theater-msg

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Period theater. SCA re-creations.

NOTE: See also the files: theater-bib, puppets-msg, jesters-msg, bardic-msg, juggling-msg, story-sources-msg, masks-msg.

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Stefan at florilegium.org

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From: perkins at msupa.pa.msu.EDU ("corpusculorum velocium perexiguorum

Date: 24 Jul 91 06:20:01 GMT

Jeremy de Merstone greets the folk of the Rialto, and adds to the

discussion of the lives and roles of players in period times the name

of a reference which may be of interest to the serious researcher:

_The_Theatre_in_the_Middle_Ages_, by William Tydeman, Cambridge University

Press, 1978. Lib of Cong code PN2152.T9; Dewey Dec Sys 792.0902; ISBN #s:

hardcover 0 521 21891 8, paperback 0 521 29304 9.

It's clearly written, extensively discusses many aspects of the topic

(including a chapter called "The Performers", the tie-in to this thread)

and has a good bibliography of other reference material on the subject.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Jeremy de Merstone George J Perkins perkins at msupa.pa.msu.edu

North Woods, MidRealm East Lansing, MI perkins at msupa (Bitnet)

---------------------------------------------------------------------

From: KGANDEK at mitvmc.mit.EDU (Kathryn Gandek)

Date: 25 Jul 91 21:28:07 GMT

My two favorite medieval theatre books have now both been mentioned as

sources by other people. However, I'll go ahead and add my two cents.

_The_Medieval_Theatre_ by Glynne Wickham (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1987)

is a very good book for providing a comprehensive and logically organized

overview of theatre. He explains where it comes from, how it developed,

includes theatrical activities that might not meet the 20th century definition

of theatre, and defines all of it well. What is particularly excellent about

this book is the way he organizes the information. It is particularly clear

and well thought out--a vey good approach for a reader who has only a little

background. His lack of numerous quotes and specific examples helps this,

although it also is a deficiency if the reader is trying to do serious research

Also, Wickham esposes his theories as almost facts, and there are scholars who

have very viable and very counter theories.

_The_Theatre_in_the_Middle_Ages by William Tydeman (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1978)

Tydeman organizes his informantion in a way that I suspect will be a bit

confusing for someone looking for a general introduction. It is full of many

more quotes, examples and exceptions. It's a good next level up book. One of

his sections is on "The Players", and it's a good example of Tydeman's style.

If you're looking for a general statement on the status of players, you won't

find it. If you would like numerous examples of their different permeutations

through the Middle Ages, then it's a great read.

To add two more names:

_Early_English_Stages_ by Glynne Wickham (3 volumes, 4 books published in

England and the US over a variety of dates)

If you're interested in specific and detailed information about theatre history

in England (although he occassionally overlaps into other countries) this is

great! It's detailed, scholarly, crammed full with information and

prohibitively expensive even if you could find a full set for sale some place.

(If you do, let me know :-) Try a library.

_The_Mediaeval_Stage_ by E.K. Chambers (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903) (Two

volumes)

This is a classic. Sure a lot of the theories are outdated, but the

information is great. To paraphrase a dance historian I know, it's just one of

those things that you've got to have in your library. Columbia University

Press did a reprint sometime in the last ten years or so, but it's sold out.

This book has got direct quotes (there's so much Latin!) and complete, uncut

looonnngg passages and I found it indispensible when trying to recreate

mummings. One volume is Chambers' prose (with of course quotes from primary

sources) and the second volume is just primary sources reprinted.

For information on players, try the section in Tydeman. Reading all of

Wickham wouldn't hurt :-) And Brockett (which Heather gave the info for) is

always a good overview.

Catrin o'r Rhyd For Kathryn Gandek

Barony of Carolingia Boston area

East Kingdom kgandek%mitvmc.bitnet at mitvma.mit.edu

Newsgroups: rec.music.early,rec.org.sca,rec.arts.dance

From: dfader at leland.Stanford.EDU (Donald James Fader)

Subject: Re: Q: ballo choreographies

Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 93 20:55:22 GMT

Concerning the request for information about choreography in balli at

the Medici court c.1600:

As far as I know (and I've done a little research on this question), no

such choreographies exist. The Italians were not so painstaking as the

French were in their notation of dance steps. You can find information

about dance in the Medici courts from various indirect sources, however.

A major piece of archival work on musical and theatrical happenings at

the Medici court is:

Solerti, Angelo. Musica, Ballo e Drammatica alla Corte Medicea dal 1600

al 1637. (1905--sorry I don't have the publisher handy)

This organizes the records of the court by year and gives large-scale quotes

of source material pertaining to music and dance.

A somewhat more recent article about the subject:

Ghisi, Francesco. "Ballet entertainments in the Pitti Palace, Florence, 1608-

25." Musical Quarterly 35(1949): 421

See also Groves "Ballo", "Balletto"

A general idea about choreography can be had from 2 period dance manuals:

Caroso, Fabritio. Nobilita [with accent] di dame (1600). Ed and trans. by

Julia Sutton (NY: Ox U. Press, 1986). (a reprinting of his Il Ballarino

(1581)).

Negri, Cesare. Le Gratie Amore (1602), reprinted as Nuove Inventione di Balli

(1604).

You may be able to find more about this in dance publications--this is what

I gleaned from a fairly quick survey of the field in musicological writings

in the process of working on something else. Hope it is helpful.

Don Fader

From: HAROLD.FELD at hq.doe.GOV

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: *Good* dress up at Pennsic

Date: 24 Mar 1994 10:19:51 -0500

Unto all who read these words, greetings from Yaakov.

With all the comments about Vampires, etc., it should be

recalled that there are good examples of period mummings

that take place at Pennsic.

A few examples over the years:

1) The Fool's Parade held by Meriwald. While there is much

in it that resembles our Twentieth century 'Macy's Day'

parade, I saw a fair number of Period satire/morality play

done. The Jesus, carrying the cross and being scourged by

centurions, struck me as a wonderfully period piece.

