[1] In the assessment of Arthur Clare Cawley, 'the Wakefield playwright's skill in characterisation is nowhere better shown than in this pageant'.
[2] Like other tyrant characters in medieval drama, the protagonist of Herod the Great fictionalises the audience as his own subjects, and this pageant 'presents one of the most extended displays of this figure's interactive antics'.
[5] Peter Ramey has inferred that performances of the play demanded extensive interaction between the audience and the actors, developing the fiction that the audience are themselves characters in the play: "Herod all but begs for vocal opposition from the crowd, repeatedly daring any who are present to challenge him".
Yet, in his interpretation, even heckling or opposition from the audience ultimately underlines the fact that, "since Herod controls the terms of the drama", emphasising the powerfully hierarchical structures of medieval English society.
[10] Through its female characters, the play questions patriarchy, power, violence, and tyranny, yet arguably ultimately accepts their naturalness rather than presenting alternative paradigms for understand the world.