“The Entry into Jerusalem” depicts Jesus’ entry on a donkey’s colt while crowds cry “Hosanna!” The guild responsible in the registry was the Skinners, and I can’t help thinking it was because they might skin a mule, so they were used to handling donkeys. Was a real donkey used in the play? It might have been. There are several indications that one special feature of this play was its use of the street as part of the stage.
The play is about a crowd forming a procession and singing, and that’s what the play asked the players and watchers to do. It may have begun with the previous wagon moving on as a procession came from two blocks away, singing. They may have included some of the audience who wanted to join in, but who would presumably return to their places. The cast also included a children’s choir to carry on the determined singing (and hopefully in tune).
This is one of the longest plays in the cycle, and it has one of the largest casts. They used the procession through Jerusalem to catch up quickly on several more events from Jesus’ life, even if they were out of time order. So both a lame man and a blind man call out for Jesus to stop and heal them, and he does. Along the road, Zaccheus is found in a tree, and Jesus tells him to come down. Additionally, there’s the basic story of finding the donkey, so that involved at least one man to agree to give the donkey. They did what they could to limit the cast by reusing the donkey keeper, marked “Janitor,” as a herald to run ahead and tell the city that Jesus was coming. But the cast swelled again to represent the people of Jerusalem in the person of 8 solid citizens and a children’s choir.
Medieval people wanted a rational explanation for why Jesus could send his disciples into the village to borrow a donkey without offering a rental fee or knowing anyone. The play script gives a reason: the donkey, and its colt, were basically jointly held by the village in general. It was ordinary to borrow it for a few hours. The Bible story does not answer this question, and if anything it provides more mystery, but that was extraneous to the point of this play. There was already a lot going on, with two healings and Zaccheus!
The play covers a lot of ground, similarly to how some earlier plays, like Noah’s Flood, covered a year in a few minutes. But when they’re actually supposed to be walking, how much ground did they actually cover? The action begins outside Jerusalem, when for the first 100 lines, Jesus and his disciples discuss and then borrow the donkey. For the next 150 lines, the keeper of the donkey tells the city fathers that Jesus is coming, and they compare notes on what they know about him. Just after Jesus sets out on the donkey’s back, there are 50 lines in which a blind man and a pauper discuss how to get Jesus’ attention, and then the blind man is healed. For 100 lines immediately after, we get the healing of the crippled man who throws away his crutch at Jesus’ command, and the event of Zaccheus climbing a tree to see the procession and being invited down by Jesus. The last 100 lines show Jesus going into the city and the eight city fathers welcoming him with lines like this (#6’s speech):
Hayll, conquerour, hayll, most of myght,
Hayll, rawnsoner of synfull all,
Hayll, pytefull, hayll, lovely light,
Hayll to us welcome be schall.
Hayll, kyng of Jues,
Hayll, comely corse that we thee call
With mirthe that newes.
If you were directing this play with mostly a wagon’s platform for stage, how would you do it? Could Jesus and his disciples have been standing on the street, with the donkey produced from behind the wagon? Then I’d have the donkey’s keeper climb onto the wagon’s stage to talk to the city fathers, who could make their speeches in full sight and hearing of the crowd, then exit behind the wagon’s back curtain. Jesus and the disciples could go behind the wagon while the speeches are being made, then emerge as though they had been traveling on back streets and only now arrived at city center—at street level, of course, since it’s more fun to use a real donkey.
I think I would have put the blind and crippled men, and Zaccheus, on the wagon stage. Jesus on the donkey would come to the first two immediately at stage right, and invited the blind man and his friend the pauper down to the street to join them. Mid-wagon, the crippled man could also throw off his crutch and leap down to the street. Zaccheus’ tree might have been at stage left, so that he jumps down from it, then down onto the street level. The city fathers would then re-emerge on the stage and make their speeches of praise. I’d have each one exit the stage by stairs, onto the street, as he finishes his speech.
There is a lot of singing in this play. “Tunc cantant,” says the note as Jesus starts into the city. They probably sang a traditional Palm Sunday hymn; everyone may have stood still in place and joined in, with the action of the blind and crippled men taking place only after the hymn had concluded. As director, I might have paused the hymn to have a scene of healing take place, then the next stanza of the hymn be sung to show time and distance passing. “Tunc cantant” also closes the play. It may have been at this point that a boys’ choir from the cathedral came from behind the wagon or from among the crowd, joining the full cast.
Once your play has assembled such a large cast on the street, the only exeunt would be to start moving toward the next stop, singing. They may have gone only one block, then moved quietly into place in next stop as the wagon caught up. Or they may have sung and marched the whole way to the next stop, arriving with song to give the next audience a taste of the ending.
In Northern England, they used willow branches to wave instead of palm branches. The city fathers were each also supposed to lay a coat or cloak on the street in front of the donkey as Jesus rode. This 25th play must have generated a good bit of clean-up as its production team moved on to the next station: picking up coats, leaves, and donkey dung. Things needed to be clean and quiet for the 26th play, a very somber dialogue of conspirators meeting on the stage to discuss the coming arrest and trial.