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58-663: It is based largely on the Wakefield cycle of plays (but incorporating some scenes from the York , Chester and Coventry canons) and adapted by poet Tony Harrison , working with the original cast, into three parts: Nativity , The Passion and Doomsday. Directed by Bill Bryden , it was first performed on Easter Saturday 1977 on the terrace of the National Theatre building on the South Bank, London. It then went into

116-661: A bird, and a ball ("Have and play thee withal, and go to the tennis!") The shepherds rejoice at their salvation, all thoughts of hardship and complaint vanished, and leave singing in unison. The name "Wakefield Master" is a title given by Charles Mills Gayley to an unknown author of at least five of the plays that are found in the Wakefield Mystery Plays. In 1903, Gayley and Alwin Thaler published an anthology of criticism and dramatic selections entitled Representative English Comedies. It had long been believed that

174-426: A cradle indoors by a comically evil sheep-stealing couple. Once they have discovered and punished the thieves, the storyline switches to the familiar one of the three shepherds being told of the birth of Christ by an angel , and going to Bethlehem to offer the true Child gifts. At the start of the play, Coll, the first shepherd ("primus pastor") arrives in a field, invoking God in anachronistic terms (referring, as

232-538: A later hand than most of the manuscript. This has led some to believe that for its entire lifetime, the Wakefield Cycle was sponsored and produced by other associations, either governmental or religious. Either way, it was surely performed by non-professional actors from the community, as were all the cycles. The most notable poetic innovation in the manuscript is called the Wakefield Stanza, which

290-757: A modern adaptation of the Wakefield Medieval Mystery Plays. Simple vernacular speech is retained, spanning the Creation to the Resurrection. The music is by Andy Roberts. Rose, Martial. (1963). "An Introduction to the Wakefield Plays," in The Wakefield Mystery Plays, Anchor Books. The Second Shepherds%27 Play The Second Shepherds' Play (also known as The Second Shepherds' Pageant )

348-713: A series of thirty-two mystery plays based on the Bible most likely performed around the Feast of Corpus Christi probably in the town of Wakefield , England during the Late Middle Ages until 1576. It is one of only four surviving English mystery play cycles. Some scholars argue that the Wakefield cycle is not a cycle at all, but a mid-sixteenth-century compilation, formed by a scribe bringing together three separate groups of plays. The unique manuscript , now housed at

406-417: A single talent behind them, due to the unique poetic qualities of the works ascribed to him. There is widespread disagreement among scholars concerning the staging of the Wakefield Cycle, and of mystery plays in general. It is known that the cycle at York was staged on wagons that moved from place to place in the city, with multiple plays staged simultaneously in different locales in the city. However, there

464-421: A successful job that he was kept on to write several other plays afterwards. The plays he wrote might have replaced plays that were taken from York and it is believed that he is a contemporary to the "York Master", another unnamed playwright who produced several other influential plays during the same era. Some question the existence of one "Wakefield Master", and propose that multiple authors could have written in

522-477: A valid showpiece. Frank Dunlop , in the first British theatrical performances of the musical on stage, preceded his Young Vic productions of Joseph with his own adaptation of the first six Wakefield Mystery Plays, which were credited in the programme. The entire production was a double bill called Bible One: Two Looks at the Book of Genesis . Part I, entitled The Creation to Jacob (or Mediaevel Mystery Plays ),

580-610: Is a famous medieval mystery play which is contained in the manuscript HM1, the unique manuscript of the Wakefield Cycle . These plays are also referred to as the Towneley Plays, on account of the manuscript residing at Towneley Hall. The plays within the manuscript roughly follow the chronology of the Bible and so were believed to be a cycle, which is now considered not to be the case. This play gained its name because in

638-423: Is disagreement as to whether the Wakefield plays were performed in a similar manner. One problem is the population of Wakefield in 1377, which is approximately the date of the first performance of the plays. It consisted of 567 people aged sixteen or older. Assuming that half were male, that leaves only about 280 men to play the 243 roles in the plays. This leaves many to believe that multiple plays were performed by

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696-529: Is evident in all five texts. The term "Wakefield Master" emerged from a need to distinguish some material in the Towneley manuscript from a mass of unexceptional material, and was first coined by Charles Mills Gayley . In 1903, Gayley and Alwin Thaler published an anthology of criticism and dramatic selections entitled Representative English Comedies . It had long been believed that the Towneley Play

