Modern comedy begins to emerge from medieval piety in the Yorkshire town of Wakefield’s passion play cycle. We don’t know as much about the production at Wakefield, which may have been on wagons as at York. But certain of the plays in that collection stand out as productions of someone’s creative genius. We don’t know his name, so he’s just know as the Wakefield Master. We assume that the five plays that share a poetic structure are all by the Wakefield Master, as if it’s his signature.
I’ll mark the rhymes, including internal rhymes. Notice the long lines in the first quatrain, then the very short C line. The meter is accentual, like nursery rhymes, with two strong beats (“my LEGS they FOLD”). Notice the alternation of long and very short lines:
Lord, what these weders ar cold! A / and I am yll happyd [dressed]; B
I am nere hande dold, A / so long haue I nappyd, B
My legys thay fold, A / my fyngers ar chappyd, B
It is not as I wold, A / for I am al lappyd, B
In sorow. C
In stormes and tempest, D
Now in the eest, now in the west, D
wo is hym has neuer rest D
Myd day nor morow! C
This meter and rhyme scheme carries through the entire play, sometimes split up in dialogue. There is some alliteration, but much less than in York’s plays. It would be too much, on top of the elaborate structure already imposed on the dialogue.
The most famous play is called the Second Shepherds’ Play. It was, literally, the second play in the collection in which shepherds go to see the baby Jesus. But in this one, most of the play is an unrelated comedy, and only at the end do the angels come out singing “Gloria in excelsis Deo!” and telling them to go to Bethlehem (“Bedlem”), where they meet Mary. Instead, mostly the play is about a local thief named Mak and his attempt to get away with stealing a sheep.
The three shepherds open with comic speeches in which they complain about the weather, poverty, the oppression of the rich, and what a pain it is to be married. They are freely anachronistic, even by the standards of medieval Yorkshire. Never mind that they were dressed in contemporary clothing, they go further and frequently swear on Christ’s cross and such, in the same play where they go to see the newborn babe! Mak even casts a sleeping spell on the shepherds by using the name of Pontius Pilate in hocus-pocus nonsense: “ffro my top to my too, Manus tuas commendo, poncio pilato, Cryst crosse me spede!”
The play depicts a parody mother and baby scene for the shepherds to discover, but this one is Mak’s attempt to cover up his theft. Mak’s wife Gill (Jill?) bundles up the ewe in swaddling clothes and pretends to be in labor with the twin, while the “newborn son” lies in his cradle. It’s an unbelievable situation to the audience, but the three shepherds nearly go away, fooled. Then one skeptic says “Wait, we must go back and give the baby a gift,” which allows him to lift the blanket off the “baby’s” face as he gives a sixpence and a kiss for luck. And lo! it’s a sheep. Mak and his wife even then carry on their cover story, reeling with horror at how some elf has turned their bouncing baby boy into this monster!
Medieval audiences loved violence on stage, but in this play, it was softened down to just tossing Mak around on a canvas, bouncing and jolting him until they’re tired. And that’s when the angel appears, as they are walking away. Mak has no role in visiting the infant Jesus, since he’s a rogue. But the three shepherds meet Mary and each gives the baby a gift: a bag of cherries, a bird, and a ball. The play ends in sweet harmony, with nobody much hurt and everyone cheerful.
There are some good versions of this play on YouTube, though I could not find the short film made in 1961. The Met staged and filmed it at The Cloisters in 1954 (this IMDB link might be it), and about ten minutes of the play is posted. The Folger Shakespeare Library has produced the play at Christmas, and in 2016, they filmed it. They have not posted the whole play on YouTube, but just the trailer. It’s worth watching; they do a lovely job with adding period music. The opening scene, and later the sheep-discovery scene, from an indie movie production in 2016, present a more natural-looking setting. There are countless amateur versions on YouTube, from university drama departments to families putting on a short play in the neighborhood.