ABSTRACT

The term figura, when occurring in a performance context, has frequently vexed theater historians, who have lamented the difficulty in distinguishing whether the term refers to a typological prefiguration per se or to its scenic representation." Depending on context, figura or its German equivalent

Figur denoted a whole play, a single scene, a prefigurative backdrop or prop, or a tableau vivant Tn this polysemy, there is a unique blurring of boundaries between the spiritual and the physical, with the typological aspects of the term consistently bound to the embodiment of that typology for the audience. Scenic props associated with a particular biblical scene thus also became "figures," as found for example in the expense records for a non-extant Play of StJohn from Dresden, where a certain Hans StraJSberg received 1 schilling and 20 groschen to repair die figuren from the play. 7 This transfer of meaning onto a physical object is the best evidence that the scenic enactment of figurae encouraged spectators to elide the boundaries between stage representations and their spiritual signification, producing a "sacramental gaze" akin to that which Robert Scribner has described for late medieval devotional images, in which the viewer sought to "see through" an image in order to experience a higher religious truth behind it. 8 When occurring in the context of the Passion, the act of figural viewing might further contribute to an "imagined presence" of Christ's Eucharistic body for audience members which evoked the real presence of Christ in the Mass.9 In all cases, figures pointed "not only to the concrete future, but also to something that always has been and always will be [ ... ] which is at all times present, fulfilled in God's providence." 10

Further evidence for figural viewing as a salvific mode of audience reception exists in a letter of 1502 from the Bishop of MeiJSen, Johann VI von Salhausen, which specifically links the contemplation of figures with issues of memory and meditation. In this document, the bishop grants permission to the town council of Kamenz in Saxony to incorporate figurae into their annual procession on the Feast of the Invention of the Holy Cross (May 3). The bishop begins by stating that the simple contemplation of Christ's Passion is more pleasing to God than fasting or reading the psalter. He then considers the most effective manner of contemplation for the laity: "the common people cannot be led to meditate on such things more aptly and more easily than by certain bodily figures and signs, by which they may read the Passion of the Lord just as in certain books." 11 For this same reason, the Kamenz council has now requested to introduce figures to their annual procession:

As the bishop speaks in the initial quote of "bodily figures" (corporales quasdam figuras et signa), these were likely portrayed by groups of actors in costume, much like the figures ofthe processional Zerbst Corpus Christi play. 13 Although the Kamenz performance was also processional, the "reading" of these bodily figures was in essence the same figural viewing expected of spectators for the fixed stage of the Donaueschingen Passion Play, where the proclamator had asked the audience to contemplate figures in menschlicher natur as signs of Christ's redemption of humankind. In both cases, a meditative stance was expected of the viewer, fostered at the outset of the Donaueschingen play by trumpet blasts and the customary "Silete" singing of angels and in Kamenz by Bishop Johann's recommendation for each spectator to pray five paternosters. As a reward for attendance, the bishop granted members of the audience an indulgence of 40 days, underscoring that proper figural viewing aided salvation. Lastly, the bishop's comments above implicitly suggest that the meditation stimulated by these figures was intended to continue after the procession, with the impressions left by a figurally based performance serving as a basis for later devotional exercises.