2) Catrin O'h Rhyrd For's mumming several years ago at

Pennsic, based on a documented mumming from (I think)

Richard II's coronation. This was very elaborate, with

over 50 participants (exact numbers escape me) and a host of

costumes/props made by the ever-helpful and talented John

McGuire of Carolingia (who will no doubt be commissioned on

Judgment day to help through up the Throne at the last

minute).

3) The mock stag hunt that went through the Pennsic

marketplace last year. I'm not sure who arranged that one.

4) Ditto the Japanese fertility rite. (Although I'm less

sanguine about non-Eurpoean stuff, it was a well documented

recreation.)

Yaakov

From: gray at cs.umass.edu (Lyle Gray)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: *Good* dress up at Pennsic

Date: 24 Mar 94 12:14:30

Organization: Dept of Comp and Info Sci, Univ of Mass (Amherst)

The stag hunt that Yaakov makes reference to was performed by a group from

Bergental, East Kingdom. It recreates the Abbotts' Bromley Horn Dance of

England, which has been performed continuously from the medieval period (the

antlers used in England have been carbon-dated to some time in the 12th c.).

Lyle FitzWilliam

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lyle H. Gray Internet (personal): gray at cs.umass.edu

Quodata Corporation Phone: (203) 728-6777, FAX: (203) 247-0249

From: dmeehan at HUEY.CSUN.EDU

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: Period Theater

Date: Mon, 4 Apr 1994 07:24:28

Organization: Information Resources and Technology

silbrmnd at acf4.nyu.edu (The Dark Mage) writes:

>From: silbrmnd at acf4.nyu.edu (The Dark Mage)

>Subject: Period Theater

>Date: 1 Apr 1994 06:08:34 GMT

>Greetings to all who are gathered on this bridge...

>I have to write a paper for my Civ and Culture of hte Middle Ages class

>on "something that interests me", and I'm thinking of doing it on the

>history of theater in the middle ages... I know it basically started in

>the church around the 11th or 12th c. with the mystery plays, and I know

>that by the end of (SCA) period you had the Commedia dell' Arte, and

>Shakespeare was in the middle there... Could someone out there point me

>towards some helpful (and interesting ;) sources? The course is very

>eurocentric, and will probly only get up to around the 14th c...

Try looking into 'the Chester Fair.' this was a place in 13th cent. England

where dramas were put on. Look up Hildegaard of Bingen. She wrote a

morality play in the 11th cent. called (I think) 'Novo Ordo Virtutum'.

That's all I know. If I remember, I'll go home and find the phone number for

someone in our Guild of St. Genisius - that't the medieval drama group here

in Caid.

Good luck!

Damien of Baden

Altavia/Caid

From: laityna at ucbeh.san.uc.edu

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: Medieval theatre sources

Date: 5 Apr 94 01:23:45 EST

Organization: Univ of Cincinnati Academic IT Services

A good book about the Commedia del'Arte is called "The Italian Comedy" and is

published by Dover Books. I don't know who the author is, but it is a large,

illustrated orange book. Another interesting Dover book is "A Source Book of

Theatrical History" by Nagler. It is a collection of extant essays about the

theatre from the Greeks on. I don't remember how much medieval stuff is in it,

but it is full of "the real thing".

Tangwystel vyrgh Gwythenek

From: kathy.duffy at buckys.com (Kathy Duffy)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Early plays

Date: Wed, 9 Nov 1994 12:41:00 GMT

Organization: *Bucky's BBS* (609)861-1131

There are some plays by Roswitha or Hrovithia (same person) written in a

German (before it was Germany) convent to amuse the byzantine princess

of Otto (I or II). Several of them could be easily performed. Our

library had a book containing a collection of them in a series of small

green books called the "Medieval Library" [the series name] and

published by Cooper Union Press [I believe but memory by be faulty

there] around 1966. If you need more precise bibliographic date send a

private e-mail and I will check at work.

Lady Deirdre Ui Mhaille

EK, Shire of Barren Sands

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

From: kgandek at world.std.com (Kathryn GandekTighe)

Subject: Re: Research Question -- Stage scenery

Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA

Date: Fri, 4 Aug 1995 17:10:08 GMT

STEWART (ms7539 at conrad.appstate.EDU) wrote:

: Currently, I am researching period techniques for stage

: scenery and presentation...

: Secifically I am looking to documemt what is modernly known

: as the stage 'flat'... A wooden frame covered in canvas that

: is painted...

: For the middle ages I am reading through the works of several

: Italian designers and architects of the 16th century...

: Can anyone point out something that I may have overlooked?

: Research on the first Globe, and the Swan have shown that much of

: the Elizabethan stage was bare... But what about when the

: Globe was rebuilt?

: Direction to resources, titles and authors will be greatly

: appreciated... I'd rather not reinvent the wheel...

Some books you might find useful:

The Elizabethan Stage by E.K. Chambers - specifically, you want to look at

Volume III, which includes a hefty section on Staging at Court, Staging in

the Theatres of the Sixteenth Century, and Staging of the Theatres in the

Seventeenth Century. One warning though - while Chambers' works are

classics on the subject of period theater and contain great material

directly quoted from period sources, some of his theories are now out of

date. I love to use them for their direct quotes of material; I always

check more current sources regarding theory.

The set I have was printed in Oxford by Clarendon Press in 1965 and are a

reprint of the originals printed in 1923. Chambers volumns entitled The

Mediaeval Stage (also classics) were reprinted by Columbia more recently,

so they may also have reprinted The Elizabethan Stage. There is not a

section in The Mediaeval Stage specifically on staging, although you

could look through it. Since I've used it primarily when researching

mummings, I can't recall reading anything about backdrops.

Glynne Wickham wrote a very comprehensive series entitled Early English

Stages 1300 to 1660. Much to my regret, I only own Volume III, Plays and

their Makers, so I can't tell you where to look in the series. However,

I've always found an answer to my questions when I drool over them in one

of the local academic libraries. They are very academic, and you'll

probably have to go to a college library to find them. (For Chambers'

books you just need an old library :-) I'd happily pay for the other

books in the Wickahm set if I could ever get my hands on them. They're

real gems.

