Medieval DRAMA

The Medieval theatre was a source of

entertainment and education for residents of the
Middle Ages.
Despite the apparent hostility toward travelling
performances, the Church was highly responsible for the
growth of the Medieval theatre. The Medieval church
offered a service that required the dramatization of
Biblical stories within the church premises.
Liturgical dramas covered just about every story in the
Bible including Lazarus’ revival from the dead, St. Paul’s
conversion and Daniel’s deliverance from the lions. A
notably beloved Biblical story that was often the subject
of many religious dramas was Mary’s visit to Jesus
Christ’s tomb only to find him resurrected.
 Medieval Theatre came to life on two different
stages: The Fixed (Stationary) Stage, and
the Pageant Wagon. 
The Fixed Stage consisted of a large mansion, which served as
different locations and scene changes for during the plays. Heaven
and Hell were the two opposite realms identified by the two
opposite sides of the stage. 

Soon these stationary stages began to change. Stage

Pageant Wagon construction soon took a turn to something different,
“pageant wagons,” which were basically small stages
placed on a wheeled wooden cart. This new type of stage
changed the number of people who could view the plays,
instead of people having to travel to the church to see the
play, the stage and the play could now come to them
Elizabethan Theatre:
Under Elizabeth I, the drama was a unified expression as
far as social class, the Court watched the same plays the
regular citizens saw in the public playhouses. With the
development of the private theatres, drama became more
oriented with the values of an upper-class audience.
The Miracle play 10th – 11th centuries was about
the life or actions of a saint, usually about the actions that
made that person a saint. One popular Miracle play was
about Saint George and the dragon.

Miracle plays, or Saint's plays, are now distinguished from

mystery plays as they specifically re-enacted miraculous
interventions by the saints, particularly St.
Nicholas or St. Mary, into the lives of ordinary people,
rather than biblical events; however both of these terms
are more commonly used by modern scholars than they
were by medieval people, who used a wide variety of
terminology to refer to their dramatic performances. Robert
Chambers, writing in the 19th century, notes that
"especially in England, miracle [came] to stand for
religious play in general".
Mystery plays 12th – 13th centuries were stories taken
from the Bible. Each play had four or five different
scenes or acts. The priests and monks were the actors.
Each scene or act was preformed at a different place in
town and the people moved from one stage to the next to
watch the play. The play usually ended outside the church
so that the people would go to church and hear a sermon
after watching the play.
There are four complete or nearly complete extant English
biblical collections of plays; although these collections are
sometimes referred to as "cycles," it is now believed that this
term may attribute to these collections more coherence than
they in fact possess. The most complete is the York cycle of
forty-eight pageants; there are also the Towneley plays of
thirty-two pageants, once thought to have been a true 'cycle' of
plays acted at Wakefield; and the Chester cycle of twenty-
four pageants, now generally agreed to be an Elizabethan
reconstruction of older medieval traditions.

These biblical plays differ widely in content. Most

contain episodes such as the Fall of Lucifer,
the Creation and Fall of Man, Cain and Abel, Noah
and the Flood, Abraham and Isaac, the Nativity,
the Raising of Lazarus, the Passion, and
the Resurrection.
 Morality Play 13th-16th centuries
The morality play was a special type of religious play. Divided
into chapters the same way as cycle plays, its theme constantly
revolved around man’s endless struggle to be good and avoid
evil.
The plays were most popular in Europe during the 15th and
16th centuries
Morality plays were designed to teach people a lesson in how
to live their life according to the rules of the church.

Christopher Marlowe’s „Doctor Faustus ”16th century  

Morality plays typically contain a protagonist who represents either
humanity as a whole or a smaller social structure. Supporting characters are
personifications of good and evil. This alignment of characters provides the
play’s audience with moral guidance.

In „Everyman” (1492), perhaps the archetypal morality play, the

characters take on the common pattern, representing broader ideas.

Some of the characters in Everyman are God, Death, Everyman, Good-

Deeds, Angel, Knowledge, Beauty, Discretion, and Strength. The
personified meanings of these characters are hardly hidden.

The premise of Everyman is that God, believing that the people on earth are
too focused on wealth and worldly possessions, sends Death to Everyman to
remind him of God's power and the importance of upholding values. The
emphasis put on morality, the seemingly vast difference between good and
evil, and the strong presence of God makes Everyman one of the most
concrete examples of a morality play. At the same time, most morality plays
focus more on evil, while Everyman focuses more on good, highlighting sin
in contrast