https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=BarbaraBono&feedformat=atomFolgerpedia - User contributions [en]2024-03-28T21:46:27ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.39.6https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations&diff=28538Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations2018-04-05T14:38:19Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction.<br />
[[File:25.3.16 Chester Passion 002 (25968988741).jpg|thumb|The Chester Mystery Passions, 2016]]<br />
<br />
This article is the third and last of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy, and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance, which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance.<br />
<br />
As the title ''Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations ''suggests, this article focuses on a series of three performance-based lesson plans to help produce and stage medieval drama in your school and community. <br />
Back to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 8 through 10 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
A series of three performance-based Lesson Plans which provide preliminary training toward full performance and modern adaptation in medieval drama.<br />
<br />
Medieval drama engaged and hoped to transform its audiences with its biting and cathartic humor, its pointed social observation, its religiously inflected heights and depths, and its joy, and it forged community in its gatherings. These are goals to which we can aspire in our teaching, and we can do this with youngsters and oldsters as well as formal students and professionals, and in our street and cities as well as in our classrooms and regular theaters. Some of us are fortunate enough to be theatre professionals, and to do this as the core of our vocation. Others do it more occasionally, or aspire to do something like it in our communities. In these final three Lesson Plans we invite you to think hard about the audiences whom you hope to reach in your work, and we offer you the inspiring account of two younger academics from our group who have had the training, creativity, and institutional support to mount entire student productions, in one case for a large public university Honors College seminar filled with STEM students, and in another at a liberal arts college embedded in a large city.Finally, we encourage you to take the tradition of street performance of medieval drama and the example of some modern adaptations to think about its transformative potential for pressing modern needs such as increased civic engagement, social justice, and ecological awareness.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 8: Determining your audience for medieval drama ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Now that you have read, studied, thought about, blocked, and even begun to act and stage a selection of medieval dramas in your class or group, consider whether, when, and how you would like to perform these plays—single scenes, single pageants, or even an entire cycle or full-length play—for an outside audience. Some possibilities include an in-class performance at the end of the unit or the semester, for yourselves or invited outsiders; a performance as part of a student conference or festival; or a community performance. Discuss and plan for whatever resources you are going to need for such a performance, including not just the choice of text and the overall artistic vision of it, but also the budget, space, more extensive costuming, lighting and special effects, outreach, publicity and advertising, etc. This is the moment to call upon all of the different abilities of your group—e.g. students from marketing, engineering and the sciences, activists, etc., etc.—since you will need far more than just literary critics and actors.<br><br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In discussion, divide up student roles for the upcoming production and establish an action plan and calendar for each group.<br><br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Students should be focused and engaged in the task, and within a class session or two have and begin working toward a firm and realistic calendar for production.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 9: Performance of medieval drama ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
<br />
Medieval drama came from the life of its many communities—our records of it are largely civic-based (see REED), and even when it was performed by acting troupes those productions were extraordinarily responsive to the occasional performance conditions they encountered in the streets, in great halls, or in the open air—and there is a long tradition of modern “amateur” performances of medieval drama, some of them still active, and others recorded in modern media such as film and video. <br />
<br />
[[File:Cropped-P1010315.jpg|thumb|700x700px|The Lord Baltimore’s Production of the N-Town “Massacre of the Innocents/ Death of Herod” as performed on June 6, 2015, Festival of Early Drama at the University of Toronto. ]]<br />
<br />
Today the fact that virtually everyone now carries a smartphone video camera on their person makes it enticingly possible not just to mount such amateur performances, but to preserve and disseminate them as well.<br><br />
<br />
Furthermore, the many challenges of putting on such a production can attract and employ the skills and talents of many kinds of students—STEM, business and management, media and arts, differentially-educated and prepared, ablest and disabled, etc.—working creatively together. Some of us have mounted such productions in class—from small-scale scene work to full plays or sequences—and some of us aspire to move them out from the classroom to larger audiences as live productions, films, or even renewed civic pageants. For example, one member of our group is part of a community activist organization in a multicultural, religiously-plural city neighborhood which might mount a street festival pageant-wagon style cycle play stressing economic-justice and environmental issues.<br><br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In this section we include a brief description and an attached fuller account of two such college-based performances of full medieval plays, mounted by instructors who had the advantage of having a significant part or virtually all of the semester to develop and put them on. In addition, we include a Syllabus which implies the preparation, stages, and timeline required to mount such performances. We encourage you to follow these examples, all or in part: <br />