If you can't find Early English Stages, you could try Wickham's The

Medieval Theatre (my copy is Cambridge University Press 1988). It's more

general, but still could be useful.

If you have access to it, it wouldn't hurt to take a quick look at William

Tydeman's The Theatre in the Middle Ages. It's a general survey book, but

I've found useful bits in it. A quick glance at my copy makes me think

you could find some details in there. My copy was printed by Cambridge

University Press in 1988. There used to be someone selling copies of it

at Pennsic.

Catrin o'r Rhyd For

Kathryn Gandek-Tighe

Carolingia, East Kingdom

kgandek at world.std.com

From: IVANOR at delphi.com

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Research Question -- Stage scenery

Date: 6 Aug 1995 00:18:25 GMT

Quoting ms7539 from a message in rec.org.sca

>From: ms7539 at conrad.appstate.EDU (STEWART)

>Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

>Subject: Research Question -- Stage scenery

>Date: 3 Aug 1995 15:08:14 -0400

>Currently, I am researching period techniques for stage

>scenery and presentation...

>Secifically I am looking to documemt what is modernly known

>as the stage 'flat'... A wooden frame covered in canvas that

>is painted...

>I already have documentation on the pinake, a stage 'flat'

>which was used in ancient Greek theater... and I have info.

>on the Italian baroque period.

>For the middle ages I am reading through the works of several

>Italian designers and architects of the 16th century...

That's late Renaissance, not medieval.

As much Medieval drama was done on wagons, with a different wagon for each

scene, they didn't need flats... if they wanted scenery, they made permanent

sets. Theatres were revived in the Renaissance.

Hunningher, in _The Origin of the Theater_ refers doubters to Loomis, Roger

S., "Were there Theatres in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries?" with

comm. by Gustave Cohen, _Speculum_, 1945,XX,1; under the same title denied

by Dino Bigongiari in _Romantic Review_, Oct. 1946.

There was an excellent CA a couple of years ago about Medieval drama and its

presentation, complete with illustrations of the stage wagons.

Carolyn Boselli, Host of Custom Forum 35, SCAdians on Delphi

From: liversen at physiology.medsch.ucla.edu (Lori Iversen)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: Theatre History--Elizabethan era question

Date: 10 Jan 1996 17:14:43 GMT

Organization: UCLA

slsbc at cc.usu.edu says:

>I would appreciate any and all information regarding the

>history of the theatre in this time period, and not just English theatre. My

>teacher is emphasizing more of the buildings/architecture and effects from this

>time period and things of a similiar nature.

> Hopefully yours,

> ALIX of Cote du Ciel

I recall reading in an L.A. Times article several years ago that the

guys who are excavating the original Old Globe site knew they'd finally

found the right place because mixed in with the foundation were piles

of filbert shells! Evidently, Elizabethan theatergoers scarfed filberts

in much the same way that modern cinemagoers scarf popcorn. I would

have thought that the sound of all that hammering and shell cracking

would distract the players...

And that is the Jeopardy trivia ("I'll take Elizabethan theater for

500, Alex") for today.

-- Alexis,

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Round up the usual disclaimers. <liversen at physiology.medsch.ucla.edu>

From: besears560 at aol.com (Besears560)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: Theatre History--Elizabethan era question

Date: 11 Jan 1996 23:42:38 -0500

yi-time magazine just did an article on the reconstructed globe theater.

barre fitzrobert of york

dragonsspine

From: kkozmins at mtholyoke.edu (Kim C Kozminski)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: Theatre History--Elizabethan era question

Date: 12 Jan 1996 18:57:37 GMT

Organization: Mount Holyoke College

The two favorites of most Theatre departments are Oscar

Brockett's History of the Theatre and AM Nagler's "A source-book in

Theatrical History" You can probably find second-hand copies at any

college book-store were Theatre history is taught, or check you local

library.

Have fun!

Roen

Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1999 11:29:29 -0600

From: "I. Marc Carlson" <LIB_IMC at centum.utulsa.edu>

To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu

Subject: RE: Theatre

>Anyway, my question is three fold.

>1. Could someone suggest a book of plays by people other than

>Shakespeare or Marlowe

THere are a number of them out there (usually under titles like Elizabethan

Drama). You might try such authors as Ben Jonson, Thomas Dekker (His "The

Shoemaker's Holiday" is a person favorite), Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher,

John Webster, Philip Massinger, Nicholas Udal, Thomas Norton (another favorite),

George Gascoign, Thomas Preston, George Peele, Robert Greene, John Lyly,

Thomas Kyd, Thomas Heywood, John Marston, George Chapman, and so on.

If you can not find ANYTHING in your local library listing these names,

contact me offlist and I'll see if I can't dig you up something for you to

Interlibrary Loan or purchase.

>2. Please share any experiences with producing plays for SCA.

...

Marc/Diarmaid

Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1999 17:46:32 EST

From: <BastetKat at aol.com>

To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu

Subject: Re: Theatre

slaine at stlnet.com writes:

>1. Could someone suggest a book of plays by people other than

>Shakespeare or Marlowe

> 2. Please share any experiences with producing plays for SCA.

> 3. I would be interested to see any plays written by SCA folk.

Item #1 has already been answered, but I couldn't resist adding these

names: Catharine Trotter, Aphra Behn, Delariviere Manley, and Mary Pix. Yes,

there were female playwrights! (Although they do fall towards the latter half

of the 17th century). But I also have some SCA theatre experience to share.

Our shire formed a group of players that wrote and performed original

works based on period themes. Our style was a little like the Commedia Del

Arte, in that performers were free to "ad lib" based on audience reactions,

and stock characters reappeared in different plays. Themes generally revolved

around mistaken identities, jealous husbands, and scheming daughters, etc. We

performed at Pennsic years ago (anyone remember the Oldenfeld Players, at

Pennsic 19 or so?) Eventually, the individuals involved moved on and the

group dissolved.

