Arks, Crafts and Authorities: Textual and Contextual Evidence for North-Eastern English Noah Plays.

Since the publication of the York volumes in 1979, research for, and based on, the Records of Early English Drama project has helped to challenge assumptions and change perceptions of the performance history of England before 1642. Old evolutionary chronology no longer squares with the overlapping pattern of Latin liturgical plays, biblical and morality plays, and secular interludes; similarly the long-held idea of the annual, processionally performed, Corpus Christi cycle as the mainstream theatrical activity of bigger towns and cities throughout England is no longer borne out by the evidence gathered both from archives and from complementary reexamination of surviving texts. REED has so far published twenty-six collections of records, in thirty-three volumes, and research is under way in the north-east of England which, when complete, will fill in the final corner of the REED map of England. It therefore seems timely to consider the range and variety of evidence emerging from Northumberland, Durham, and the North, East, and West Ridings of Yorkshire. This article focuses on the theologically important episode of Noah's Flood, which both harks back to the Fall and foreshadows the Redemption, and which is known to have been dramatized in the north-east in a range of contexts: biblical cycles, manuscript compilations and independent plays. The discussion considers all surviving texts and records to discover the variety of dramatic treatments, staging methods and local auspices for a single play which can be found in this one region [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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