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Thanks to Steve Wright for the comment on doubling (and to Hardy Cook
for the term).  No one who ever said anything to me about Medieval
drama ever took performance into account, but -- as I said in my
last note -- the effect of doubling Mary/Joseph with Gyll/Mak was
rather startling in our modest production several years ago.  Ever
since, I've been convinced that that was a part of the Wakefield Master's
design, but my conviction has no scholarly basis.  As Fletcher Collins
and Meg Twycross have shown, however, there is a lot to be learned in
performing these works.  I agree with Michael Sperberg-McQueen and
Cliff Flannigan and Addison Amos all that these texts are cultural
artefacts, as it were, but Allen Frantzen's observation that they were
performed texts and that that requires us to approach them as such
is particularly attractive, because the script in a performance is only
one component of the text, in the modern sense of that word.  Such
things as the allocation of actors to roles is certainly another com-
ponent, and so is the social-economic background against which they were
played.
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Do keep the cards and letters coming.  This discussion has been very
helpful to me already, and I hope the group will generate many more
discussions on all kinds of topics dealing with the drama.  Such
electronic discussions are the means of creating online communities and,
to my mind, that is the goal and the point of any discussion group.
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--Pat Conner