Judith

Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1999 15:51:26 -0800

From: domus at juno.com (Kenneth J Mayer)

To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu

Subject: Re: Theatre

Can't help much with the first item, but I heartily recommend AVOIDING

*Ralph Roister Doister* by Nicholas Udall ... it's horrible.

>2. Please share any experiences with producing plays for SCA.

http://www.mindspring.com/~hirschv/gsplay/gstags.htm

>3. I would be interested to see any plays written by SCA folk.

Video tapes of the Golden Stag Players productions can be gotten by

contacting me -- check out the website above ... (The GS Players have

been doing plays in the West Kingdom for 7 years now ...)

Hirsch

Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1999 19:55:11 EST

From: <BastetKat at aol.com>

To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu

Subject: Re: Theatre suggestions

jadeyale at hotmail.com writes:

> I have also been interested in getting together a theater group in my

> Shire. if anyone has any experience or suggestions this would be

> wonderful!

> Joia

I think the first thing to do is decide on your script(s). You should

know what parts you need before assembling your troupe. If you all love it and

decide to perform regularly, it's important to keep in mind that everyone may

not get to perform in every play. Hold auditions if you can. Give the ones who

really, Really can't act work as stage hands (fetching props, being props,

etc.), or remind them that you also need an audience. Comedy is easier than

tragedy to do well. It's also more popular. If you have your heart set on

performing a great tragedy, it will be even more important to say "no" to bad

actors. I am mentioning saying "no" several times because it can be hard to do

so without hurting feelings, but bad performers will ruin the show. Certainly

we don't expect Broadway-type skill, but they need to be able to put _some_

feeling into it!

Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. Make sure everyone knows their lines, and

can project well. It's no fun to the people in the back if they can't hear. If

you are doing Commedia Del Arte, then memorizing lines is more optional, but

then the actors must be able to improvise.

Get the autocrat to advertise the play in the flyer (assuming you are

performing at an event) to build up your audience. Actually, in my experience,

getting people to show up the first time is easy. After that, you may have

to work to keep them coming.

It will take some work, but can be loads of fun for everyone. Keep

trying, and eventually you will succeed!

Judith

Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1999 11:05:03 -0500 (EST)

From: Jenne Heise <jenne at tulgey.browser.net>

To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu

Subject: Re: Theatre

On Wed, 6 Jan 1999, Kenneth J Mayer wrote:

> Can't help much with the first item, but I heartily recommend AVOIDING

> *Ralph Roister Doister* by Nicholas Udall ... it's horrible.

Yes! Tovah's group struggled manfully (and womanfully) with it, but it was

extremely difficult, not only because it is long, but it is difficult to

memorize and difficult to produce well.

A piece of advice from a former theatre tech geek: if you choose to

produce plays in the SCA, you must be willing to be a bitch/bastard about

memorizing lines, learning blocking, etc. I don't know why SCA directors

struggle so much with this, but they do. You have to remember that

community theatre directors force people to memorize and they keep coming

back anyway...

Jadwiga Zajaczkowa (Shire of Eisental; HERMS Cyclonus), mka Jennifer Heise

jenne at tulgey.browser.net

Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 17:11:49 -0800

From: domus at juno.com (Kenneth J Mayer)

To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu

Subject: Re: Theatre

"Jennifer Thompson" <jadeyale at hotmail.com> writes:

>Well, I'm definately not afraid of the work or stepping on toes (just a

>little of course!). I'm a theater geek myself who loves directing. My

>only real concern is the (unfortuanatly) lack of help, actors, and time.

>But I know that just comes with the job. Thanks for the advise from all.

This is the hardest part, but ... keep trying. I recommend starting

small. That's how the GS Players got started -- some smaller plays and we

worked up to the larger productions we're doing now (we have 10+ actors

in a show, which is pretty good -- add a stage manager -- necessary at

that point and the director, and maybe some stage hands (if you're lucky

and/or need 'em) and things get pretty crazed. <G>)

All the work really does pan out -- the GSP have been together for over 7

years and we're still going strong ... and despite all the work, the

fatigue just before the show, etc., the performances have been up, and

the audience reactions have been great ...

Hirsch

Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 20:54:45 -0700

From: "James F. Johnson" <seumas at mind.net>

Subject: Re: SC - Medieval Times

Just a brief note concerning erroneous history when it comes to

entertainment. From my own history and anthropology studies, I came

across examples in the Middle Ages and Renaissance where the concept of

change in styles over historical eras did not exist. One late period

example is English theatre during the reign of Elizabeth I (Shakespeare

and contemporaries). There were two types of constume. Street wear

(basically, the mode of the day, if not their own personal clothes) used

for any contemporary plays (Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing,

Doctor Faust,) and 'ancient' dress, which was toga-like robes for plays

like Corialanus, Titus, Pericles, Julius Caesar). Basically, it was

generic "old" clothes. The assumption being _everybody_ wore those

clothes _back then_, and at some undetermined time, they started wearing

trunk hose and doublets. I'd say it is a fair guess to say that most

decent SCA clothiers know more about clothing in the high Middle Ages

than the folks did living only two hundred years later.

The distinctions between 11th Century Moorish Spain, and 14th Century

Bavaria, and 16th Century London are lost on most 20th century folks.

Just not relevant to their lives, just to the historophiles like us. So

they are happy with Medieval Times as it is, and Medieval Times is happy

to provide it.

Seumas

Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2000 08:38:26 +1300

From: Maggie Forest <maggie at forest.gen.nz>

To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu

Subject: Re: Medieval Theatre?

Anna asked:

>I'm interested in Medieval and Rennaiscance theatre and I'm especially

>trying to find some short plays. Are there any on the Net? I'd also love to

>get some book recommendations :-)

Well, Machiavelli wrote a short and comedic play called 'the Mandrake

Root'. A good edition of his works should include it.

/maggie

Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2000 00:43:02 -0500 (EST)

From: <kvh2 at cornell.edu>

To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu

Subject: Re: Medieval Theatre?

