Krippenspiel
Although Albert C. Baugh complained of the combination of low farce and high religious intent in the play, the unity is a distinctive feature of the play, where the Mak-subplot has been shown to have numerous analogues in world folklore. Wallace H. Johnson theorized that the union of a complete and independent farce with a complete and independent Nativity play resulted from the accumulation of years of horseplay and ad-libbing in rehearsal. Some have seen the folk-origins of the story as contributing to an extended reflection on class-struggle and solidarity in light of immediate and eternal realities