Religious Drama/Medieval Mystery Plays

Religious Drama/Medieval Mystery Plays

C1000-1600

The Christian Church, which banned the theatre, was itself the cause of its rebirth. In the early Middle Ages priests began to act out little scenes during church services, to bring the story and teaching of Christ. These begin as short episodes with very few characters on Easter Sunday for example; priests dressed as the three Mary’s who visited a mock-up of the Christ’s tomb, where an angel would tell them of the resurrection. The Idea was so effective that soon several scenes were acted, using temporary settings or mansions in various parts of the church. Before long there were so many actors and such large crowds that the churches could not hold them and the plays began to be acted outside in front of the church door and eventually out along the street.

As the play grew more elaborate, each guild of a town became responsible for one scene, often related to its trade. The bakers performed the Last Supper, the boat builders Noah’s Ark and so forth. By the 15^th Century mansions filled the market squares on church festival days, and they were put on carts, called pageants that took plays to audiences through the town.

The Valenciennes passion plays of 1547 showing the ‘houses’. Those Associated with heaven were on the left with hell on the right, hells mouth is on the right and there is a torture chamber. Gradually costumes got more splendid and so did the scenic effects. Hell’s mouth was highly decorated.

Costumes were elaborate, with demons wearing skins and sometimes skins of domestic animals. Horns, animal heads, wigs, beards and masks were worn. The actors playing Adam and Eve often wore white leather to suggest nudity. Colours had associations, the murder Cain was in red, and then if the character wore green it represented truth.

There are three plays that span from the story of the Creation to the Last Judgement:

The Nativity

The Passion

The Doomsday

FOLK PLAYS:

In England the folk-plays that ran throughout the Middle Ages and in also at remote spots in history up till now, sometimes took the form of the energetic dances, they later came to be called Morris Dances. Others exhibited in the midst of a lot of rough and tumble fighting which showed a slight bit of dramatic action. Their characters gradually came to be a conventional set, partly famous figure of popular tradition, such as St George, Robin Hood, Maid Marian and the Green Dragon.

In the later part of the Middle Ages, there were secular pageants, spectacular displays given on such 

occasions as when a king or other person of high rank made a formal entry into a town. They consisted of an elaborate scenic background set up near the city gate or on the street, with figures from allegorical or traditional history who engaged in some pantomime or declamation, but with very little dramatic dialog, or none.

But these forms were not altogether without later influence, they were very minor affairs and the real drama of the Middle Ages grew up, without design and by the mere nature of things, from the regular services of the Church.

The Morality Plays:

The Morality Plays reached their greatest popularity in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. At the start of the Renaissance and the modern spirit they gradually decreased though in certain places on special occasions they did not altogether stop but did so in the seventeenth century. In Europe they still survive, but in a modernised form. Whereas in England by the end of the fifteenth century they had been replaced by a new kind of play, the Morality Plays.

The Morality Plays arose in part from the desire of religious writers to teach the principle of Christian living in a more direct and compact fashion than was possible through the bible stories of the Mysteries. In its strict form the Morality Plays was a dramatized moral allegory. As compared with the usual type of Mystery Plays the Moralities had for the writers the advantage that allowed some independence in the invention of the story. In the early Sixteenth century at the time of the Reformation the characters of Moralities went through a change and they were sometimes made the vehicle for religious argument, especially by Protestants.

The INTERLUDES:

Early in the Sixteenth century, the morality in its turn was largely replaced by another sort of play called the Interlude. But like the Mystery and Morality plays the Interlude developed out of Morality. The two cannot always be told apart, some single plays have been described as ‘’Moral Interludes’ by the authors. The plays were given sometimes in halls of nobles and gentlemen, either when banquets were in progress or on other festival occasions. Sometimes they were held in the town halls or on the village greens to less select audiences. The actors were most of the time companies of players, for example they might be minstrels allowed to practise their dramatic ability on tours about the country when they were not need for their master’s entertainment.

THE LATER INFLUENCE OF THE MEDIEVAL DRAMA:

The various dramatic forms from the tenth century to the middle of the sixteenth century at which we had:

Folk Plays

Secular Pageants

Mystery Plays

Moralities

And Interludes

They all have little but a small historical importance. Besides demonstrating the persistence of the popular demand for drama, they showed a permanent influence in the sense that they formed certain stage traditions which were to largely control the great drama of the Elizabethan period and of the later times. And these Influences can still be seen today in Modern Theatre and Dramatic performance.

The Medieval Mystery Plays:

York Mystery Plays are one of the best examples of medieval drama, these have been contextualised for modern day audiences. Using the colourful language of medieval Yorkshire, they present the 'history of the world' from the mystery of God's Creation, through the birth, death and resurrection of Christ, to the Last Judgement.

To the townspeople who first came together to perform and watch what they called the Corpus Christi Plays, the battle between Good and Evil was not theoretical theology, but a fact of life. Disease and sudden death was an ever-present threat back then. The Plays set out to portray a simple message, but not in a simple way. Written to appeal to all sections of the community, they were sophisticated, often lavish, and always theatrical.

The Cycle of Plays are made up of a number of individual pageants: 48 are known. These separate episodes were originally presented on wagons through the streets, by York's guilds of craftsmen, their crafts were also known as 'mysteries', thus giving us the name of the Plays. Different guilds often presented appropriate scenes, so for example the Shipwrights were responsible for the Building of the Ark, while the Butchers played the Death of Christ. After being Revived in the ruins of St Mary's Abbey in 1951 as part of the Festival of Britain, the plays have been performed many times since in a variety of venues - always by an enthusiastic cast to an enthralled audience  This is indeed the 'greatest story ever told'. 

York Mystery Play 2012: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAKzf4zndmc

York Mystery Plays 2006: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8aUsGVMH6g

The York Mystery Plays have been contextualized for modern day audience's but they still follow the same plot lines and have the same story's, they have just changed the period of time in which it is been set, they have also used modern day sound, lighting and stage design to bring to life the performances on a larger Scale. One thing also that they have done that has contextualized the York Mystery Plays is that they have brought them off the street and into this large performance space which brought to life whole new performance aspect to the mystery plays.