On Thu, 9 Nov 2000, Anna Troy wrote:

> I'm interested in Medieval and Rennaiscance theatre and I'm especially

> trying to find some short plays. Are there any on the Net? I'd also love to

> get some book recommendations :-)

Well, the third edition of the Harcourt Brace Anthology of Drama (ed.

W.B. Worthen) has a couple of good short plays from Medieval and

Renaissance England. The non-Shakespearean plays would include -- "The

Wakefield Second Shepards' Pageant" (anonymous); "Everyman" (anonymous);

and "Doctor Faustus" (Christopher Marlowe).

Kate H.

Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2000 12:27:17 -0800

From: Heather Rowe <liban at yellowhead16.net>

To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu

Subject: Re: Medieval Theatre?

I have a copy of "Everyman and Other Medieval Miracle Plays". I don't

remember who the editor is at the moment, and I've misplaced it on my

bookshelves, but it is a Penguin book, and contains several plays that I

haven't seen elsewhere. I also have stage copies of a couple of other

miracle plays from the middle ages (we had a wierd director who decided to

do something that most people hadn't ever seen before). I'm nor sure the

Penguin is still in print, but it's a very good book with references to

other sources in it.

Li Ban

Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2000 19:30:19 -0500

From: Carol Thomas <scbooks at neca.com>

To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu

Subject: Re: Medieval Theatre?

The publisher is Everyman, appropriately enough, and it is in print at

$5.95.

>I have a copy of "Everyman and Other Medieval Miracle Plays". I don't

>remember who the editor is at the moment, and I've misplaced it on my

>bookshelves, but it is a Penguin book, and contains several plays that I

>haven't seen elsewhere.

Carllein

Small Churl Books catalog: <http://www.neca.com/~scbooks/>;

Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2000 09:35:10 -0500

From: "Erik Dutton" <edutton at carolina.rr.com>

To: <sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu>

Subject: RE: Medieval Theatre? (long)

Following are the volumes I have, with bibliographic citation and content

listing. Parenthetical note following each play indicates the cycle it comes

from, or the author in the case of some of the very late plays.

Di vos incolumes custodiant,

Rhodri ap Hywel, OPE

House Andover, Barony of the Sacred Stone, Atlantia

"Early English Plays 900-1600", ed. Schweikert, H. C.

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1928 (no ISBN)

Contents:

intro to the history of theatre, from Classical Greece to Elizabethan

Quem Quaeritis (liturgal trope)

Banns (Ludus Coventriae)

The Fall of Lucifer (Ludus Coventriae)

Noah (Wakefield)

Abraham and Isaac (Brome MS)

The Second Shepherds' Play (Wakefield)

The Judgment Day (York)

Everyman

Robin Hood and the Friar (folk play)

Saint George and the Dragon (Oxfordshire folk play)

Ralph Roister Doister (Nicholas Udall)

Gorboduc (Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton)

Endymion (John Lyly)

The Old Wives Tale (George Peele)

The Honorable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (Robert Greene)

The Spanish Tragedy (Thomas Kyd)

Tamburlaine the Great, parts I & II (Christopher Marlowe)

Doctor Faustus (Christopher Marlowe)

Every Man in His Humour (Ben Jonson)

The Shoemaker's Holiday (Thomas Dekker)

"Everyman and Medieval Miracle Plays", ed. Cawley, A. C.

Everyman's Library #381 1956 (no ISBN) (published in England by Dent &

Dutton)

Contents:

The Creation; The Fall of Lucifer; The Creation of Adam and Eve (York

Pageant of the Cardmakers)

The Fall of Man (York Pageant of the Coopers)

Cain and Abel (N. Town Cycle)

Noah's Flood (The Chester Pageant of the Water-Leaders and Drawers in Dee)

Abraham and Isaac (Brome MS)

The Annunciation (Coventry Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors)

The Wakefield Second Shepherds' Pageant (Towneley Cycle)

Wakefield Pageant of Herod the Great (Towneley Cycle)

The Woman Taken in Adultery (N. Town Cycle)

The Crucifixion (York Pageant of the Pinners and Painters)

The Harrowing of Hell (Chester Pageant of the Cooks and Innkeepers)

The Resurrection (York Pageant of the Carpenters)

The Judgment (York Pageant of the Mercers)

Everyman

Death of Pilate (Cornish Trilogy)

Full listing of contents of the Chester, York and Towneley cycles

"Medieval Mysteries, Moralities and Interludes", ed. Hopper, V. F. and G. B.

Lahey

Barron's Educational Series, 1962 (no ISBN, LoC Catalog # 61-18362

Contents:

Abraham and Isaac (bible story followed by the Brome MS play)

Noah's Flood (bible story followed by the Chester play)

Second Shepherds' Play (story from Luke followed by the Wakefield play)

The Castle of Perseverance

Everyman

Johan Johan

the play called The Four PP

includes staging notes for several of the plays.

"English Mystery Plays", ed. HappÈ, Peter

Penguin English Library, 1975 ISBN 0 14 043.093 8

Contents:

The Fall of Lucifer (Chester)

The Creation, and Adam and Eve (Chester)

The Killing of Abel (Towneley)

Noah (Towneley)

Noah (Chester)

Abraham and Isaac (Chester)

Abraham and Isaac (Brome MS)

Moses (York)

Balaam, Balak and the Prophets (Chester)

The Parliament of Heaven, the Salutation and Conception (Ludus Coventriae)

Joseph (Ludus Coventriae)

The Nativity (Ludus Coventriae)

First Shepherds' Play (Towneley)

Second Shepherds' Play (Towneley)

Introduction to The Three Kings (York)

The Adoration (York)

The Flight Into Egypt (Towneley)

The Purification, and Christ With the Doctors (Chester)

The Death of Herod (Ludus Coventriae)

The Shearmen and the Tailors' Play (Coventry)

John the Baptist (York)

The Temptation of Christ, and the Woman Taken in Adultery (Chester)

Lazarus (Towneley)

