Then the “gentry” began to arrive: “What a day for your play!” “Oh, what a sight your Michaelmas daisies are! It really is a perfect setting for a pastoral play,” “Are there to be any country dances?” “Ah! you have that single rose too ... it certainly is very decorative, but I thought Mr. Lane said ... ah! there he is, in flannels, wise man!” “Ah, there’s Mistress Concha, looking about sixteen, dear thing!—” “I do think it’s a splendid idea having the Institute women—it’s so good for them, this sort of thing.”
Then fantastic figures began to dart in and out of the two tents: a knight in pasteboard armour, a red cross painted on his shield, a friar with glimpses of scarlet hose under his habit—all of them “holy people of God,” all of them dead hundreds of years ago ... Folk, unmistakably Folk.
Soon the audience was seated; the chattering ceased, and the play began.
This was the play:
THE KEY
AN AUTO SACRAMENTÁL
Scene: Seville. Time: The Reign of Pedro the Cruel.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
| Sister Pilar | ⎞ | Nuns of the Convent of San Miguel. |
| Sister Assumcion | ⎠ | |
| Four other Nuns of the Convent of San Miguel. | ||
| Trotaconventos | a Procuress. | |
| Don Manuel de Lara | a Knight. | |
| Dennys | a French “Trovar.” | |
| Jaime Rodriguez | Confessor to the Nuns of San Miguel. | |
| Don Salomon | a Jewish Doctor. | |
| Pepita | ⎞ | Two Children. |
| Juanito | ⎠ | |
| Sancho | ⎞ | Alguaciles. |
| Domingo | ⎟ | |
| Pedro | ⎠ | |
| Ghost of Don Juan Tenorio. | ||
| Ghost of Sister Isabel. | ||
| Zuleica | a Moorish Slave. | |