Today Rhiannon presented her research for her chosen era of theatre: Medieval Theatre
Medieval Theatre
- started after the fall of the Roman empire; merged into a body of disreputable jugglers and inferior minstrels
- their performances were always crude and immoral
- they weren't stopped because they responded to the demand for dramatic spectacle
- around 1200 AD, performances were spoken in Vernacular, the language or dialect spoken by the ordinary people of a country or region.
- Mansion Staging: small wooden platforms used in churches, actors moved between the platforms to represent different places e.g Heaven and Hell
- Saint plays: Skit-like, community gatherings, based on spiritual stuff, broad and melodramatic
-Passion plays: Performed on special days e.g Christmas/Easter, at church at first then outside, bloodily realistic representations
-Mystery/Miracle plays: based on bible stories, became more comic to appeal to a wider range, elements of political commentary, led to backlash from church, often banned, women got more roles, started to add music into it to become more sophisticated.
- Decline in Medieval Theatre: Theatre became commercial (no longer community venture), no longer religious plays, social structure was changing
No comments:
Post a Comment