Passion Play I: Council of the Jews; Last Supper; Betrayal (Ludus

Coventriae)

The Buffeting (Towneley)

The Dream of Pilate's Wife (York)

The Scourging (Towneley)

The Crucifixion (York)

The Death and Burial (York)

The Harrowing of Hell (York)

The Resurrection (Towneley)

Christ's Appearance to the Disciples (Ludus Coventriae)

The Ascension (Chester)

Pentecost (York)

The Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin (York)

Judgment Day (York)

Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2003 10:36:13 -0500 (EST)

From: <jenne at fiedlerfamily.net>

Subject: [SCA-AS] LIIWEEK: English Folk plays

To: <scalibrarians at topica.com>, Arts and Sciences in the SCA

Most of these are not documented to period, but mumming as a practice

definitely is:

(review from LIIWEEK:)

English Folk Play Research Home Page

This extensive resource focuses on English folk plays, also

called Mummers' Plays, that are "short traditional verse

sketches performed at Christmas, Easter and other annual

festivals and taken round pubs and private houses." Find

background, news, scheduled performances, research indexes

and catalogs, scripts, reading lists, related links, and

more. Searchable. From the Traditional Drama Research Group

at the University of Sheffield.

http://www.folkplay.info/

-- Pani Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net

Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 16:05:17 -0600 (CST)

From: jenne at fiedlerfamily.net

Subject: [SCA-AS] [Fwd: TMR 07.10.30 Streitman and Happe, Urban

Theatre (Symes)]

To: "East Kingdom A&S List" <EK_AnS at yahoogroups.com>, "Arts and

Sciences in the SCA" <artssciences at lists.gallowglass.org>

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------

Subject: TMR 07.10.30 Streitman and Happe, Urban Theatre (Symes)

From: "The Medieval Review" <tmrl at indiana.edu>

Date: Mon, October 29, 2007 8:08 am

To: tmr-l at indiana.edu

bmr-l at brynmawr.edu

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Streitman, Elsa and Peter Happe, eds. Urban Theatre in the Low

Countries, 1400-1625. Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern

Europe, 12. Turnhout: Brepols, 2006. Pp. xii, 320. €70.00. ISBN:

9782503517005.

Reviewed by Carol Symes

Department of History, University of Illinois at Urbana-

Champaign

symes at uiuc.edu

The essays gathered in this volume make an important contribution to

the related studies of theater and urban life. Many open windows onto

a world in which scripted drama was only one manifestation of a

culture that was inherently performative and representational, and the

cumulative effect of this scholarship (some of which has never been

accessible in English before) is to demonstrate that the understanding

of plays and pageantry is inextricably bound up with the history of

communities and their modes of communication. Indeed, the very

richness of the Low Countries' historical record stands as a challenge

to conventional narratives of theater's history, which tend to reify

modern generic categories, national boundaries, and temporal

divisions. The mere fact that one cannot describe this region and

period using familiar geographic and historiographic terminology is

instructive. Readers whose knowledge of the Netherlands and its

theater has hitherto begun and ended with the Middle English

translation of Elckerlijc (Everyman ) will be

enlightened.

Although its editors assert that the book's "chronological scope is

extensive" (24), most essays deal with the role of Chambers of

Rhetoric (rederijkerskameren) in the production and publication

of plays over a century and a half, from the early sixteenth to the

mid-seventeenth centuries. This period certainly deserves close

attention, but the editors' suggestion that it can be taken as

normative is problematic, for it conveys the misleading impression

that there was little theatrical activity in the region earlier on,

and that only four surviving antecedents of early modern drama deserve

consideration (Lille's annual procession on Trinity Sunday, first

attested in 1270; the so-called Maastricht or Ripuarian Passion

Play from the fourteenth century; and two surviving Marian

pageants from fifteenth-century Brusssels). On the one hand, this

narrow focus fails to account for the urban theater of cosmopolitan

Arras, which was producing and preserving a wide spectrum of

vernacular entertainments as early as the twelfth century and which

had a demonstrable impact on other towns in the region, notably

Bruges, Gent, Saint-Omer, Cambrai, Tournai, Valenciennes, Mons, and--

farther afield-–London and Paris. (Arras is firmly situated on the

book's excellent map but is mentioned only fleetingly in the text).[1]

On the other, it obscures the age-old connection between dramatic

formulae and the traditions of forensic and didactic rhetoric so ably

dissected by Jody Enders, whose Rhetoric and the Origins of

Medieval Drama (Ithaca, 1992) receives a lonely mention in a

single essay. The volume's implicit argument would have been more

forcefully advanced by a forthright acknowledgment that the Low

Countries' theatrical vocabulary had long been rooted in political,

social, and economic realities. As Galbert of Bruges observed in 1127,

the peaceful governance of Flanders not only fostered trade but led

its urbane inhabitants to devise "all manner of ingenious and studied

arguments," so that "it came about, in fact, that everyone became

proficient in rhetorical skills, some by diligent study and some by

nature." [2]

The book is divided into five sections. The first, "Precursors," opens

with Carla Dauven-van Knippenberg's "Borderline Texts: The Case of the

Maastricht (Ripuarian) Passion Play ." The text under

reconsideration (Den Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek 70 E 5, fols.

