Medieval Theatre

Medieval Theatre from the fall of Rome circa 470 AD to the start of the Renaissance circa mid-1400s

The first five centuries (400-900A.D)of the Middle Ages = Dark Ages

Pagan rites and festivities containing theatrical elements like music, dancing, and masks persisted despite the Church's opposition.

By the 10th century, the Church—to combat the appeal of pagan rites— introduced its own dramatic ceremonies. (thereby ending the dark ages)

the cathedral of Chartres Trope: short liturgical plays performed during religious services (mass)

Written in Latin Characteristics of the tropes: • Chanted or sung • Performed by choirboys or members of the clergy • Financed by the church • By 12oo religious plays were being performed outside of the church • By 1375 a religious drama had developed independent of the liturgy

Characteristics of Religious Drama: • Written in the common language of an area (not Latin) • Were written to be spoken rather than chanted or sung • Were performed by laymen not clergy • Financed by the community not by the church

The Church provided approval and encouragement; secular groups provided money and personnel.

Why would the church use the theatre when it had forbidden it for 500 years? • Theatre had been proven to reach the masses • to communicate with members who were uneducated or did not speak Latin (almost everyone) • to highlight the events of the Christian calendar: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, and Corpus Christi.

Three Types of Plays

Mystery Plays (also called Cycle Plays) are a series of short biblical dramas performed in a cycle on a series of outdoor stages through which the audience chronologically rotates.

Taken over from the clergy but with their approval, the plays were assigned to various trade guilds partly on the basis of their expertise. The shipbuilders were responsible for the Noah's Ark episode, the bakers for "The Last Supper," and so on.

Each guild would take on responsibility for one of the mansions in a cycle play—including the acting, the scenery, costumes, special effects, etc.

Craftsmen, including bakers, brewers, goldsmiths, tailors, and so on, formed guilds to regulate working conditions, wages, etc. (like modern unions)

Miracle Plays were performed on the days celebrating a town's patron saint (to tell their story)

Morality Plays brought moral sentiments and religious beliefs to life through drama. The plays usually traced a person's life from birth to death.

The plays were often allegorical —meaning they featured representations of an abstract or spiritual meaning through concrete or material forms. For example: "Death" is a character.

Example: Everyman, an allegory designed to teach the faithful that acts of Christian charity are necessary for entry into heaven

TheatreProduction

The outdoor festivals plays were performed on both fixed or movable stages.

The movable stages, called mansions, were usually wagons carrying background scenery.

Medieval producers gave great attention to special effects, which they called "secrets."

They welcomed challenges such as the Flood, walking on water, and depictions of Hell.

Innovations such as trapdoors and "fly" rigging were invented during this time.

Certain emblems, accessories and properties helped audiences to identify specific characters: St. Peter and his keys; Judas and his red hair; angels and their wings.

Plays often featured music: choruses of angels for heavenly scenes; trumpet fanfares for the entrance of God.

Controversyand Decline

The Church carefully watched over the scripts, in order to ensure that the faithful were being taught the accepted doctrine.

Puritan opposition to the stage was informed by the arguments of the early Church Fathers who had written against the decadent and violent entertainments of the Romans (pagans)

Puritans argued not only that the stage in general was pagan, but that any play that represented a religious figure was inherently idolatrous.

A sweeping assault against the alleged immoralities of the theatre crushed whatever remained in England of the Medieval dramatic tradition.

Medieval Theatre