<br />
:[https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1kVLF1AUNYgRU91eTZDazBKTkk/view# Syllabus: Fireworks and Trap-Doors: A Hands-On Workshop in Early Theater Production and Special Effects] taught by [[Michelle Butler | Michelle Markey Butler]]. The [https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1kVLF1AUNYgUEVKbDZ2NldCRFE/view# 15-week course calendar ] for the course details scheduled assignments and readings. The course culminated with a full performance of an adaptation of the Tolkien short story “Leaf by Niggle” as a “medieval” play and the N-town “Slaughter of the Innocents. ''Death of Herod'' [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K6u9JHK5zQ&feature=youtu.be# Part 1] and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDklaSiWEJE# Part 2] culminated the Spring 2015 course. Blog posts for both performances can be found at [http://lordbaltimorescompany.umd.edu/# Lord Baltimore’s Company] <br />
<br />
:[https://fordhammedievaldramatists.wordpress.com/engl-4148/# Syllabus: ''Medieval Drama in Performance''] Spring 2017, cross-listed English and Theater interdisciplinary capstone course culminating in full performance of the Chester “Antichrist,” taught by [[Andrew Albin|Andrew Albin.]] For more see: [https://fordhammedievaldramatists.wordpress.com# Fordham Medieval Dramatists].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Many of today’s students hunger for social engagement and efficacy, including in the arts and artistic practice. The example of medieval drama--which arose from the deepest issues and questions of its communities; involved their technical, economic, political, and confessional energies; and drew them all into ritual and symbolic practice and considerations--provides a bridge to such engagement in the twenty-first century. Such efforts can stand near the cherished center—rather than merely the decorative periphery—of educational communities such as high schools and colleges; they can enable and direct restricted communities like prisons and eldercare homes to life-sustaining and creative activity; and they can enliven daily communities such as our neighborhoods and towns. Performance is everywhere; medieval drama channels it in communitarian, significant and transformative directions. That would be a good life lesson proceeding forward from academic “Lessons” such as these.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 10: Adaptations of medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:SpeedYorkRoute.jpg|thumb|''The York Mystery Play'' by Eileen White, 1984, published by the Yorkshire Architectural and York Archaeological Society. Image supplied from Mystery Play Archive, National Centre for Early Music, York, England. Page 21 shows the route through York, and names the playing stations of the performance on ''Corpus Christi'' day 1569.” |622x622px|left]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Medieval drama is truly world drama--then, when it offered broad narratives of history or allegories of human behavior or natural processes--and now, when it continues to be widely current and adaptable across world cultures. “Creation to Last Judgment” plays—both ones performed as civic cycles, like those from York and Chester, and those compiled in manuscript, like the N-Town and Towneley plays—presumed to treat all of salvation history. Morality plays such as ''Mankind'' and ''The'' ''Castle of Perseverance'' dramatized the struggle for salvation of representative everymen. Saints’ plays centered on exemplary figures of piety or heroism. Derivative forms like Henry Medwall’s ''Nature'', John Skelton’s ''Magnificence'', or the plays of John Bale dealt with problems in natural or moral philosophy or political theory. The sweep and scope of medieval drama is part of its attraction, and it held its traditional forms for hundreds of years, while its revivals and adaptations, from passion plays, to biblical pageants, to stark allegories, to rollicking city comedies, to present-day dramas of truth and reconciliation, have had and continue to have broad appeal. For some of the final exercises in our unit or course, we would like to invite students to explore and to think creatively about some of the current adaptations of the stories, motifs, and scope of medieval drama to the modern world, and perhaps to make their own “world” art. <br><br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Brainstorm with students about what some modern adaptations of medieval plays might look like. To get them going, explain the world-wide endurance of Passion Plays such as those in Oberammergau, Bavaria, and in Catholic countries; tell them about the on-going Mormon extension of biblical drama in Palmyra, New York; have them read Jenna Soleo-Shanks account of a modern feminist re-working of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim’s ''Callimachus''; and show them images and clips from productions such as the late 1990s South African ''Yiimimangaliso: The Mysteries''. Have them speculate about how productions of such socio-political, religious, environmental, and community import might take to the streets or to newer media again as aspects of public art. If time and energy permit, have them attempt a piece of their own such broadly significant art: a song; an original artwork; a children’s book; a short film or play; their own pageant or cycle.<br><br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Students should feel intrigued by the private creative and public extensions of this wide-ranging and traditional art form, and ideally feel impelled to continue to re-cast it in contemporary forms. <br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Go to ''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|Verba et Res]]''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]: Lesson Plans 1 through 4.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]].<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