754-579: Is found in the Noah play, the two shepherds' plays, the Herod play, and the Buffeting of Christ pageant. This unique characteristic may be described as: a nine-line stanza containing one quatrain with internal rhyme and a tail-rhymed cauda, rhyming AAAABCCCB; or, a thirteen-line stanza containing a cross-rhymed octet frons, a tercet cauda with tail-rhymes, the whole rhyming ABABABABCDDDC. The former description

812-538: Is most renowned for the inclusion of The Second Shepherds' Play , one of the jewels of medieval theatre . It also contains The Talents , a macaronic poem in Middle English and Latin. Theatre Royal Wakefield (formerly Wakefield Theatre Royal & Opera House) produced a modern-day version of the plays in Wakefield Cathedral with a young community cast from 11–20 August 2016. The cycle

870-463: Is sometimes thought to be a nine-line stanza, with the quatrain containing internal rhyme. This view predominated in the critical literature until the late twentieth century, and has fallen out of favor. When Cawley himself edited the entire cycle with Martin Stevens for publication in 1994, the two opted to present the lines as a thirteen-line stanza. In any case, the number of syllables in the lines

928-557: Is startled by Coll. They confer about where Daw, a third, young, lazy and mischievous, shepherd, has gotten to, at which point Daw arrives complaining about employers, hunger, and about recent floods which he compares to Noah 's flood. Mak, a local good-for-nothing and well-known thief, arrives and pretends to be a yeoman from a lord. Although they recognize him from the start, he insults and threatens them by saying that he will have them flogged. When they threaten him, he pretends not to have known who they were. Mak tries to gain sympathy from

986-533: Is still frequently used ( Wakefield Cycle Authorship ). Of the 32 plays found in the manuscript, tradition has attributed The Second Shepherd's Play to the "Wakefield Master", along with Noah , The First Shepherd's Play , Herod the Great , and The Buffeting of Christ. A sixth play, The Killing of Abel is also thought to have been heavily influenced by him if not exclusively written by him, along with The Last Judgment, to which he contributed at least half. Many of

1044-407: Is the primary evidence critics use to identify what has been written by him. Along with his unique stanzas, the "Wakefield Master's" plays are also characterized by their emphasis on characterization that delves into the rural contemporary life of the characters. Using modern day technology which included plows, mills, and forges, as well as colloquial speech amongst the dialogue between the characters,

1102-474: Is the work of many authors, some sourced from the York Cycle . However, the most significant contribution has been attributed to an anonymous author known as the "Wakefield Master." It is believed that his additions include Noah, The First Shepherds' Play, The Second Shepherds' Play, Herod the Great and The Buffeting of Christ. This common authorship is suspected due to a unique nine-line rhymed stanza, which

1160-403: Is variable, and the number of stressed syllables can usually be counted at two or three per line in the thirteen-line version. Since the Towneley Play was a drama and therefore spoken rather than read silently, to some degree this presentation of the poetic units in graphical form is somewhat arbitrary and inconsequential. But it does provide insights into the poetic influences and innovations of

1218-491: The Huntington Library , San Marino, California , originated in the mid-fifteenth century. The Towneley family who lent their name to the manuscript, sold it at an auction in 1814, but it was probably part of their library at a much earlier date. Although almost the entire manuscript is in a fifteenth-century hand, the cycle was performed as early as the fourteenth century in an earlier form. The Wakefield Cycle

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1276-600: The Olivier Awards for 1985, the year the three plays first appeared together in performance at the Lyceum Theatre . Other awards were: Sydney Edwards Award for Best Director; Olivier for Designer of the Year for William Dudley; City Limits award for Best Director, and for Best Designer; Plays and Players for Best Director and Best Designer. Wakefield Cycle The Wakefield or Towneley Mystery Plays are

1334-476: The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama, Christina M. Fitzgerald and John T. Sebastian find it important to note, "the quotation marks placed around the name 'Wakefield Master' are thus to be taken to indicate that the ascription of authorship is the product of convention, rather than proven fact. All that can be said with confidence is that there seems clearly to have been a common force involved in

1392-821: The Ma(jest) ye of God the Father, God the Sonne, or God the Holie Goste or the administration of either the Sacrementes of baptism or of the Lordes Supper be counterfeited or represented, or anything plaid which tend to the maintenance of superstition and idolatry or which be contrary to the laws of God or of the realm.'" (Kyng Johan, Lines 413-15) Such strictures are a Protestant form of the aniconism in Judaism ,

