Airing Difficult Issues.

Medieval theater could simultaneously instruct and challenge its audiences. It would be a mistake to assume that just because a play contained an important religious message, and may in fact have been performed as part of the liturgy, that it could not also be funny or "edgy." Even liturgical dramas could be controversial, depending on how they chose to represent the power of kings, how much they emphasized the importance of the vernacular, or how they depicted the relationships between men and women, lords and servants, sinners and saints. King Herod's tyrannical behavior is held up as a warning to contemporary rulers. The pagan wisdom of the Magi, which includes

detailed knowledge of mathematics and astronomy, is depicted as both glamorous and dangerous. Satan's temptation of Eve, in The Service for Representing Adam, suggests that women can...