What if that light Sent from her through the wide
transpicuous aire, To the terrestrial Moon be as a Starr Enlightning her by Day, as she by Night This Earth?
In these scenes the forestage becomes a neutral, unlocalised part of the house, a "
transpicuous hall" to use Southern's term ("Theatres and Scenery" 93).
The words of the poet are "
transpicuous"; they will serve to take us beyond sight and glow themselves as distant, undiscovered suns.
To encounter these relationships in the universe turned transpicuous is to feel wonder over labyrinthine imbrications of opaque gloom and pristine lucidity, laws and ghosts.
Walking over slush--water spangled with stars of ice--Emerson experiences himself as a crystal, a transpicuous lens through which boundless forces oscillate.
McKinnell's essay provides another useful concept as he suggests that the most successful wagons are, like the ommegang wagons of Leuven, '
transpicuous' or open so that the action can be seen equally well from each side.
These wagons are usually designed either as street architecture, three-dimensional and intended to look impressive from all four sides, or as an open space; (11) even at their most architectural, they are usually transpicuous (ie, the structure is open, supported on pillars so that the actors can be seen almost equally well from all sides).
The Joculatores Lancastrienses production of The Resurrection played off the front of the wagon with the majority of its audience in front of it along Stonegate, but some edging round to the stage right side, towards and into Little Stonegate; (24) because the set was transpicuous, this worked well, though that part of the audience must have had a restricted view of the soldiers when they were at ground level.
(25) Since this tower-like pageant had to accommodate a barred limbo and an enclosed hell, it could not be transpicuous; most of its action was played on an open downstage area or at the front of limbo, where the actors could be seen from three sides.
This suggests the possibility (though it falls far short of proof) that the York plays may have been played either all round (when the set was open or completely transpicuous) or off the rear of the wagon (when it was not).
It would seem that the 'hilltop' pageants particularly--Mount Moriah, the mount of the Transfiguration, Gethsemane, Calvary--benefit from an absence of wagon superstructure, background curtaining, etc, allowing for more viewing points and creating a 'rounder' playing style, and this in accord with recent trends in mystery play reconstruction involving end-on orientation and '
transpicuous' sets.
In most cases the most effective wagons were those that were '
transpicuous', to use McKinnell's word, or open so that the actors could be seen equally well from all sides.