'''Page written by'''<br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler | Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28530Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-04-05T13:27:52Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|533x533px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|681x681px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|600x600px|left]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page from the 15th century ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary) showing Christ rising from the tomb, prefigured by Samson carrying off the gates of Gaza (left) and Jonah released from the belly of the whale (right)]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px|left]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
<br><br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|500x500px]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br><br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|554x554px]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1,. '''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. '''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century) <br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|545x545px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)|left]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1) <br />
<br />
3. '''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|600x600px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380]]<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br> <br><br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28483Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-31T18:52:08Z<p>BarbaraBono: Moved image of Massacre of the Innocents from left to right, right-sized it, and centered the description.</p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|533x533px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|681x681px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|600x600px|left]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page from the 15th century ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary) showing Christ rising from the tomb, prefigured by Samson carrying off the gates of Gaza (left) and Jonah released from the belly of the whale (right)]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px|left]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
<br><br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|500x500px]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br><br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|554x554px]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1,. '''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. '''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century) <br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|545x545px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)|left]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1) <br />
<br />
3. '''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|800x800px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380]]<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28482Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-31T18:48:40Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|533x533px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|681x681px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|600x600px|left]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page from the 15th century ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary) showing Christ rising from the tomb, prefigured by Samson carrying off the gates of Gaza (left) and Jonah released from the belly of the whale (right)]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px|left]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
<br><br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|500x500px]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br><br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|554x554px]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1,. '''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. '''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century) <br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|545x545px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)|left]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1) <br />
<br />
3. '''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|700x700px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380]]<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28481Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-31T18:47:30Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|533x533px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|681x681px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|600x600px|left]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page from the 15th century ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary) showing Christ rising from the tomb, prefigured by Samson carrying off the gates of Gaza (left) and Jonah released from the belly of the whale (right)]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px|left]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
<br><br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|500x500px]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br><br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|554x554px]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1,. '''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. '''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century) <br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|545x545px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)|left]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1) <br />