1450-406: The Towneley Play was a mediocre work that showed extensive borrowing from other sources but containing vibrant and exciting material, apparently by one author, who was responsible for four or five complete pageants and extensive revisions. Gayley refers to this person as the "master" (with a lowercase m) in the book. Then, in a 1907 article, Gayley amended this to "The Wakefield Master", the name which

1508-597: The Wakefield Master. In 1576, the Wakefield plays were altered by the Protestant authorities, before being discontinued completely. "In that year, the Diocesan Court of High Commission at York revealed their attitude to the citizens of Wakefield in no uncertain terms. Permission was granted for the performance of their Cycle provided that: 'In the said play no pageant be used or set further wherein

1566-700: The Wakefield Stanza. However, scholars and literary critics find it useful to hypothesize a single talent behind them, due to the unique poetic qualities of the works ascribed to him. The plays of the "Wakefield Master" are identified by their unique stanza form, which is nine lines rhyming a a a a b c c c b with internal rhymes in the first four lines. We that walk in the nights, our cattle to keep, We see sudden sights, when other men sleep. Yet methink my heart lights—I see shrews peep. Ye are two all-wights! I will give my sheep A turn. But full ill have I meant; As I walk on this bent, I may lightly repent My toes if I spurn. This stanza format

1624-689: The actors and making up the crowd at such scenes as the last judgement. The Evening Standard reported: "An extraordinary experience... no wonder the end of it all saw an explosion of communal joyousness with everybody, actors, musicians, and audience alike, cheering and clapping and singing and dancing." Actors in the productions included Brenda Blethyn , Kenneth Cranham , Edna Doré , Lynn Farleigh , Brian Glover (as God), Karl Johnson (as Jesus), Richard Johnson , Mark McManus , Eve Matheson (as Eve), Jack Shepherd and Robert Stephens (as Herod). Nativity Passion Doomsday The actor and musician John Tams and his Home Service band provided

1682-461: The area of the performances, the plays were performed in the middle of the street, on pageant wagons in the streets of great cities (this was inconvenient for the actors because the small stage size made stage movement difficult), in the halls of nobility , or in the round in amphitheatres, as suggested by current archaeology in Cornwall and the southwest of England. All medieval stage production

1740-783: The biblical story proper begins – the Angel appears and tells them to go to "Bedlam" ( Bethlehem ) to see the Christ child. They wonder at the event, chastising each other for their collective delay, and then go to the manger where Mary (Mother of Jesus) welcomes them and receives their praise for her mildness. They each address the Child in turn, beginning by praising His authority and His creation of all things in tones of reverence and awe, but each comically shifting mid-speech to cooing, gushing baby talk, since they are addressing an adorable baby, whom Coll, Gib, and Daw respectively give "a bob of cherries,"

1798-675: The death, Assumption , and coronation as Queen of Heaven of the Virgin Mary . The majority of the plays that make up the Wakefield Cycle are based (some rather tenuously) on the Bible , while the others are taken from either Roman Catholic or folk tradition. When the Andrew Lloyd Webber–Tim Rice musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was in its infancy in 1972, it was so short that productions needed an added preamble to create

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1856-479: The existence of one "Wakefield Master", and propose that multiple authors could have written in the Wakefield Stanza. Barbara Palmer suggests that the story of the Wakefield Master and the suggestion that the Second Shepherd's Play was performed as part of the Wakefield Cycle were both inventions of an amateur historian named J. M. W. Walker. However, scholars and literary critics find it useful to hypothesize

1914-577: The folk music accompaniment and a selection of tracks from it was published on CD. The 1985 Cottesloe version was filmed for Channel 4 Television . A revival of the cycle, again directed by Bryden and featuring some of the original cast, was chosen by the National Theatre to mark the millennium celebration in 2000. The productions won Bill Bryden the Best Director title in both the Evening Standard Theatre Awards and

1972-507: The forbidding of any depiction of God or other supernatural beings, such as angels or demons. In addition, alterations were sometimes made in the scripts to reflect Reformed doctrine. For example, the play involving John the Baptist was altered to conform to Protestant doctrines about the sacraments . The word " pope " was excised from "Herod the Great," and twelve leaves are completely missing, which scholars suspect contained plays about

