The Arena Theatres in Vienna Codices 2535 and 2536

The Arena Theatres in Vienna Codices 2535 and 2536 Merle Fifield In respectful memory of Roland M. Smith I Comparison of the six extant plans for late medieval arena stages, whether performance guides or paper experiments, isolates the defining characteristics of a composite tradition.1 The diagrams consistently represent the playing area in a limited place2 encircled by an outer ring, five scaffolds in the only English diagram. One of the five Cornish diagrams and the English diagram also require a third, ap­ parently optional, stage unit, a centerpiece in the middle of the place. Though the texts prove the actors moved freely from one stage unit to another, both the diagrams and the recognized analogous miniatures systematize the stage units as self-contained areas, not as amorphous regions subject to an organic relationship of spectator and performer. The walls or supports of the centerpiece restricted the scenes within it; custom or a physical barrier contained the place. In the English sketch, the scaffold walls, a continuous structure or separate mansions, identified the territory of major characters. The names of characters in the outer ring of the Cornish diagrams specify particular positions. In all three diagrams for the Cornish Ordinalia3 a circle defines an open space or field, and the names of eight prominent characters have been noted outside the circumference of the circle. A second circle contains the complete stage. Like the Ordinalia diagrams, the two diagrams for Meriasek4 clearly delineate an inner arena, as opposed to an outer ring of action, but a second circle has not been drawn around the outer ring. Having no explanatory legends, the Cornish dia­ grams include no description of the line as a physical barrier, but its rigidly repeated position divides the Cornish arena stage into two essential playing areas: an outer ring of action and a localized place with an optional centerpiece. The English Castle of Perseverance sketch,5 sufficiently analogous to the Cornish diagrams to be classified with them in a common tradition,6 describes the place as both visibly and physically partitioned from the outer ring by an intervening barrier. Two narrowly spaced 259 260 Comparative Drama concentric circles encompass an arena with the silhouette of a castle at its center. The legend written between the concentric circles identi­ fies the arena as the place and describes a barrier between the place and the outer ring: “this is the watyr a bowte the place if any dyche may be mad ther it schal be pleyed. or ellys that it be strongely barred al a bowt. & lete nowth ouer many stytelerys be with inne the plase.” The legend above the castle silhouette also mentions the place: this “is the castel of perseuerance that stondeth/ in the myddys of the place . . . Though time has obscured the allusion to stytelerys, usually glossed as ushers or guards, it has in no way shadowed the legends alluding to the place: the castle marks the center of the place which extends from that center to a ditch or barrier. The scaffolds of the Castle of Perseverance outer ring have been noted outside the place barrier at the North, the South, the East, the West, and the Northeast: e.g. “Northe/Belyal/skaffold.” Despite the inner logic of modern reconstructions which deny this arrangement of stage units, the manuscript sketch of the Castle of Perseverance reproduces ab­ solutely a tri-centric stage: a centerpiece, a place enclosed by a barrier, and an outer ring of action. The two miniatures most often cited as analogous to the Castle of Perseverance sketch confirm the differentiation of an optional cen­ terpiece, a place, and an outer ring in two possible combinations, one of which is not illustrated by the extant stage diagrams. The miniature of the Terence des Dues'! represents a circular walled theatrum, solabelled , having only a place and a centerpiece. An actor recites from the centerpiece or scena, and another actor exits from the right side of the scena. ] oculatores cavort in the foreground of the place between the audience and the scena; musicians pipe at the left. Two rows of spectators, populus romanus, stand and sit along the back arc of the arena, which extends to their...