Review, Ralph Blasting's Second Shepherd's Play

ART IS BRIEF. YOU JUST HAVE TO BE THERE.

Ralph Blasting’s production of the Second Shepherd’s Play opened Friday in Siena’s Beaudoin Theatre. Considered “the finest single achievement of the English cycle drama” this mystery play for the Wakefield cycle is the “high water mark of medieval drama“ (Winthrop.edu). A combination of poetry, song, and fine student acting, this performance demonstrates within one piece the interdisciplinary goals of Siena’s Creative Arts Department.

Blasting’s direction brings our students’ talents to light. They move through and use the space between one another with confidence, addressing the audience on either side of the stage with grace and charm. Their approach to the difficult Medieval English text is assured and compelling. Even when dealing with the poor acoustics of our theatre (formerly a gym), we follow them and become a part of the action. The cast acts as an ensemble, reinforcing one another and playing us for a laugh.

Denise Massman’s set is an amplification of a medieval pageant wagon with “houses” at the end of an axis, the central space in which most of the action takes place. One end of the axis holds a shed-house that serves a double duty in the play [won’t let the cat out of the bag]. On the proscenium stage end is a three-dimensional reconstruction of a miniature by the finest of fifteenth-century illuminators, Simone Marmion—also used for the Brian Massman poster and playbill. At the other end of the axis Denise Massman’s costumes transform the singers into wondrous angels and our young actresses into grubby shepherds. Even the shepherd’s shoes, drafted and built by Karin Mason, evoke the period.

Echoes of medieval modal music inform the songs that spring from the actors naturally at intervals that enervate the dialogue rather than interrupt it. Muriel Maharidge wrote the music and Dennis Coker the lyrics specifically for the Siena performance.

In another incarnation I would have preferred to see the shepherds inhabit the Marmion illumination so that it could be brought to life. As it is now the potency of that space is only captured in the “epiphany” in the last section of the play. By having it first be an earthly domain of the shepherds, its later metamorphosis would be wondrously dramatic—and in keeping with the myth (sacred story) and mystery of Christ’s incarnation.

P. Trutty-Coohill
Art Historian
Creative Arts Department