Croxton Play of the Sacrament

Croxton Play of the Sacrament
St. John’s College Chapel, Oxford
January 9, 2013
The Blood Conference
St. Anne’s College, Oxford
Cast
Vexillator, Presbyter, Colle
Vexillator, Clericus, Episcopus
Aristorius, Brundycche
Jonathas
Masphat
Malchus
Jesus
Sarah Anson
Mairin O’Hagan
Alex Mills
George Gandy
Aurélie Blanc
Tamara Voegeli
Jamie Whitelaw
Director
Choir Director
Stage Manager
Lighting
Elisabeth Dutton
Thomas Allery
Tamara Haddad
Al Dutton
We are delighted to bring together a cast of professional actors, and
students from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland and King
Edward’s School, Stratford. We thank Perry Mills of KES, particularly,
for training up and transporting Jesus!
The Croxton Play is a miracle, rather than a Morality, play: it
seeks to demonstrate Truth, through spectacle rather than persuasion.
The play claims to be an authentic representation of a Host miracle at
Heraclia (Spain) in 1461, although similar Host dramas predate this;
stories concerning the Jews’ imputed abuse of the Eucharist had
circulated in western Europe since the late thirteenth century. The play
was performed in the area around Bury St Edmunds, although may have
been part of a touring repertoire. The Jews had been expelled from
Bury, then the seat of one of England’s wealthiest and more powerful
monasteries, in 1190, and of course from the whole of England in 1290.
The Croxton Play says a great deal of unpleasant and fantastical things
about Jews which, in the history of anti-semitism, would go on to have
an important role in the actual persecution and conversion of Jews:
ideas of the ‘international Jew’, the ‘Wandering Jew’, the Jews’
relationship to ‘dirty money’, ideas of Jewish literalism, sensualism and
immoderate appetite, are all rehearsed here.
However, it would be a mistake to see the Croxton Play simply
as anti-Jewish propaganda. Rather, the play uses the Jews to explore
difficult and unresolved concerns of community and religion in East
Anglia: concerns about international traffic and trade, concerns about
the attendant fluidity of identity, and, most clearly, concerns about the
efficacy of the Eucharist. These concerns are safely articulated through
the Jews, who are not scapegoats but rather fantasies of dissenting
voices within. Aristorius in effect sets up a shocking parody of the Last
Supper, with ‘wyne of the best’ and a ‘lofe of light bred’, whilst the
Jews argue that the Christians only ‘believe on a cake’; the Jews swear
by Mohammed but never reveal of sound version of Christian
sacramental doctrine, demonstrating the extent to which the Jews
project Christian concerns. It has long been noted that the play’s Jews
are similar to the Lollards, the proto-Protestant heretics in medieval
England who questioned the true ‘substance’ of the Eucharistic wafer.
The Croxton Play of the Sacrament stages a kind of competition
between different ideas of judgement and salvation, the ‘real’ wealth is
not jewels, the ‘real’ cure is not medicine, and the ‘real’ Christ is not the
Jews’ Mohammed: all is made whole in the image of Christ which
appears towards the end of the play. This, in turn, facilitates a
procession, ‘O sacrum convivium’, which enables the Christian
community to demonstrate its fantasy of coherence. In doing so, the
play reveals how communities and their authorities are formed: through
ritual and performance, victimization and fantasy.
Anthony Bale, Birkbeck College, University of London
Director’s Notes
Our aim in staging the Croxton Play of the Sacrament is not to
endorse its objectionable and fantastical images of Jews, but to expose
them. In order to expose the Jewish caricature we have followed its
exaggeration in the Croxton Play. We have adopted a self-consciously
theatrical style in acting and costumes, which also play on medieval
Christian symbolism: yellow, the colour of perfidy, was frequently used
in portrayals of Jews. We have, however, clearly not attempted to look
medieval. We have retained the play’s Middle English, and perform it
with a lightly modernized pronunciation.
We have cut the script, partly out of consideration for the
audience sitting in a cold chapel, but also occasionally for practical
theatrical reasons. We have reduced the number of Jews from five to
three – we thus lose the symbolism of the five Jews inflicting Christ’s
five wounds, but gain an ‘unholy’ Trinity which is also more
manageable in the narrow chapel space. We have also cut one scene
requiring special effects – including fireworks – which we feared St
John’s might not be happy about us staging in their chapel. This is a
play written for outdoor performance: in Oxford’s January floods we
have to adapt! And we hope that you will enjoy compensatory
atmospheric gains from the staging of this play in this beautiful early
modern chapel.
Although it has been suggested that early performances of the
Play of the Sacrament might have ended with a procession of actors and
audience into a church, this space was designed for worship, not for the
staging of performances of this sort. We have tried to accommodate
sightlines but there may be moments when those in the back rows need
to stand to see what is going on – please feel free to do so.
Elisabeth Dutton, University of Fribourg