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For those who came in late, I have been making inquiries about ways that different productions of Ludus Danielis have staged the handwriting on the wall and the lions, beginning with the 1958 production by Noah Greenberg and the New York Pro Musica. Thanks to the suggestion of Steve Wright and Anne Lancashire, I tracked down the rather substantial booklet that OUP published to go with the NYPM recording, and although Nikos Psacharopoulos's notes on the staging weren't very specific, Greenberg included the entire text and score of the production, and I was able to figure out their "special effects." For those of you who are interested, here is a brief account of four modern productions, by Greenberg in1958, by former students of Fletcher Collins in 2000, by Clifford Davidson at Kalamazoo in 2002 (I think), and by Dunbar Ogden for Christmas of 2003.

Greenberg's production included W.H. Auden, dressed as the First Monk, as a narrator (not bad! unfortunately, Auden's narration is not on the recording). As the satraps display the vessels of the Jews before Belshazzar, a Second Monk enters from upstage, crosses downstage in front of the king, and "writes on an imaginary wall until the Prince's solo is sung." (The Prince was a character Greenberg added.) When the Prince finishes singing the line "Ecce sunt ante faciem tuam," the Narrator says, "Meanwhile, a right hand appears before before the King, writing on the wall: Mene, Tekel, Peres." Bells sound, everyone freezes, except the Second Monk, who walks back through the playing area and exits upstage. No magic hand, no real writing. Psacharopoulos notes that in the first performance, the Second Monk stayed upstage so that the actors had to turn away from the audience to "see" the writing, and the audience couldn't see their reactions, so the second night they changed it so that the "handwriting" would be between the audience and actors, an interesting use for the invisible "fourth wall." The lions were two men in costumes based on medieval paintings, and they struck heraldic poses, "giving an underlying sense of playfulness to their clawing and threatening."

In 2000, to celebrate the renovation of one of our Episcopal churches in Staunton, where I live, and to honor Fletcher Collins, who still lives here in Staunton after retiring from Mary Baldwin (I think he turned 98 this year), former students of Dr. Collins put on a semi-professional production of Daniel in the sanctuary. Custer LaRue (formerly Mary Magdalene in Collins's film of the Fleury Visitatio and currently singer for the Baltimore Consort) was the Queen. For the most part, they tried to reproduce plausible medieval staging conditions, but not for the two special effects. For the handwriting, they used lasers, inscribing only the first letter of each word on the wall, while Belshazzar sang the words in terror. In a spirit of playfulness similar to what Psacharopoulos described, the lions were represented by a single enormous puppet, just the head, manipulated with rods by several men in black and the two front paws, each manipulated with a rod by a child in black. The puppet was designed by Collins's puppeteer daughter-in-law, and I think she must have been inspired by Japanese Bunraku. Neverthless, I thought it captured the medieval spirit (certainly better than the lasers). The mouth of the lions' den was shaped like a lion's head with gaping jaws, reminiscent of Hellmouth, and the lion parts made a foray into the congregation/audience like devils in a mystery play.

The following year, Clifford Davidson produced the play at Kalamazoo, also in a beautiful church. The singing was more consistently professional than in the Staunton performance, and they had some professional dancers, but overall the production was a little less glitzy and more thoroughly medieval than the Staunton production. For the handwriting, he had an angel undo three rolled up scrolls high up on the wall. I don't remember the lions as well (I was in the back of the congregation and couldn't see everything), but as I recall they were actors in more or less leonine costumes. Since Prof. Davidson subscribes to this list, I'll rely on him to correct my description as needed. One thing I noted that distinguished Prof. Davidson's production from the other two was the singing's use of harmony, but that's another subject. I'd be interested, however, to hear from him on that performance choice, since Greenberg does address this briefly in his booklet ("In our edition, as in the performance, no polyphony or harmony is added, but doubling at the unison and the octave is used extensively").

(http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/cctimes/entertainment/performing_arts/7413927.htm). In his Staging of Drama in the Medieval Church, Prof. Ogden rightly points out that the manuscripts of the Beauvais Daniel and of Hilarius's version give no indication of how they staged the handwriting on the wall or the lions, and he refrains in the book from speculating on how it was done, so I wrote him and asked how he decided to do it when he had to stage it himself. Here is his reply:

As you know from my book on THE STAGING OF DRAMA IN THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH, I am very given to using the entirety of the architectural space as performance space. [Baragona's note: the productions by Collins's students and by Clifford Davidson had this in common with Ogden's, they made use of the whole church for performance.] I like to play the space with its infinite variety of sound as the secular and monastic churches were played in the Middle Ages -- and for which they were built. So I'm not fond of today's introduction of musical instruments and of elaborate scenes and machines.

For the mysterious handwriting, I have had the court arrayed down the east chancel steps in an inverted V, with Balthasar at the apex of the V, standing on the top step. After "Ecce sunt" finishes, with the court still looking at the king, suddenly high up in the western end -- at the rose window -- the king sees something in the distance. First wide-eyed with curiosity then terror. The choral leader, standing beside him and a step lower, sees the king's face, turns, also sees the distant "something," takes half a step forward, with his right hand slowly draws a giant "Hebrew/Arabic"-like letter in the air and says the word "Mane." The court, still looking at the king intones "Mane." The choral leader repeats the gesture (making a different "letter") and says, "Thechel." The court intones "Thechel." The choral leader repeats the gesture and says, "Phares." The court intones "Phares." BEAT. Then SNAP. They as one snap their heads around to "see" -- startled -- what the king and the choral leader have been looking at. They hold as the king begins "Vocate mathematicos" and with "-cos" they snap their heads back around to look at the king.

In all churches where I have worked I have always found an opening for the lions' den -- a crypt door, a dark gated entrance to the east chancel. I do not have people running around in Halloween lion suits or shadow images. The Angel holding a candle follows Daniel into that den. While he's in there I have the chorus make a large scirocco-type sound (at this point usually in the west end of the church) -- holding the note for some 30 seconds (Daniel needs time in the den) -- until he emerges jubilant, the Angel with the candle following him. Eventually the Consiliares have to march into the den, the Angel standing outside and fiercely pointing the way. They vanish. The Angel stands looking at the opening. And out erupts a huge double ROAR (made by the Consiliares in the den).

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Prof. Ogden tells me that they will be re-mounting his production this Christmas for anyone in the Berkeley area.

I hope those of you who took the time to read all this found the comparison in productions, even in only these two aspects, as interesting as I do.

Alan Baragona