Medieval Theatre Performance

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Medieval Theatre

Liturgy and Drama: Recent Approaches to Medieval Theatre

1981 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas P. Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Medieval Theatre

scholarly journals Stage Tricks: Handling Props in Arden of Faversham

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernice Mittertreiner Neal
Keyword(s):  
Death Sentence ◽  
Corpus Christi ◽  
Prayer Book ◽  
Medieval Theatre ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
English Stage ◽  
Stage Properties ◽  
Arden Of Faversham

In 1551 England, Alice Arden cuckolded and then murdered Thomas Arden of Faversham, a prosperous, if unscrupulous, merchant and landlord, in their own home. Alice Arden was tried and convicted of murder, sentenced to die, and burnt at the stake. In the 1570s Holinshed chronicled the crimes and sentencing related to Thomas Arden's murder, and some twenty years later an anonymous playwright dramatized the events in a domestic tragedy called Arden of Faversham. Performed on the Elizabethan, and newly secular English stage in the wake of the Reformation, Arden of Faversham employs what I call the Corpus Christi affect, a phenomenon from the outlawed medieval theatre, to play a trick on its staring and startled audience. My focus is the play's spectacle--a poisoned crucifix, a painting that kills at a glance, a prayer book, shorn of its leaves--spectacle that insistently points at and exploits anxieties that motivate the iconophobes and the iconoclasts. I work with Andrew Sofer's account of semiotic and phenomenological attitudes towards stage properties in my analysis of Arden's props and the characters that handle them. I argue that while Alice's blasphemy, rebellion, and felony appear to be contained and condemned by her death sentence, the play stages its own subversive act by asserting the corpse of her husband as potentially salvific--the very means by which Alice performs her spiritual redemption.

Latency and Topicality: Communication of Threats in Medieval Theatre Latenz und Aktualität: Bedrohungskommunikation im mittelalterlichen Schauspiel

2020 ◽  
Vol 149 (4) ◽  
pp. 479-497
Author(s):  
Klaus Ridder
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Medieval Theatre ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Production Techniques

The twelfth-century 'Ludus de Antichristo' already contains a number of the threatening scenarios (Ottoman Expansion, Heresy, Antichrist, etc.) that maintain a presence in the theatre up until the sixteenth century. This essay aims to investigate which scenarios of religious threat are dominant in the dramas of the later Middle Ages and Reformation, and what kinds of dramatic and production techniques are used in order to perform these scenarios on stage. Three levels of dramatic staging may be distinguished (Latency, Presence, Topicality), and these will be analysed here on the basis of three exemplary plays published before and after the Reformation (Hans Folz, 'Der Herzog von Burgund' / 'The Jewish Messiah'; Niklaus Manuel, 'Vom Papst und seiner Priesterschaft' / 'Of the Pope and his Priesthood'; Thomas Naogeorg, 'Pammachius' / 'Pammachius'). Bereits im 'Ludus de Antichristo' (12. Jh.) findet sich ein Großteil der Bedrohungsszenarien (Osmanische Expansion, Häresie, Antichrist etc.), die im Schauspiel bis ins 16. Jh. präsent bleiben. Der Aufsatz fragt danach, welche religiösen Bedrohungsszenarien im spätmittelalterlichen und reformatorischen Schauspiel dominant sind und auf welchen dramatischen Darstellungstechniken deren Wirkung in der Aufführung beruht. Drei Ebenen der theatralen Inszenierung von Bedrohung (Latenz, Präsenz, Aktualität) werden analytisch unterschieden und anhand von drei Schauspielen vor und nach der Reformation (Hans Folz, 'Der Herzog von Burgund'; Niklaus Manuel, 'Vom Papst und seiner Priesterschaft'; Thomas Naogeorg, 'Pammachius') exemplarisch beschrieben.

The Medieval Theatre

1976 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 624
Author(s):  
David M. Bergeron ◽  
Glynne Wickham
Keyword(s):  
Medieval Theatre
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