233v-247v) furnishes a wonderful illustration of the chauvinistic

contortions performed by modern academics at the expense of medieval

artifacts: probably not from Maastricht, possibly not a Passion play,

and only partially scripted in the Ripuarian dialect of the Lower

Rhine. Assigned by nineteenth-century Dutch philologists to Germany

(specifically Cologne) and by German philologists to the Limburger

town of Maastricht in the Netherlands, it has since been firmly

replaced in its manuscript context by J. Peter Gumbert, who

demonstrated that the play was deliberately copied alongside a

collection of Middle Dutch homilies known as the Limburgse

Sermoenen in the early decades of the fourteenth century, and that

it also shares space with vernacular sermons and mystical writings

testifying to the influence of Hadewijch of Brabant (fl. c. 1250) and

Beatrijs of Nazareth (c. 1200-1263). The codex itself thus invites

renewed consideration of the play's participation in a contemporary

culture of vernacular piety. In addition, the political circumstances

of its composition can be teased out of the macaronic mixture of

German and Dutch elements, most strikingly apparent in the Middle

Dutch ballad sung by Mary Magdalene, which strongly resembles lyrics

composed by Duke Jan I of Brabant (c. 1254-94), the victor in the War

of the Limburg Succession (1280-1288). Hence, Dauven-van Knippenberg

theorizes that it may have been inserted into the play by German-

speaking supporters on the losing side, as a comment on the decadence

of the Brabantine court. Puzzlingly, however, she concludes that this

new understanding of the play's codicological and historical contexts

unfits it for study as drama--that somehow the fact that it is "not

just" a play must mean that it was not intended for performance (49).

That "we have no corresponding records of performance" and that "the

manuscript shows no signs of having been used for performance" are

hardly damning proofs of antitheatricality, however; the same could be

said of nearly every extant play text prior to 1400. In this case, as

in so many others, one cannot expect medieval dramatic documents to

exhibit the characteristics "usual" in the scripts of later eras.

The other designated "precursor" of urban theater in the Dutch

vernacular is discussed by W.M.H. Hummelen in "Pausa and

Selete in the Bliscapen," with reference to the first

and last installments of what was originally a seven-year dramatic

cycle celebrating the Seven Joys (bliscapen) of Mary,

inaugurated in Brussels in 1448 and performed by the Archers' Guild in

the Grote Markt after a festive procession held annually in honor of

the Virgin. Hummelen mines the texts of these two plays (first

"discovered" in 1962 and 1882, respectively) for insights into the

meaning of two seminal terms which occur very frequently in later

scripts, and performs a clever analysis of the directorial

interventions added to the rubrics of one original manuscript. He

concludes that selete was used to designate occasions when

singing alone was called for, while pausa indicated a need for

instrumental music--as distinct from occasions when stage directions

call indiscriminately for either one or the other, or both. He also

stresses the fact that all of these musical interludes would have been

executed ad libitum, with only occasional descriptors guiding

musicians or metteurs-en-scène in the selection of appropriately

"beautiful" or "joyous" material. His careful use of textual sources

shows how conventions changed over time, and calls attention to the

important fact that much of what we would like to know about medieval

staging practices was never written down.

The first article in section two, "Politics and Religion," is Gary K.

Waite's "Rhetoricians and Religious Compromise during the Early

Reformation (c. 1520-1555)," a satisfying account of the methods used

by rederijkers factors (the playwrights of the Chambers of

Rhetoric) to help "their lay contemporaries understand the issues"

that were being hotly debated--and occasionally more hotly punished--

in the first decades of the Reformation. He argues, compellingly, that

these influential dramatists, who were often "lay experts on

religion," used the public sphere of their late-medieval towns to

present ideas and doctrines tailored "to fit the unique culture and

economy of the urban landscape of the Low Countries" (79-80). The

result was an array of subtle plays that facilitated debate within

communities where "political peace, economic growth, and religious

tolerance ranked at least as highly as the call for religious change"

(102). He suggests, indeed, that the influential reformer David Joris

was nurtured within the thriving Rhetoricians culture of Bruges, where

his father had been an actor, and that he brought that tradition of

composition and performance with him to Antwerp and to his theological

writings. Here is an essay that exemplifies how much a deep

contextualization of dramatic fictions can reveal about reality.

Complementing Waite's study is Wim Husken's "'Heresy' in the Plays of

the Dutch Rhetoricians," which also emphasizes the eclecticism of

Dutch reform movements. It reveals that Rhetoricians reacted

creatively and courageously to the increasingly strident but largely

ineffectual attempts to ban their activities, which culminated in the

official prohibition of 26 January 1560 and which may have spurred

even more subversive performances. Examining the scripts made

available in print prior to that date, Husken inventories some of the

techniques used by playwrights to express controversial opinions even

in this relatively regulated medium, concentrating on accusations of

'heresy' that can actually be read as referring to representatives of

the Church and not (as has been assumed) to Protestant reformers. He

thereby calls for closer and more sophisticated readings of the

surviving texts, which may reveal even more powerful strains of

religious dissent than have hitherto been uncovered – and which may

have befuddled contemporary censors as well as modern scholars.

In the lead essay of section three, "Literary Traditions of

Rhetoricians Plays," Bart Ramakers offers a radical re-assessment of

what allegorical drama was, how it functioned, and how it was received

by contemporaries. In "Dutch Allegorical Theater: Tradition and

Conceptual Approach," he questions some fundamental assumptions about

medieval dramatic genres, which (he rightly asserts) cannot be

understood as separate from the genres of public oratory and

argumentation, notably preaching and disputation (it is he who cites

Enders). As he points out, all are based on monologue and dialogue,

the building blocks of "everything that is said on stage"--and, for

that matter, in real life (128, 133). Furthermore, allegory's visual

impact must also be understood in terms of public display. In short,

Ramakers argues against the stubborn notion that allegory is

essentially a lesser form of dramatic representation, both less

immediate and less theatrical. He makes a passionate case for the

intellectual demands and payoffs of allegory--for playwrights, actors,

and audiences--and for its place in the "public oratory of the town."

The remaining two essays in this section are devoted to drama's

literary relationships. Peter Happe's "Pyramus and Thisbe:

Rhetoricians and Shakespeare" compares and contrasts the treatment of

Ovid's story as lampooned in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's

Dream (first printed in quarto in 1600) and as moralized in two

earlier Dutch plays: the spel van sinnen performed by the

Haarlem Rhetoricians around 1518 (extant in their manuscript

collection of plays) and the illustrated Pyramus ende Thisbe

first printed at Antwerp around 1520 (and reprinted at Gent in 1573

and at Rotterdam in 1612 and 1616). Happe shows how the Dutch

playwrights of the sixteenth century expanded on both classical and

Christian treatments in strikingly different ways and, in turn, shows

that Shakespeare's more famous version of the story is part of a long

tradition--as are his play's performers. Elsa Streitman's "God, Gods,

Humans and Sinnekens in Classical Rhetoricians Plays" further

demonstrates that many Dutch playwrights were experimenting with

Christian interpretations of classical material, using humanist-

inflected allegory in ways that bear direct comparison to contemporary

English dramas like John Heywood's The Play of the Weather<\> or

John Redford's Wit and Science. Clearly, further comparison of

the urban theaters that flourished in England and the Low Countries

during this period could reveal some surprising links and borrowings,

fostered by shared commerce and shared political objectives and

increasingly facilitated by shared printing presses.

