Studies in Fifteenth-Century Stagecraft

Before he suddenly passed away, John W. Robinson was working on a manuscript that he saw as effecting a marriage between the dramatic and the theatrical, as he felt there was too large a divide between literary scholars and practitioners of the theater. In it, Robinson stated that his "purpose it to expound as plays the New Testament plays of the Wakefield Master and some of the related York plays, including two by the York Realist. . . . hop[ing] to show that the meaning and effect of the Wakefield Master's and York Realist's plays will not appear unless they are approached with the understanding that they were performed, with some idea of how they were performed, and with some appreciation of what they meant to a medieval audience." That manuscript is presented here, a close study of eight plays and the elements Robinson considers essential to performance: playwright, sponsors, location, plot, script, players, and audience.