Thursday, October 8, 2015

Theatre History Notes

Medieval Theatre

- Dark Ages (6th-10th centuries)

Fall of the Roman Empire (5th-6th centuries CE)
- No centralized government
- No government to support written culture. AKA it went dark.
Feudal system
Fall of major cities
Theatre records were lost, or kept alive in monasteries
Performance traditions kept alive by itinerant travelers
- Went from town to town to setup and perform
- Juggling, storytelling, tumbling, jesting
- Combined performance traditions with pagan or rural traditions
- Vestiges of Drama
Hrotsvitha
- Canoness, a nun-type person. Worked in a monastery.
- Wrote closet dramas (Not meant to be performed. Like Seneca in Latin)
- Inspired by Terrence.
- Instructional Christian Morality
- Pagan Rituals, Seasonal Festivals
- Main opposition to drama was the church
Taking on of characters was sinful, you were lying.
- Main proponent of reviving drama was also the church
The stories of Christ and teachings in the holy mass, was a performance.
Homilies or the Sermon
1

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Visual Symbolism
Stained glass windows
- Tell visual stories to the people who couldn't read or speak latin
Tropes - short biblical stories set to music
- Quam Quaeritis? (Whom do you seek?)
Mummers Plays - masked dance and enactments of myths, and pagan traditions.
The Vernacular aided a transformation to popular performance

- 3 types of theatre performance coming up around 11th century

Miracle (Saint) Plays
- All about saints. Highly religious but not biblical stories.
Mystery Plays
- Biblical stories and characters from the bible.
Morality Plays
- The Second Shepherds' PlayMoral tales, not from the bible. Ex. Everyman
- Style
Processional, changing and moving place to place
Fixed Stagings, set up pageant wagons in certain areas, and people come by
Pageant Wagons, movable stations or carts for drama.
- Mansions, or the stage on the pageant wagon.
- Platea, area right in front of the wagon to perform on.
Hellmouth imagery in plays
- Second Shepards Play
Wakefield Master, part of the Townley Cycle
Mixture of the divine with the secular, the plot and the comic sublot.