The fourth section of the book, "Urban Dramatic Culture," features

articles by three prominent Anglophone scholars of Continental

medieval drama. Alan Knight's "Guild Pageants and Urban Stability in

Lille," the fruit of many years' research in the archives of that

border town, provides a much-needed perspective on the development of

urban theatrical traditions over a relatively longue duree.

"Rhetoricians and the Drama: The Francophone Tradition," by the late

Lynette R. Muir, is a fitting testament to its author's lifelong

engagement with the drama of French-speaking lands, and brings

together some of the scattered evidence for the composition,

organization, and production of late-medieval plays. In "Worthy Women

of the Old Testament: The Ambachtsvrouwen of the Leuven

Ommegang," Meg Twycross looks closely at the extraordinary

cavalcade performed annually at Leuven on the Feast of the Nativity of

the Virgin (8 September) and recorded for posterity in the local

history of Willem Boonen in 1593-94. Working from Boonen's description

and drawings of this remarkable event, which featured thirty-four Old

Testament heroines and their entourages on horseback, Twycross

explains how spectators were "enticed into a mode of interactive

reading" which invited them to "crack" the code of its riddling

iconography (238).

The final section, "Performance and Material Culture," consist of two

essays: "Accommodation and Possessions of Chambers of Rhetoric in the

Province of Holland" by Th. C. J. van der Heijden and F.C. van

Boheemen, and Femke Kramer's "Producing Late Medieval Dutch Plays

Today." The former surveys what can be known about the actual chambers

in which Rhetoricians met, the furnishings of those rooms, and the

other properties they contained. (In addition to printed and

manuscript collections of plays, many groups owned Bibles and works of

history, both vernacular and Latin. Somewhat surprisingly, the Latin

translation of Josephus's Jewish Wars appears to have been a

staple reference.) The latter surveys recent productions of medieval

Dutch plays.

Overall, this valuable collection of essays is not well served by its

introduction, as I have already indicated. Given its intended

audience, it should have attempted to define Dutch terms with

accuracy; for example, factor would be more faithfully rendered

"wright" or "playwright" than "official poet" (15); and spelen van

sinne are not the same as English "moralities" (16), as Waite

(101) and Ramakers (133-134) show. The introduction should also have

explained what the Chambers of Rhetoric were, how they came into

being, and how they governed themselves (the few sentences on page 12

are too brief and too sketchy to be helpful). Instead, it consists

largely of an "Historical Prologue," featuring an inadequate and

confused summary of high politics and religious debates in a place and

time where, admittedly, politics and religion were notoriously

complicated. And it makes several troubling assertions about the

relationship of plays in performance to plays in manuscript, and about

the relationship of dramatists to the printed publication of their

works, repeating canards (e.g. "The Reformation was predicated upon

the spread of print," 13) that have been challenged by many scholars,

including some of the volume's own contributors. It would have been

better to have used this space to deal thoughtfully with the larger

questions raised by a book for which the editors otherwise deserve

praise. These questions are important: the very "nature of the drama

produced by this urban society" (9), the relationship between what was

written down and what was performed, the reception of plays in

production and in print, the interaction between theater and lived

reality, the effects of entertainment on public policy (and vice

versa), the shared techniques and ambitions of both dramatic and

political actors. Happily, English-speaking scholars interested in

such questions now have access to an urban milieu that is both similar

to that of neighboring territories and strikingly distinctive: in its

social porousness, its political indeterminacy, its spiritual

diversity, its susceptibility to public opinion, and its resistance to

categorization.

NOTES

[1] Carol Symes, A Common Stage: Theater and Public Life in

Medieval Arras. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2007.

[2] Galbert of Bruges, De multro, traditione, et occisione gloriosi

Karoli comitis Flandriarum, ed. Jeff Rider, Corpus Christianorum

continuatio medievalis, 131 (Turnhout, 1994), c. 1 (7). "Qua pacis

gratia legibus et justitiis sese regebant homines, omnia ingeniorum et

studiorum argumenta ad placita componentes ut in virtute et eloquentia

rhetoricae unusquisque se defensaret cum impetitus fuisset, vel cum

hostem impeteret qua colorum varietate oratorie fucatum deciperet.

Tunc vero habuit rhetorica sua exercitia et per industriam et per

naturam." A similar observation is made still earlier, in the

Disputatio de rhetorica attributed to Alcuin and dedicated to

Charlemagne (c. 794): see The Rhetoric of Alcuin and

Charlemagne, ed. Wilbur Samuel Howell (New York, 1965), 68-70 (cc.

2-3).

-- Jenne Heise / Jadwiga Zajaczkowa

jenne at fiedlerfamily.net

From: Dorcas or Jean <dorcas_jean at YAHOO.COM>

Date: November 25, 2009 10:02:01 AM CST

To: CALONTIR at listserv.unl.edu

Subject: [CALONTIR] Shakespeare-era archive goes online

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/nov/25/archive-shakespeare-goes-online?utm_source=twitterfeed&;utm_medium=twitter

This link goes to an article in the Guardian, a British newspaper, about an archive of the papers of Elizabethan era theatre owner and entrepreneur Philip Henslowe, and his actor son-in-law Edward Alleyn. In the article there is a link to the Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation Project. Oh, I guess I could put that link here, too.

http://www.henslowe-alleyn.org.uk/index.html

Dorcas