Richard Carew. The Ordinary, The Ordinalia, and the Ordinary Actor ...

Carew's Ordinary 2
some 40. or 50.foot. The Country people flock from all sides, many miles off, to
hear and see it: for they haue therein, deuils and deuices, to delight as well the eye
as the eare: the players conne not their parts without booke, but are prompted by
one called the Ordinary, who followeth at their back with the booke in his hand,
and telleth them softly what they must pronounce aloud. Which maner once gaue
occasion to a pleasant conceyted gentleman, of practising a mery pranke: for he
vndertaking (perhaps of set purpose) an Actors roome, was accordingly lessoned
(before-hand) by the Ordinary, that he must say after him. His turne came: quoth
the Ordinary, Go forth man and shew thy selfe. The gentleman steps out vpon the
stage, and like a bad Clarke in scripture matters, cleauing more to the letter then
the sense, pronounced those words aloud. Oh (sayes the fellowe softly in his eare)
you marre all the play. And with this his passion, the Actor makes the audience in
like sort acquainted. Hereon the prompter falles to flat rayling & cursing in the
bitterest termes he could deuise: which the Gentleman with a set gesture and
countenance still soberly related, vntill the Ordinary, driuen at last into a madde
rage, was faine to giue ouer all. Which trousse though it brake off the Enterlude,
yet defrauded not the beholders, but dismissed them with a great deale more sport
and laughter, then 20. such Guaries could haue affoorded. 9
Those who find this account of the Cornish “Guary”convincing and unproblematic take issue
with those “writers who have doubted the accuracy of Carew’s observation.” The anecdote must
be substantially accurate, it is argued, not the least because Carew himself “is concerned that the
reader should be able to depend upon his observations.” 10 It must surely be a record made from
observation. As Betcher puts it, “Carew renders what appears to be an eye-witness account of the
performance of a religious “enterlude.” 11
Whatever else it is, Carew’s account is anecdotal evidence. “Anecdotal” doesn’t
necessarily mean “untrue;” it simply means that such an anecdote in itself cannot be thought of
as a typical example of anything without further corroboration. At the very least, such anecdotes
require careful examination. Before we use Carew’s narrative to establish the existence of
something called a “medieval staging convention,” we should at least examine it carefully to
consider its reliability as evidence and the existence of corroborative evidence. Has Carew
personally witnessed the event he described? If so, has he reported it convincingly? If not, can
we identify the source and reliability of the anecdote? What evidence can be brought to bear to
corroborate the anecdotal evidence? If we undertake this exercise in the validity of Carew’s
evidence, I think we will find that the details of the anecdote have differing claims to reliability.
I should warn the reader that, as is obvious by the excessive length of this essay, that the
study of Carew’s anecdote is not a simple and straightforward enquiry. A thorough consideration
of this important passage, I believe, involves, first of all, a consideration of Carew himself,
particularly his methods as a researcher and writer, his knowledge of the Cornish language, and
his familiarity with theatrical performance, whether Cornish or English. Secondly, we need to
investigate the meaning and implications of the title that Carew gives his prompter: the Ordinary.
Then we should consider the Ordinalia and other surviving Cornish dramatic texts to see
whether they offer evidence either to confirm Carew’s anecdote or to provide instead evidence
that ordinary actors routinely memorized their lines. Following this, we shall consider the