<br />
3. '''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|800x800px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380]]<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28480Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-31T18:46:24Z<p>BarbaraBono: Shifted picture of the Massacre of the Innocents from left to right</p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|533x533px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|681x681px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|600x600px|left]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page from the 15th century ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary) showing Christ rising from the tomb, prefigured by Samson carrying off the gates of Gaza (left) and Jonah released from the belly of the whale (right)]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px|left]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
<br><br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|500x500px]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br><br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|554x554px]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1,. '''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. '''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century) <br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|545x545px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)|left]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1) <br />
<br />
3. '''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|830x830px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380]]<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy&diff=28479Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy2018-03-31T18:42:50Z<p>BarbaraBono: Enlarged and centered image of angel.</p>
<hr />
<div>''This article is under construction''<br />
<br />
This article - conceived and written by Barbara J. Bono, Maria S. Horne, and Michelle Markey Butler - is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance.<br />
<br />
==Introduction==<br />
<br />
===Medieval drama truly comes alive in performance.=== <br />
This is, of course, a statement true of all works in the dramatic genre. However, it is especially true of medieval drama, which frequently addressed in embodied form large and ultimate questions about humanity's place in creation and the scheme of history, and did so in direct and explicit relation to its audiences, with extraordinary emotive and affective range from the obscene to the exalted. <br />
[[File:028728.jpg|thumb|left|Miss Edith Wynne Matthison in the role of Everyman (c. 1902)|504x504px]]<br />
<br />
Medieval drama is integrated into the curriculum for theatre majors at most universities in the United States. However, there, rather than being part of acting technique or performance-based courses, or of staged productions, the subject is most often studied only very briefly in lecture courses like Theatre History. Meanwhile, in departments of literature, medieval drama is sometimes included as a topic in a broader medieval or British literature class or as a minor prequel to the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, but it is seldom given much time or attention, and its performative nature is largely neglected.<br />
<br />
But we would argue that medieval drama is accessible, exciting, adaptable, and inspirational to interested communities of all ages and abilities - from lower grade levels to highly-trained practitioners - for drama itself is the ideal synesthetic and interdisciplinary vehicle for community formation and differential learning. There is also contemporaneity in medieval drama: humor, music, and fun, as well as metaphor, allegories, and subtexts which speak to who we are today. And while the task of accessing this excitement may seem daunting, in this article we have put together a set of resources - combining language, action, and spectacle - to get you started.<br />
<br />
The first step in bridging the gap between performance and literary study is alerting students and teachers to the new wealth of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Medieval_and_early_English_drama.2C_print_and_on-line_editions|readily-available textual and general scholarly resources]] for these plays, which reach far beyond the frequently anthologized ''Everyman'' or the de-contextualized bit of a biblical cycle play.<br />
<br />
==Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre==<br />
<br />
The second step is to make at least a beginning at "putting the plays up on their feet." To that end we have supplied a series of ten performance-based Lesson Plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing, to considering the symbolic shape of an action, to preliminary training toward full performance and modern adaptation. While these Lesson Plans are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous [http://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-set-free Folger Shakespeare Set Free teaching manuals], namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology.<br />
<br />
===[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama|''Verba et Res''/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 ======<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
[[File:Monreale, Christ the Creator.JPG|thumb|''Christo Pantocratore''. Monreale Cathedral, Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|800x800px]]<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_1:_Playing_around_with_medieval_language Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_2:_The_twenty_props_you_need_to_put_on_any_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_3:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history Lesson Plan 3: Typology, or medieval living history]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_4:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history_and_tableau_vivant Lesson Plan 4: Typology, or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'']''<nowiki/>''<br />
