Page 9 - cr58

Priest: He is not here. He has risen could go within the confines of the in Spain and travelling shows in Japan
again as He foretold. Go announce, that English church by around 1300. also predate the English adaptation. The
He is risen from the dead. In parts of Europe performances word ‘pageant’ originally referred to
The Priest and choirboys then within the church lingered until the the movable scaffolding upon which the
turned to the congregation to lead them sixteenth century. Spain, for example, play was presented. Afterwards the
in a joyful Easter hymn. appears to have been rather rigid in this word was applied to the play itself. The
regard. The first recorded performance carriages often included two tiers, with
Christian drama - within and
beyond its own walls outside of the Spanish church occurred the performers using the lower level to
in a nobleman’s hall in the mid- dress and the upper as the performing
The size of the performance area
fifteenth century. area.
within churches expanded to
There were two ways of presenting The medieval play - technical
accommodate larger casts of
plays outside the church. The first was and ornamental aspects
performers. Sometimes areas formerly
static, with the venues arranged in a
occupied by the congregation were Tragedy and comedy were
semicircle (the play of St. Appolonia,
incorporated into the performing area. combined to an extent not previously
c.1460) or in a straight line (the Passion
The altar included a crucifix and achieved. A tragedy, perhaps the Easter
play at Valenciennes in 1547). The
was the focal point. To its right, from story, might include comic characters
second method, known as
the priest's position facing the audience, such as merchants and conclude with a
‘perambulating’, included an early form
was Heaven, to its left was Hell. happy ending. Comic shepherds were
of theatre-in-the-round with the houses
Prophets spoke from the pulpit. portrayed in Christmas plays. Workmen
(settings) grouped round a central place
Situated each side of the central nave at the Tower of Babel were also given
and the audience on raised tiers all
were the sites utilised as scenes of the comic dialogue. Satan himself was
round. The remains of such
play. Common examples were the often the most comic character of them
amphitheatres can be seen in Cornwall.
Temple at Jerusalem, the palace of all. His attendant devils mimed
In both cases, action could progress
Pilate, Herod’s palace, Bethlehem, farcically and danced acrobatically in a
from one house to another as the script
Nazareth and the tomb of the spirit of comic byplay. Their masks
required.
Resurrection. Various names were were as frightening as any worn in the
In England, it was very popular for classical era. It is likely that the comic
applied to these sites such as mansions,
a scene to be mounted on a cart. A touch was largely the invention of the
houses and booths. Between them was
succession of carts would then make travelling performers rather than any
the platea (playing-place). This space
their way throughout the town and the deliberate study of classical comedy.
could represent any place the writer
actors would repeat their parts at the Writing 200 years later, Shakespeare
chose it to be.
various stopping points. took to heart this balancing act of
It is unclear whether the move to
Once plays had moved outside the comedy within tragedy.
outside the church was entirely due to
church, they might be taken over by
the scale of the productions. Perhaps Given the variety of settings and
trade guilds. Scenes could be
licentiousness emerged and rendered performers that were essential to
contributed by a closely linked guild.
the content unfit for the church. The medieval theatre, the medieval plays
For example, Noah's Ark, might be the
twelfth-century Anglo-Norman play were not simple constructs. Significant
responsibility of shipwrights, the Tower
Adam was certainly set outside the direction and control was required to
of Babel by carpenters and Jonah and
church with the church doors used as a harmonise the working of machinery,
the Whale by the fishmongers.
background from which God and the concealed stage traps and acrobatic
principal actors came and went. It was The Pageant was an English form of movement. Lowering God and angels
also one of first liturgical plays not to a play on wheels, but they didn’t invent by cranes to the stage amidst the
be performed in Latin. It seems that the concept. Thespis the Greek is the acrobatic frivolities of devils and the
plays had gone about as far as they earliest known exponent. Carriage plays use of a Hell-Mouth to swallow the

The ‘straight line’ setting for the Passion Play at Valenciennes, 1547. The lake and boat represent St Peter. Note the Hell - Mouth.

CINEMARECORD 2008 9