Masefield's Play

The modern theatre began as a form for sermons as it is now a subject for them. Processions, pageants, performances --this was a slow, natural sequence. Not be fore the 1 5th century did audiences, growing more interested in the character of the customary devil than that of Christ, cause these moralities to lose their holy character. Dramatic interpretations of the gospels are not yet without their spiritual value. Last week, in Canterbury Cathedral at Canterbury, England, there was performed The Coming of Christ, a nativity play written in the antique tradition by famed Poet John Masefield.

The performances occupied one hour and twenty minutes each. The first episode attempted to present the paradisiacal scenes in which Christ announced his intentions of coming to earth. Next were shown the three kings, each an allegorical figure; last the shepherds, of whom some talked labor dissatisfaction until the chief shepherd knocked their heads together and they all went to bow down at the creche in which Jesus lay, squealing, with a halo around His head.

The shepherds' communistic conversation caused certain punctilious critics to condemn the performance as presented in a consecrated house and one which had, incidentally, never been used for morality plays in the middle ages. Poet Masefield replied: "Would you have the shepherds talk about foot and mouth disease?" The play was accordingly produced with accompanying music by Gustav Hoist, with costumes designed by Charles Ricketts.