<br />
===[[Setting_the_Medieval_Stage |Setting the Medieval Stage]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 5 through 7 ======<br />
<br />
The spaces of medieval drama were various, labile, and indeed often mobile. The York Biblical cycle plays processed annually on pageant carts into and about the city to stop at York Minster and end on the market Pavement; small travelling companies acted other plays, performing in open spaces, inn yards, or great houses. Later, as plays retreated into manuscript, they might have been brought out for occasional declamation. Plays of such sharp moment and open engagement could, in theory, take place anywhere on this middle earth. As Peter Brook famously began his 1968 classic, ''The Empty Space'', “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and that is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged,” and modern revivals of medieval plays have utilized halls, cloisters, hillsides, city plazas and streetscapes, as well as more formal stages. These three Lesson Plans encourage you to find a suitable space for your play exercises, from a classroom with the desks pushed back to the more formal stage to the outdoor green space which might draw in community passers-by. Then we offer you a selection of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers |monologues]] for actors and especially powerful [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes |scenes]] to help develop the craft of your ensemble. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_5:_Stages_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 5: Stages for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_6:_Filling_the_space._Medieval_monologues_and_the_power_of_words Lesson Plan 6: Filling the space. Medieval monologues and the power of words]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_7:_Creating_and_inhabiting_the_space._Scenes_from_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 7: Creating and inhabiting the space. Scenes from medieval drama]<br />
<br />
=== [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]] ===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 8 through 10 ======<br />
<br />
Medieval drama engaged and hoped to transform its audiences with its biting and cathartic humor, its pointed social observation, its religiously inflected heights and depths, and its joy, and it forged community in its gatherings. <br />
[[File:Barbers' Baptism 147274.jpg|thumb|''The Baptism'' from the York Mystery Plays performed from a cart in the streets of York in front of St William's College.|400x400px]]<br />
These are goals to which we can aspire in our teaching, and we can do this with youngsters and oldsters as well as formal students and professionals, and in our street and cities as well as in our classrooms and regular theaters. Some of us are fortunate enough to be theatre professionals, and to do this as the core of our vocation. Others do it more occasionally, or aspire to do something like it in our communities. <br />
<br />
In these final three Lesson Plans we invite you to think hard about the audiences whom you hope to reach in your work, and we offer you the inspiring account of two younger academics from our group who have had the training, creativity, and institutional support to mount entire student productions, in one case for a large public university Honors College seminar filled with STEM students, and in another at a liberal arts college embedded in a large city. <br />
<br />
Finally, we encourage you to take the tradition of street performance of medieval drama and the example of some modern adaptations to think about its transformative potential for pressing modern needs such as increased civic engagement, social justice, and ecological awareness. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_8:_Determining_your_audience_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 8: Determining your audience for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_9:_Performance_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 9: Performance of medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_10:_Adaptations_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 10: Adaptations of medieval drama]<br />
<br />
== Medieval and early English drama, print and on-line editions ==<br />
One may wonder why we do not see more Medieval Theatre productions on the university stage nowadays. Part of the answer may be that for the non-medievalist, and in particular for the performer not versed in medieval drama, approaching this enterprise could be daunting, starting with the selection of the play, where to find it, whether to use Middle English or a modernized, and which edition of text to use. To help streamline this process, and because there is no such a resource readily available for pedagogical purposes, we decided to compile a short list of medieval plays both in print and online editions, as well as modernized and unmodernized, as you will find in this section . <br />
<br />
===Print editions===<br />
<br />
''The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama''. Christina M. Fitzgerald and John T. Sebastian. Broadview, 2012.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama: An Anthology''. Greg Walker. Wiley-Blackwell, 2000.<br />
<br />
''Three Late Medieval Morality Plays''. G.A. Lester. New Mermaids, 2002. <br />
<br />
''York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling''. Richard Beadle and Pamela King. Oxford University Press, 2009<br />
<br />
''Early English Drama: An Anthology''. John C. Coldewey. Routledge, 1993.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama''. David Bevington. Hackett, 1975. <br />
<br />
The ''Arden Early English Drama'' series of texts from the late fifteenth to the late seventeenth centuries currently includes ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
===On-line editions===<br />
<br />
Online editions vary considerably in quality. Below are some that we have found to be well edited for both scholarly and pedagogical purposes. <br><br />
