Page:Plays of Roswitha (1923) St. John.djvu/201



evidence that Roswitha's plays were intended for representation has already been discussed. If they were ever acted in her own time at Gandersheim by members of the community, we need not assume that the performances were ludicrously artless. We have only to read contemporary descriptions of the celebrations of great feasts in monasteries in the so-called "dark ages," or to observe how strong is the element of significant and controlled "action" in the ceremonial of the Catholic Church as it exists to-day, to imagine that people accustomed to take part in these dramatic services would have little difficulty in giving an impressive performance of a religious play. Even if we discard the theory that such performances took place, an imaginative conception of what they might have been like will save us, if we desire to act these plays now, from adopting an exaggeratedly primitive method. It is our duty to do our best for them, neglecting no means of emphasizing their dramatic strength and helping their dramatic weakness. As we have no authority in a known "convention" to guide us, the least we can do is to refrain from inventing a comically crude one based on an arrogant condescension to past ignorance of what in any century is dramatically effective.

When Callimachus was brought on to the modern stage a misleading impression of Roswitha's ability as a dramatist was created by a calculated childishness in the interpretation. All the characters were kept in view of the audience whether they were concerned in a scene or not, and the end of each scene was marked, as the end of an over is marked in cricket, by a general change in positions. Roswitha's piety was held up to ridicule, and her glorification of chastity burlesqued to the satisfaction of those to whom jokes at the expense of old-fashioned virtues never fail to appeal. Drusiana's prayer that she might die rather than yield to Callimachus was greeted with shouts of laughter. And it was said that the mirth was natural and