The dramaturgy of the English folk plays remains something of a neglected perspective. The ritualist approach concentrated on their central 'act', neglecting much of the action that characterizes them as a distinct species of dramatic performance. Recent scholarship has very properly returned to the plays themselves, but there is still a tendency for the dramaturgy to be neglected, say in favour of the texts of the plays or their social context and function. 'Traditional drama', surely must be characterized by a traditional dramaturgy, which includes verbal, physical and contextual aspects.
By dramaturgy I mean the movements of the performers and their interaction – physical and verbal – with each other and with the audience, all this in relation to organized space. The distinct dramaturgical mode of the folk plays is formal, with performers moving on to, within and off the acting space in regular patterns, and presentational, characterized by much direct address to the audience and with little attempt at creating an autonomous dramatic world distinct from the social reality in which the performance takes place. This mode is appropriately designated 'ritual', although the designation implies nothing of course about origins. The mode is, however, fundamental to folk drama, as it characterizes not only the English plays but many continental types as well, such as the German sword dance plays and the Scandinavian plays of the Three Kings and the Star.
An awareness of the characteristic dramaturgical mode of folk-play performance may facilitate the study of other problems, such as:
- Assessing the authenticity of problematical plays, e.g., the Revesby Sword Play is characterized throughout by highly traditional dramaturgy and is, therefore, unlikely to be a literary production.
- Determining the influence of traditional drama on other dramatic traditions, for example Fastnachtspiele, the Court Masque, or early professional drama (Doctor Faustus, A Midsummer Night's Dream) – verbal echoes or parallels of motif are by themselves inadequate to determine the extent or direction of the borrowing.
- Detecting what may in historical terms be extraneous elements in the traditional drama, e.g., the Cure Scene of the English folk plays is marked by an essentially alien dramaturgy: complex rather than formal, representational rather than presentational, 'vaudeville', rather than ritual. It may not be a coincidence that a comic quack doctor routine figured in the repertoire of the medieval jongleurs, and may just be glimpsed among the turns of the Elizabethan stage clowns.