[[File:V.a.354 98v-99r.jpg|thumb|522x522px|Medieval plays were first preserved in manuscripts like this unique copy of the morality play ''Wisdom'' (c. 1460-63), preserved in the Macro plays at the Folger Shakespeare Library.|left]]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
==== Modernized ====<br />
<br />
:[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html#tab The N-town Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag The York Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/the-towneley-cycle-of-plays/ The Towneley Plays]<br />
<br><br />
====Unmodernized====<br />
<br />
:The TEAMS Middle English Text Series: <br />
http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== <br>Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers ==<br />
[[File:019807.jpg|thumb|800x800px|An angel announces the birth of Christ in the 2015-2016 Folger''The Second'' ''Shepherds' Play''|centre]]<br />
<nowiki> </nowiki><br />
<br />
Choosing a great monologue is a task that confronts actors who are always searching for the best new monologue for their next audition. Audition pieces need to be strong, original, and not overdone. <br />
<br />
Medieval drama provides an exceptional vehicle for exploration and it allows the actor to utilize a variety of acting techniques, genres, and styles while performing. Here are some suggestions for monologues. <br />
<br />
While the casting suggestions given here are gender- and age-normative, directors and actors may want to think about mixing up these conventions for special effect and/or to suit their needs.<br />
<br><br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Role<br />
!Gender <br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll (First Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This speech opens the play. Coll complains about the conditions that poor men like himself have to endure and the ways they are abused by rich men. The speech is important in its sympathy for the plight of the medieval working class, and also thematically: after Coll speaks, it is easy to understand why salvation in the form of the baby Jesus is needed to come into the world.<br />
|Lines 1-54<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology.'' Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Gib (Second Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This is the second speech of the play. Gib complains about the difficulties of being married, and how much he regrets it, but it’s too late. This speech is important for its insight into medieval humor (for better or worse, the ‘take my wife, please’ vein of jokes has been mined for a long time); thematically, it establishes that salvation is needed in the world because humans, in particular the sexes, are at odds.<br />
|Lines 55-108<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|The York ''Fall of the Angels''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only this individual pageant but the York cycle as a whole. It sets the scene for both pageant and play, laying out themes that will recur throughout: the nature of God, the nature of creation, the nature of faith, the nature of worship, the consequences of disobedience.<br />
|Lines 1-34<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English] <br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|The York ''Crucifixion''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|This is Jesus’ speech from the cross after the soldiers finally manage to get him stretched and nailed to it.<br />
|Lines 253-264<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens the final pageant of the cycle. It harkens back to the first pageant and reminds the audience of all that happened between then and now, explaining the need for an end to be made and judgement given.<br />
|Lines 1-64<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|In this speech, Jesus addresses the human characters but, of course, also the audience, explaining why the judgement is going down as it does.<br />
|Lines 231-300<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|Chester''The Fall of Lucifer''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only the pageant but the cycle as a whole, laying out its important themes.<br />
|Lines 1-51<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/index.html Modern English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|N-town ''Passion Play 1''<br />
|Satan<br />
|Super-natural<br />
|This speech opens the Passion Play in the N-town manuscript. It is an important example of the ‘boast’ type of speech, common in medieval and early modern drama, where a villain or tyrant tells the audience who he is and that he is up to no good. [Shakespeare’s Richard III’s opening speech is a grandchild of this genre].<br />
|Lines 1-124<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/sugano-the-n-town-plays Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|Digby ''Mary Magdalene''<br />
|Mary Magdalene<br />
|Female<br />
|In this speech, Mary Magdalene preaches about the creation of the world to a heathen king, hoping to persuade him to leave his pagan ways.<br />
|Lines 1481-1526<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes ==<br />
It’s time to get Theatre students excited about performing Medieval drama. <br />
<br />
The question for many is where to begin? How do I find a play? Where do I find a good scene? What edition is the best for performance? We are aware that there is too much and too little out there. And we also noted the need for teachers and students alike to have access to an inventory of scenes and monologues and good editions of plays. So, we have compiled these resources to get you started.<br />
<br />
Also, keep in mind that while in many instances characters are all male, and probably youngish to middle-age, when they are representative/allegorical characters, gender and age may not matter much when casting the roles.<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Roles<br />