2030-522: The grownd evyn here. Then begynnys to grufe to us mery chere; Bot, husband, What grownd may this be? The hyllys of Armonye. Now blissid be he That thus for us can ordand. The thryd tyme wille I prufe what depnes we bere Now long shalle thou hufe, lay in thy lyne there. I may towch with my hufe the grownd evyn here. Then begynnys to grufe to us mery chere; Bot, husband, What grownd may this be? The hyllys of Armonye. Now blissid be he That thus for us can ordand. (All

2088-410: The manuscript it immediately follows another nativity play involving the shepherds . In fact, it has been hypothesized that the second play is a revision of the first. It appears that the two shepherd plays were not intended to be performed together since many of the themes and ideas of the first play carry over to the second one. In both plays it becomes clear that Christ is coming to Earth to redeem

2146-425: The naïve but pious craftsmen and guild members, to some extent modernised to represent the trades of today—God, for example, created the world with the help of a real fork-lift truck— acting out the parts of the story that their mediaeval counterparts would have done. At the start of each performance actors dressed as tradesmen welcomed the audience. The performance was a promenade one, with the audience mingling with

2204-452: The other plays in the manuscript have a few stanzas that were most likely written by him as well. Although nothing is known about the author, or the origins of the plays, it is agreed by several scholars that they date sometime between 1400-1450. Because of his influence in most of the Wakefield plays, it is possible he was brought into Wakefield with the purpose of editing and reworking the several plays that were already written, and did such

2262-608: The play, the unity is a distinctive feature of the play, where the Mak-subplot has been shown to have numerous analogues in world folklore. Wallace H. Johnson theorized that the union of a complete and independent farce with a complete and independent Nativity play resulted from the accumulation of years of horseplay and ad-libbing in rehearsal. Some have seen the folk-origins of the story as contributing to an extended reflection on class-struggle and solidarity in light of immediate and eternal realities, while others have emphasized

2320-428: The punctuation and indentations are editorial and not part of the original manuscript.) In the first case above, the first four lines contain internal rhyme (i.e., "prufe," "hufe," "hufe," and "grufe"); but the second example arranges the same verses in shorter lines, which in the manuscript are separated from one another by apparently random use of the obelus (÷), virgules [/], double-virgules[//], and line-breaks. In

2378-585: The repertoire in the Cottesloe Theatre (part of the South Bank complex) until 20 April 1985 when the Cottesloe went 'dark'. Later in 1985 it transferred with a slightly different cast ( Barrie Rutter played Herod and Pontius Pilate, and Barry Foster was Lucifer/Judas/Satan) to the Lyceum Theatre —then in use as a ballroom and so without seating. Harrison's concept was to present the original stories as plays within plays , using as his characters

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2436-530: The same cast during most of the lifetime of the cycle. Another way in which the Wakefield cycle differed in its staging from other cycles is that lack of association with the guilds. In other towns York and Coventry certain plays were staged by different guilds, according to their specialty (such as the shipwrights staging the Noah play). Although the names of four guilds are found on the manuscript (the barkers , glovers, litsters , and fishers), they are found in

2494-423: The second example, it is readily seen that the poet uses a cross-rhymed octet frons with a five-line tail-rhymed cauda. It is this innovative use of the cauda that is most distinctive in the stanza. There is some disagreement over whether the Wakefield Stanza is nine or thirteen lines long. Owing largely to A. C.Cawley 's 1957 edition of five of the pageants, and to others' arrangement of the manuscript lines, this

2552-513: The second shepherd, arrives without seeing Coll and complains first about the weather and then about the plight of married men, himself included, with bawdy speculation about the lives of men with more than one wife and advice to "young men of wooing" to "Be well ware of wedding" (wary of marriage). He paints a portrait of his wife as a loud, heavy-drinking, alternately abusive and sentimentally pious, whale-sized woman. "By him that died for us all, I would I had run til I had lost her!" at which point he

2610-518: The shaping of all five of these plays. " The most obvious of these characteristics is that several of the pageants use a distinctive stanza, sometimes called the Wakefield Stanza (see below). The pageants that manifest the Wakefield Stanza are noted for comedy, social satire, and intense psychological realism. These qualities also show up throughout the Towneley Cycle, most often where it seems to depart from its presumed sources. Some question

2668-463: The sheep was "born"). The other stage is where the holy manger and the religious iconography would occur. This is more than likely where the angel appears and where the Shepherds go to visit Mary. These two different stages would allow the audience to easily see the parallels between farcical and serious. Although Albert C. Baugh complained of the combination of low farce and high religious intent in

