RENAISSANCE THEATRE
Theatre exists even in primitive tribes
Associated with myths and rituals
Greek and Romans part of ceremonies (Olympic games) funerals, etc.
Theatre started to disappear when influence of Christianity. Re-birth: religious drama (10th
century). Representation of the most important events in the Bible (in churches =>
offices’). Not everybody can stay in a church. The play is performed outside. Drama
comes to the market (13 century). English is used now. Actors in the Pageant Wagon.
Common people start participating in the play as actors. There are comic scenes in the
stories of the Bible. Even the platforms, which could be moved, were decorated.
Everyone came to the theatre.
Audience: clergy, aristocrats, burgeses, peasants. On each platform there could be
round 100 people.
Mystery/Miracle play: performed in English by secular preformation’s secular costume.
Talked and/or recited. A series of religious scenes. Folk music and dance. Influenced by:
the liturgical plays as other as processions, dances, mumming’s and talk plays, celebrated
as spring and summer rites.
Celebration of Corpus Christi: form down to midnight. Most important celebrations:
Eastern (born) and Christmas (death of Jesus).
Cycles: chains of scenes from the Old and New Testament, from he creation to the Final
Judgment Day. Casing repertory. Written anonymously, probably by trials (1370). The most
important plays left belong to the cycles of York, Wakefield, Chester and Coventry.
Mystery= guilds *
for example: the barbers (from one wagon) were in charge of the baptism of Jesus. Each
guild wanted to be better than the others. The competition makes the guilds improve.
Wagon include the machinery. This is the beginning of special effects (of wings)
Morality plays
• Main features of morality plays
Allegorical kind of play that became popular in Europe towards the end of the Middle
Ages (15th and 16th century). Usually schoolmasters were the ones who wrote this kind of
plays and the performers at the beginning were students. The stages were open-air
scaffolds or indoors (halls of great houses or college halls).
The main theme was moral, there was always a moral instruction (how to behave right) to
be learned. In order to transmit it uses an allegorical dramatic action. This is why morality
plays do not have a precise setting (abstract spaces). The characters are also allegorical
they are symbols, they personify moral qualities, vices or abstractions. The protagonist of
morality plays is everyone, usually the protagonist is called mankind, everyone. And it
represents all humanity.
Usually the plot starts with the very birth of mankind and the end is death, the judgment
and the final decision. From birth to death and judgment. The moral lesson is that you
have to behave in order to go to heaven.
Only five plays have survived:
• The Pride of Life
• The Castle of Perseverance (1440)
• Wisdom (1460-65)
• Mankind (1465-79)
• Everyman
