Wakefield Plays and "Modern" Culture

When I went to see the Wakefield Plays, I thought I knew what to expect, which was a medieval play about Bible stories. But I got so much more than that. The clever little things that the cast did to make the play relevant to a contemporary audience were funny and relatable. They made old stories relevant and new by making some contemporary points and jokes. This got me thinking about how even in the Middle Ages they did the same thing. When they wrote the plays, they didn't just copy and paste stories from the Bible, they made them relevant to the audience by inserting their "contemporary" jokes and ideas. Such as the idea of the Trinity being repeatedly brought up in the Old Testament stories, which would have been easier for the audience in the Middle Ages to understand. Also the jokes that they made in the original plays were for their contemporary audience, like the shepherds groaning and complaining about prices and Wakefield, or The Flood play having a belligerent and headstrong wife. These things, although not Biblical, made it easier to watch for the audience in the Middle Ages.
The Whitworth Theatre department did the same thing with aspects of the Wakefield Plays as well. For instance, in the Cain and Abel story, Cain drives a John Deer tractor, which always got some laughs. The absurdity of it made it funny, but the image of the tractor is so relevant and relatable to us as an audience, we knew exactly what it meant. The farmer, the hard worker, not always able to depend on weather and always hoping for a good season. This hard work makes it hard for us, and for Cain, to give up what he has earned in that work.
These plays, far from being copy and paste Biblical stories, are important to watch and learn from because they show stories we have all heard and known quite well in a different light. It makes it relevant to the audience, which is why they can be so powerful.