of selections which is accessible in terms of price on the one hand and presentation of text on the other, in which all the benefits of detailed and up-to-date scholarship are brought to bear. This edition is designed "with the general reader and the student of medieval literature and early drama in mind," and there is also the understanding that it should be able to serve as a production text. It becomes patently clear in both the introduction and the texts themselves that the varied requirements of this wide range of read­ ership are always kept in mind. The general introduction not only prefaces the York Cycle but is some­ thing ofa primer to the whole area ofmedieval scriptural drama. Written with the utmost clarity, yet avoiding oversimplification, it deals concisely with the most significant aspects, both dramaturgical and literary, of the drama. The idea, alas, not entirely dead, that medieval drama was the na:ive product ofsimple men, is effectively challenged by discussion ofthe various practicalconsiderations like the financialand topographical organi­ zation ofperformances and the development oftexts, as well as the many details of the mise-en-scene on which modern research has been able to shed some light, such as acting, scenery and decor, costuming, and the use ofmasks and music. Literary and general artistic aspects discussed include typology and iconography. Others, such as verse and rhetoric, are sensibly (considering the variations within the cycle) consigned to the headnotes preceding each play. In an edition clearly intended to help broaden the reception of both this cycle and medieval cycle drama in general, the editors are at pains to promote the notion of the plays as living drama rather than just literary or antiquarian pieces. This is achieved through not only lively discussion of the aspects already mentioned but also some consideration of their impact on and significance for their contemporary 164 REVIEWS audiences. There is also a useful discussion of modern productions, though, whereas the editors are willing always to find things of which to approve in these productions, their comments are otherwise uncritical, leaving one with the impression of gratitude for any production, perhaps unnecessary in this time of increasing interest in early drama. The selectionconsists of twenty-two of the forty-seven extant plays in the cycle, and they were chosen with an eye to intrinsic artistic merit and to give some idea of the nature of the cycle as a whole. There are accordingly clusters around the two most significant episodes, the Creation and Fall and the Passion of Christ. In any such undertaking there will inevitably be some regrets about omissions-a personal one is the noninclusion of Christ's Appearance to Mary Magdalene, with its emotional impact and dramatic revelation-and there is perhaps a slight imbalance in that the only play to represent the considerable post-Resurrection sequence is the LastJudgement. On the whole, however, the selection is judicious and useful. It is the more so, for teaching purposes, in being an addition to the small range of selections confined to a single cycle, like Maurice Hussey's Chester selections or A. C. Cawley's Wakefield Pageants. Few editors of the cycle plays, whether full collections or selections, extend the recognition of the individuality of the component pageants to the provision of headnotes to each one, perhaps through considerations of space. The headnotes in this selection are probably the best in any edition to date. Without being overlong, they manage to cover a wide range...

The York Plays of the Dying, Assumption, and Coronation of Our Lady

The comparative scarcity of evidence as to dramatic performances of saints' miracles in mediæval England has frequently been the subject of comment. The only surviving independent texts of separate plays are those of Mary Magdalen, St. Paul, and the Cornish Meriasek; and the list of recorded performances is far from impressive. Particularly noticeable is the almost complete lack of evidence of such independent Miracles of Our Lady as would correspond to the amazing French series of Miracles de Notre Dame.1 The Lincoln play of the Assumption (sometimes Ascension) and Coronation of Our Lady, undertaken by the cathedral clergy over a long period, and, perhaps, as time went on, linked with the municipal St. Anne's play, is unusual.2 But, if self-contained plays of the Virgin Mary are notable mainly by their absence, there is ample evidence of a well-established group of Death and Assumption of Mary plays within the framework of the regular Corpus Christi cycles. Texts of such groups have survived in the York Register3 and in the Ludus Coventriœ.* Records of such plays occur at Newcastle, where the Burial of the Virgin was played by the masons;6 at Beverley where the priests, and at Aberdeen where the tailors were responsible for the Coronation of Our Lady;6 and, as we shall see, at York. At York, too, as elsewhere, certain features, at least, of the Assumption Play seem to have been incorporated in royal entry civic celebrations.

St. Martial of Limoges in the York Plays

St. Martial of Limoges in the York Plays

On the Relation Between the York and Towneley Plays

On the Relation Between the York and Towneley Plays

The York Plays and the Gospel of Nichodemus

In her study of the relationship of the York and Towneley Plays, Dr. Marie C. Lyle directed special attention to a series of discrepancies which she found between the description of the York plays given by Burton in his list in 1415 and the extant text of these plays. Noting the fact that these discrepancies occurred in plays which incorporated material from the Gospel of Nichodemus, she undertook to account for them by supposing that these plays as we have them represent a revision, made subsequent to Burton's list, under the influence of the Middle English metrical Gospel of Nichodemus.

York Plays.

York Plays.

York Plays: The Plays Performed by the Crafts, or Mysteries of York, on the Day of Corpus Christi in the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Sixteenth Centuries

York Plays: The Plays Performed by the Crafts, or Mysteries of York, on the Day of Corpus Christi in the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Sixteenth Centuries