In this volume, focused largely on English Medieval and Tudor plays that adapt scriptural material, editors Peter Happé and Wim Hüsken present a rather uneven collection which nonetheless contains several excellent and stimulating articles. The introduction highlights useful themes around audience reception and the function of doubt, but reads awkwardly like a list of abstracts, missing the opportunity to bring the volume’s contributions into conversation with one another. Several of the articles in the collection betray hasty editing through proofreading errors and inconsistent terminology, and many could do with further revision to fully develop intriguing ideas. The volume is also largely focused on cycle pageants, although discussion of some fragments (Norwich, Newcastle) and archival evidence (Beverley) enrich this focus. The most obvious English omission is the Digby Mary Magdalene, and the editors could afford to discuss their position on morality plays and non-English texts. Similarly, the volume could be improved by better representation of Tudor playwrights, such as Foxe, Bale, or, though it stretches the time period slightly, Cary.

There are, however, good reasons to delve into this collection. In several cases, the editors have invited leading experts to comment on the texts in which they specialize. Readers will appreciate Diana Wyatt’s cautious explication of the lost Beverley Corpus Christi Play which contextualizes a detailed knowledge of the archival evidence in relation to contemporary extant texts and visual art. Wyatt demonstrates a rich accumulation of detail gathered from thorough consideration of the records and analogues, carefully signposting what is knowable about the Ludi Corporis Christi in Beverley. Similarly, Clifford Davidson’s exploration of collective memory and the York Plays draws together an impressive breadth of scholarship, capturing the rich complexity of the Plays’ hypothetical medieval reception. Davidson demonstrates the deeply contextual nature of the Plays as a caveat to modern performances focused on historical reconstruction and to studies that over-emphasize the influence of any particular source or model. Margaret Rogerson and David Bevington also contribute as established experts on the York and Croxton plays respectively. Rogerson references a range of materials to demonstrate the city’s concern with appropriate audience response, although she tends to overemphasize a dichotomy of spiritual versus economic benefit. Bevington’s discussion of staging and ambiguity in the Croxton play covers largely familiar territory that could serve as an introduction for students, but he provides a useful explanation of the play’s comic interlude, and he situates the text within a broader discussion of doubt in medieval drama. Sarah Carpenter’s opening chapter on ‘Biblical Drama after the Reformation’ has a similar introductory feel to it, although she provides a nuanced overview of scriptural drama for a period often overshadowed by narratives which privilege the rise of secular drama. Carpenter does trace some subtle shifts in scriptural drama alongside the evolution of official attitudes to lay-reading of the Bible and to changing political and economic landscapes in Tudor England; there are also several tantalizing suggestions around extant manuscripts and private performances that might inspire students and other scholars. Similarly, Philip Butterworth’s chart providing a parallel comparison of the Towneley Issac and Iacob pageants with contemporaneous biblical texts may also be useful to scholars.

In contrast to the volume’s intricate historical readings, writers Philip Crispin and Garrett P. J. Epp provide theoretical lenses that shift our conceptions of medieval texts in performance. Crispin draws on literary, cultural, and performance theory to reveal how two York pageants critique power and its abuses in both medieval and modern performance contexts, while Epp speaks more generally to the ways that performance can enact belief. Crispin’s discussion of the carnivalesque, liminal, and abject in the York pageants segues nicely into a discussion of the performance styles that he used to clarify his 2013 productions. Epp, on the other hand, draws on a range of medieval and modern sources, including his own pedagogical experiments with performance in the classroom, to demonstrate a conception of performative theology which functions both as a rebuttal of the Tretise of Miracilis Pleyinge and an invitation to continued modern performance of medieval texts.

Some of the best articles in the collection feature scholars drawing on specific contemporary texts and contexts to reveal new interpretations of familiar dramatic texts. Greg Walker’s delightful contextualization and reinterpretation of Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estatitis presents compelling parallels between contemporary Catholic directives for reformation in Scotland and Lyndsay’s critiques of the clergy in the play. Walker demonstrates that Lyndsay’s play reflects and amplifies the reforming impulses already present in the Scottish church and monarchy of the time, rather than representing anti-Catholic or pro-Protestant impulses. James McBain’s delicate exploration of the tension between emotion and reason within Nicholas Love’s affective experience of the crucifixion serves to explain the N-Town’s depiction of Mary in the same episode. Charlotte Steenbrugge’s discussion of John the Baptist pageants is one of two articles to usefully contrast French and English analogues (the other being Peter Happé’s identification of lacuna in both scriptural and dramatic representations of the resurrection). She highlights a particularly English anxiety around the right to preach in the early fifteenth century that circumscribes the dramatic material in extant plays featuring John the Baptist, drawing tantalizing attention to the phenomenology of performed preaching. Elisabeth Dutton and Stephanie Allen consider the only Latin drama in the collection, demonstrating Nicholas Grimald’s synthesis of scriptural and classical sources and models. This engaging discussion reveals Grimald’s expert manipulation of reception as he leads audiences to consider how we know and manipulate truth. Also noteworthy is Katie Normington’s demonstration of a temptation motif in a range of cycle pageants which helps to address perceived flaws in the often overlooked Newcastle Noah, although she misses the opportunity to discuss important distinctions between Eve’s temptation in the Fall and later scriptural episodes that demonstrate the motif. Overall, this compilation gives a good overview of current scholarship, reflecting the continued priority given to English cycle drama in medieval drama studies; at the same time, select contributions demonstrate the fruitful results we can gain by applying theoretical lenses to familiar texts and turning our scholarly attention to material outside of the familiar English context.