ABSTRACT
Doubling of parts has been readily accepted as another element in the performance of the mystery plays. York provides what seems to be clear evidence in its ban on actors playing more than twice on Corpus Christi day; and with forty-eight pageants to cast in a day some doubling is perhaps to be expected. The evidence from Chester is much less certain. The Kings, Balaam, Balak, Melchisadek, Abraham, Christ, all require real or artificial animals, and such use at once implies the opening-up of the action on to the street level, to absorb and be absorbed by the audience. Chester is striking for its use of mounted characters – doctors and expositors among them. Discussion of mask and face-painting leads naturally on to costume. Masks and crowns, swords and stilts, may affect style as well as altering the audience's perception of the character that is being presented.