2726-460: The shepherds by explaining how his wife is a lazy drunk who gives birth to too many children. Invoking Christ and Pontius Pilate, Mak agrees to camp with the shepherds, and feigns to lie down among them. However, once they have fallen asleep he casts a spell to make sure they will not wake up and then sneaks off to steal one of their sheep. He heads back to his cottage and trades insults with Gill, his wife, who firmly believes that Mak will be hanged for

2784-576: The shepherds realize a sheep is missing and go to search Mak's house. They are initially fooled by Mak and Gill's ruse despite Gill going so far as to say that if she's lying she'll eat the child in her cradle (as she indeed plans to). The shepherds leave defeated, but realize that they have failed to bring any gifts to the "baby", and go back. When they remove the swaddling clothes they recognize their sheep, but decide not to kill Mak but instead roll him in canvas and throw him up and down, punishing him until they are exhausted. When they have left Mak's cottage,

2842-423: The shepherds will do throughout the play, to the life and death of Christ even though at this point of the play Christ has not yet been born) complaining about the (typically English) cold weather and about his poverty and the arrogance of local gentry. He begins by saying, "Lord, what these weathers are cold! And I am ill happed" which translates as "Lord [God], the weather is cold and I am ill prepared/clothed." Gib,

2900-551: The stories exemplified early traits of realism that would have made the stories more relevant for the audience of that time period. The author also used contrasting dialects in The Second Shepherd's Play , in the part where Mak pretends to be a yeoman. The regular dialect is Northern-midlands, with Mak's deceptive dialect being from the south. Two different studies (Trusler, and Cawley) on the main dialect certified that these plays did come from Wakefield. Depending on

2958-451: The theft and comes up with a plan for hiding the sheep – she will put it in an empty cradle and pretend that it is her newborn child, and that she is loudly, painfully in labor with its twin, so that the shepherds will quickly give up any search. Mak sneaks back among the shepherds and pretends to awaken along with them. They head off to take account of their sheep while Mak heads home to prepare. With despair at their catastrophic ill fortune,

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3016-574: The theological dimension, in which 15th century England is mystically conflated with first-century Judaea and the Nativity with the Apocalypse. Maynard Mack explains that this play is often categorized as simple and containing little artistic merit. What begins to emerge in Mack's article is that he feels that the play is not only sophisticated, but the comedic aspects are there to enhance the rest of

3074-520: The world from its sins. Although the underlying tone of The Second Shepherd's Play is serious, many of the antics that occur among the shepherds are extremely farcical in nature. The biblical portion of the play, a retelling of the Visitation of the Shepherds , comes only after a longer, invented story that mirrors it, in which the shepherds, before visiting the holy baby outside in a manger, must first rescue one of their sheep that has been hidden in

3132-417: Was Dunlop's reworking of the first six Wakefield plays, with music by Alan Doggett. Part II was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat . An adaptation of the plays was performed at London's National Theatre under the title of ' The Mysteries ' first in 1977. in 1985, it was filmed and broadcast for Channel 4. As part of Wakefield's centenary celebrations in 1988, Adrian Henri was commissioned to do

3190-427: Was a mediocre work that showed extensive borrowing from other sources but containing vibrant and exciting material, apparently by one author, who was responsible for four or five complete pageants and extensive revisions. Gayley refers to this person as the "master" (with a lowercase m ) in the book. Then in a 1907 article, Gayley emended this to "The Wakefield Master," the name which is still frequently used. Within

3248-439: Was based upon the earliest editions of the play that reflected the space-saving habits of the medieval scribe, who often wrote two verse-lines on a single manuscript line. Thus, depending upon how one interprets the manuscript, a stanza (from the Noah pageant) might appear in either of the following forms: The thryd tyme wille I prufe what depnes we bere Now long shalle thou hufe, lay in thy lyne there. I may towch with my hufe

3306-480: Was temporary and expected to be removed upon the completion of the performances. Actors, predominantly male, typically wore long, dark robes. Medieval plays, such as the Wakefield cycle or the Digby Magdalene, featured lively interplay between two distinct areas—the wider spaces in front of the raised staging areas, and the elevated areas themselves (called, respectively, the platea and the locus). Also typical

3364-414: Was to have the actors would move between these locations in order to suggest scene changes, rather than remain stationary and have the scene change around them as is typically done in modern theater. The staging of this play likely required two sets. It is suggested that the first stage is composed of Mak's house. In Mak's house, many of the farcical actions occur (for example, this is the location of where

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