Staging and Filming John Bale's Three Laws

Abstract

This article discusses a pilot research project by EDOX (Early Drama at Oxford) featuring John Bale's allegorical play Three Laws (1538-9): the project included research into the historical circumstances surrounding the play's writing and early stagings, a live contemporary production, and a documentary film. Bale's play is wordy, theologically dense, and formulaic in structure: it proved also to be full of dramatic potential. This article explores Bale's engagement with drama as a vehicle for theological teaching. It also narrates the challenges and opportunities Bale's script presented to the EDOX team for bringing the past and present into productive relation. The Oxford setting of both live performance and film encouraged engagement with the city's Reformation history through the work of a lesser-known voice in English theatre: a not-Shakespearean commentary on sixteenth-century English religion and politics which continues to resonate today.