The Narrator within the Performance: Problems with Two Medieval "Plays"

The Narrator within the Performance: Problems with Two Medieval "Plays" Bruce Moore There are two medieval English texts which commentators have been reluctant to describe as "plays," mainly because of the presence within them of narrators. The thirteenth-century fabliau Dame Sirith is closely related to the Interludium de Clerico et Fuella, but whereas all are in agreement that the latter text is a "play," there has been some unease about the dramatic status of Dame Sirith. Bennett and Smithers, for example, conclude that "Dame Sirith is evidently not a full-blown drama."1 Similarly, The Harrowing of Hell, which appears in three manuscripts (designated here as Digby, Harley, and Auchinleck),2 is described by Chambers as a text meant for dramatic "recitation" and not for "dramatic representation."-^ This unease about dramatic status exists in spite of the fact that for about half of its text Dame Sirith has marginal abbreviations for its characters, and that the Harley and Auchinleck versions of The Harrowing of Hell have marginal initials or names next to the speeches of its characters. The dominant opinion, however, is that these are texts intended for performance by a single performer.4 Bennett and Smithers, in their commentary on Dame Sirith, note "the marked preponderance of dialogue over narration," the "unmarked transition in H. 279-80, where Dame Sirith addresses Wilekin and her dog respectively," and the "marginal BRUCE MOORE, Lecturer in the Department of English, University College, the University of New South Wales, has published widely on medieval literature. His current research projects include an annotated bibliography of the Old English Elegies and a series of articles on relationships between medieval art and drama. 21 22Comparative Drama letters which identify the interlocutors and distinguish narration from dialogue," but they conclude: Dame Sirith is evidently not a full-blown drama: the dialogue lacks the very brief replies appropriate to a play. But in combination the above peculiarities suggest that the work was meant to be declaimed with due differentiation of the three characters concerned. This would have been done not by three actors, but by a single minstrel who spoke all three parts, and by means of changes in the voice and dress and of appropriate gestures.5 The first point is not really significant—it would have been news to the writer of The Castle of Perseverance that there were any such dramatic rules about the "very brief replies appropriate to a play"; and, in any case, there are some sections in Dame Sirith which do have exchanges of brief dialogue. Yet the notion that this is a text meant for solo mime has become the standard interpretation, the only significant variation on the solo mime theory being Axton's suggestion that lines 273-90 would not make sense unless the mime artist had the collaboration of a performing dog.6 It is possible, of course, that this text was performed by a solo mime plus dog. It would, however, be measurably easier to perform if a narrator read the narrative passages (which mainly describe journeys from one place to another) while three actors performed the other parts; and it would seem to me axiomatic that where two hypotheses about performance exist, one inordinately difficult and demanding if realized and the other if realized lending itself readily to performative ease, the other is more likely to account for the praxis of the time. Most of the scenes in Dame Sirith contain only two of the three characters, but the final scene, it seems to me, demands that the Cleric, the Wife, and Dame Sirith are all together on the stage: 7 [T] I>is modi mon bigon to gon Wib Siriz to his leuemon In büke stounde. Dame Siriz bigon to telle And swor bi Godes ouene belle Hoe heuede him founde. [F] "Dame, so haue Ich Wilekin sout, For nou haue Ich him ibrout." [V] "Welcome, Wilekin, swete bing! I>ou art welcomore ben be king. Wilekin {>e swete, Bruce Moore23 Mi loue I be bihete, To don al pine wille! Turnd Ich haue mi pout, For I ne wolde nout I>at pou pe shuldest spüle." TC] "Dame, so leb euere bide...