!Gender<br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of Scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|New Guise, Nowadays, Nought, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the vices New Guise, Nowadays, and Nought try to tempt Mankind into sin. They fail spectacularly. Instead of recruiting Mankind as a diabolic minion, the devils are beaten up by him. This scene is important for understanding medieval drama because it illustrates physical action as an indispensable component that must be carefully choreographed and rehearsed to avoid injuring any of the actors. It also shows the use of physical comedy in medieval drama.<br />
|Lines 345-401<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|Titivillus, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the devil Titivillus has been called in by the other devils or vices who have failed to tempt Mankind into sin. Titivillus is invisible and inaudible to Mankind; but the audience can see and hear him, and they know Mankind cannot. This last piece is crucial, because Titivillus repeatedly speaks to the audience as if they are on his side, telling them to keep quiet to further his goal of tempting Mankind into sin (when of course they really are quiet because of their role as audience). This scene is one of several in the play that uses the audience’s role as audience to incite them to do bad things, thereby demonstrating that the audience needs redemption as much as does the character Mankind.<br />
|Lines 526-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|''Fulgens and Lucres''<br />
|A<br />
B<br />
|Male<br />
|This scene opens the play. In it, A and B interact with the audience and with each other, all the while claiming that they are not part of the play, but there will be a play and they’re anxious to see it. B explains to A what the play will be about.<br />
The scene is important because it demonstrates the fluid, meta-theatrical relationship between audience and play in early English theatre.<br />
|Lines 1 - 201<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|''Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham'' (scene 1)<br />
|Sheriff,<br />
Knight, <br />
<br />
and Robin Hood<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the Knight offers to capture Robin Hood for the Sheriff, who agrees to pay the Knight if he is successful. The Knight finds Robin Hood and engages with him in a series of tests of strength and skill. At last they fight. Robin Hood wins, kills the Knight, and declares that he will dress himself in the Knight’s clothes and take his head to the Sheriff to claim the reward for ‘killing’ Robin Hood.<br />
This scene is useful in the classroom for several reasons. It is one of a very few surviving pieces of secular medieval English drama. It also provides an opportunity to demonstrate the challenges presented by the extant texts. There are few stage directions in early drama; but as this scene makes clear, it is crucial to puzzle out the action. Most of this scene is, in fact, action. How long would the scene run? That’s entirely dependent upon how a performance decides to handle the action. The contests could be quick, or they could be elaborate.<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/16EWuJ02hFOhUxADG1zF-nk-TdzPa-0q8/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S6PFlgKa_tQBL9lwX76GlXbuv6KKj5Fa/view?usp=sharing Regularized Spelling]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/robyn-hod-and-the-shryff-off-notyngham Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll,<br />
<br />
Gib,<br />
<br />
Daw,<br />
<br />
Mak,<br />
<br />
Gyll<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
Female<br />
|In this scene, the shepherds (Coll, Gib, and Daw) come to Mak and Gyll’s house, looking for their stolen sheep. Mak has indeed stolen the sheep and has persuaded his wife Gyll to help him hide it by putting it in their cradle and pretending it is their newborn baby.<br />
The scene importantly demonstrates how medieval drama employs humor for thematic goals. For example, Mak swears to the shepherds that if he stole the sheep, the ‘baby’ will be the first meal he eats that day. It’s a funny line, for the audience knows the ‘baby’ is actually a sheep that Mak has every intention of eating. But discussion of eating the sheep/baby also underscores the nativity theme of the play, which celebrates the birth of a baby, Jesus, who is also a “lamb” who will be eaten (in the form of communion) for the benefit of humans. The parodic profane nativity highlights the sacred nativity.<br />
|Lines 476-628<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|''The Castle of Perseverance''<br />
|Mercy,<br />
<br />
Justice,<br />
<br />
Truth,<br />
<br />
Peace,<br />
<br />
God<br />
<br />
|Eternal<br />
|Humanum Genus, the play’s Mankind figure, has behaved wickedly most of his life. But as he is dying, he realizes his wickedness. His very last word is “Mercy,” begging God to save him from hell. In this scene, Justice and Truth argue before God why Humanum Genus should be damned. Peace and Mercy give their reasons why he should be saved. The scene resembles a modern courtroom drama, with Truth and Justice as the prosecuting attorneys, Mercy and Peace acting for the defense, and God the Judge listening to all sides before giving his verdict.<br />
All characters are female except God, who is male. All are eternal figures.<br />
|Lines 3129-3544<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/cascomp.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/klausner-castle-of-perseverance Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|''Brome Abraham and Isaac''<br />
|Abraham,<br />
<br />
Isaac,<br />
<br />
the Angel<br />
|Male<br />
|Abraham is old. Isaac is a child. The Angel is ageless.<br />
Abraham has been ordered by God to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Naturally, Abraham is reluctant to kill his child, but he also wants to be obedient to God. In this scene, we see Abraham’s struggle. We also see medieval drama’s typological understanding of the sacrifice of Isaac as foreshadowing the sacrifice of Jesus.<br />
