Medieval Drama and Theatre
Rite and Theatre Rite Repetitive (to make past events or myths present) Collective experience (everyone’s active participation) Sacred place and time
Rite and Theatre Rite Theatre Repetitive (to make past events or myths present) Collective experience (everyone’s active participation) Sacred place and time Theatre Independent from the chronological watersheds of a community Audience – Actors Stage: the space of playing Acting - Impersonation
The Dramatic Core of Christian Liturgy Matins of Easter Sunday The „Quem queritis” trope Trope Melisma Sequence
The „Quem queritis” trope „Quem queritis?” = „Whom are you looking for?” (Mk 16) Angel: “Quem queritis in sepulchro, O Christicolae?” Marys: “Ihesum Nazarenum.” Angel: “Non est hic. Surrexit sicut praedixerat. Ite, nuntiate quia surrexit a mortuis.” Everyone: “Alleluia. Resurrexit Dominus.” Angel: “Venite et videte locum.”
Whom are you seeking…? Angel: “Whom are you seeking in the sepulchre, O Christians?” Marys: “Jesus of Nazareth.” Angel: “He is not here. He rose as he predicted. Go, announce that He has arisen from the dead.” Everyone: “Alleluia. The Lord has risen.” Angel: “Come and see the place.”
The Regularis Concordia 10th-century Benedictine reform Winchester Trope
From Rite to Theatre Early outdoor liturgical plays Drive in the Church to make religion and faith visible: 1215: Lateran IV Mendicant orders 1265: Institution of the Feast of Corpus Christi
Liturgical Plays Liturgy-bound (fix part of the liturgy) Latin Bound to dialogical tropes that appear in the text of the liturgy Sung Gestures dominate over words Monastic origin Mostly indoor plays Remains in practice all throughout the Middle Ages
Giotto di Bondone: Crib at Greccio
Stage Performances Not bound to liturgy Mainly vernacular Theme: Salvation history Performed Rhetorical and theatrical effects Initially ecclesiastical control Outdoor performances From the 13th to the 16th century
Survey of stage plays What kind of plays? (Genre) Where and how? (Staging and performance) Who played? (Actors) Who watched? (Audience) Who composed? (Playwrights) Who interprets? (Reception and the modern reader)
Genres 1 Ludus / play Interludium Rapraesentatio / representation Processio / procession Royal entry – tableaux vivants Pageant
Genres 2 - Morality plays (Psychomachia) - Miracle plays Mystery plays Cycles (York, Wakefield / Towneley, Chester, N-Town /East Anglia/) Fragments or solitary plays - Miracle plays - Morality plays (Psychomachia)
Staging Stationary: Round theatre Single scaffold
The Martyrdom of St Apollonia
Staging 2: The Pageants
Pageant Wagons
Staging 3: Indoor Performances - Aristocratic households The Moral Play of Wisdom (?) Colleges: Student performances Priories and monasteries Commissions by the royal court
Actors and Players No professional players Clergy and guilds Minstrels Dancers and musicians
Audience: Entertainment and Devotion
Playwrights Almost all anonymous The York Realist The Wakefield Master John Lydgate
Mysteries’ End
Peak and Ban of the Plays Paradox: Peak of mysteries coincides with the spread of private devotion Mysteries continue into the 16th c. From dogma to civic pride Reformation: Ban on the plays
Medieval Theatre Websites http://www.umm.maine.edu/faculty/necastro/drama http://www.yorkmysteryplays.org/index_highres.htm