|Lines 290-332<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/noa/pdf/13BromePlay_1_12.pdf Modern (lightly) English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/AJD3529.0001.001/1:4.6?rgn=div2;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|''Johan Johan''<br />
|Tib the Wife,<br />
John the Husband, and Johan Johan the priest<br />
|Female<br />
<br />
Male<br />
|Tib is female and young adult. John the Husband is male and adult, perhaps a bit older than Tib, but theirs is not necessarily a May/December marriage. Johan Johan is male and adult.<br />
The priest has been carrying on with several women in the area, including Tib. Tib and the priest laugh at the husband’s thickheadness in not realizing their liaison.. But John the Husband begins to get suspicious. This scene is particularly rich in physical comedy, as the husband is chafing wax from a candle to mend a leaky pail, with obvious masturbatory overtones--i.e,, the priest is getting real sex, the husband has to make do on his own.<br />
|Lines 439-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?id=h0U4AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA67#v=onepage&q&f=false Text]<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|''Wisdom''<br />
|Lucifer,<br />
<br />
Mind,<br />
<br />
Will,<br />
<br />
Understanding<br />
|Allegorical<br />
|Lucifer explains to the audience that he is going to tempt the good guys, does so, and then brags about it.<br />
|Lines 325-55<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Some Productions of Medieval Plays, Online ==<br />
You can access an extensive [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5cWcydg0JFis9914C0KX7iz59jwg6-xV# YouTube playlist of medieval drama] online. Additionally, here is a resource list for some titles:<br />
<br />
=== ''Everyman'' ===<br />
You can find digital versions of various productions online, including a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkM8v0m3URg# 2012 ''Everyman''] production at the Portland Community College Performing Arts Center which utilized large-scale puppets and a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvZFBZB10LA# 2016 ''Everyman''] production by the Laurier Historical Society at Wilfrid Laurier University. The play has been adapted as a commercial film twice in recent years in modernized (2002) and period (2007) productions.<br />
<br />
=== ''Mankind'' ===<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4acAjs2TGa8# 1999 ''Mankind''] staging by Duquesne University Medieval and Renaissance Players. <br />
<br />
University students staged an improvisatory modernized production of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsTyvD8E9Mk# ''Mankind''] as a final course project in 2016.<br />
<br />
=== Biblical cycle plays and passion plays ===<br />
The Blackhills Passion plays were performed in Spearfish, South Dakota from 1939 to 2008, and at their winter home in Lake Wales, Florida from 1953 to 1999.<br />
<br />
The Mormon Hill Cumorah biblical pageant in Palmyra, New York has been performed since 1935: http://www.hillcumorah.org/ <br />
<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn0pcYONuxc# 2013 Chester Noah] play performed by the Liverpool University Players.<br />
<br />
The Chester Mystery plays were performed in a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRthPA2nJyw# 2008 modernized musical version].<br />
<br />
The Oberammergau Passion Play has been performed continuously in that Bavarian village since 1634. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KeVtnndSsc# The trailer for the 2020 production]. <br />
<br />
The Towneley Second Shepherds’ Play has long been a favorite Christmas holiday production, and was recently revived at the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RomR1sxDlus# Folger Theater] in 2016. <br />
<br />
[https://muse.jhu.edu/article/34991# Yiimimangaliso: The Mysteries], a version of the Chester mysteries, was staged in South Africa and London in 2001 and has been revived since. <br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, England: Videos from recent York mystery plays are available on-line at several sites. See, for example, [http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/york-mystery-plays-1973# York Mystery Plays 1973], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nyFLOlEupM# York Mystery Plays 2010], and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_IE4izf_6c# York Mystery Plays 2016].<br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, Toronto: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIImNnV1Ty0# 2010 “Crucifixion”].<br />
<br />
The [http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/front-page/# Poculi Ludique Societas], or PLS in Toronto, has for over 50 years now sponsored productions of early plays, from the beginnings of medieval drama to as late as the middle of the seventeenth century.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Selected Bibliography ==<br />
Albin, Andrew. “Sonorous Presence, and the Performance of Christian Community in the Chester Shepherds Play.” ''Early Theatre'' 16.2 (2013): 33-57.<br />
<br />
Aronson-Lehavi, Sharon. ''Street Scenes: Late Medieval Acting and Performance''. Palgrave MacmIllan, 2011.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. “The Present of Past Things: The York Corpus Christi Cycle as a Contemporary Theatre of Memory.” ''Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies'' 26.2 (1996): 35-79.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. ''Signifying God: Social Relations and Symbolic Act in the York Corpus Christi Plays''. University of Chicago Press, 2001.<br />
<br />
Bevington, David. ''From “Mankind” to Marlowe: Growth of Structure in the Popular Drama of Tudor England''. Harvard University Press, 1962.<br />
<br />
Butler, Judith. ''Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative''. Routledge, 1997.<br />
<br />
Carlson, Marvin. “Medieval Street Performers Speak.” ''TDR:The Drama Review'', 57.4 (2013): 86-94.<br />
<br />
Chaganti, Seeta. “The Platea: Pre- and Postmodern: A Landscape of Medieval Performance Studies.” ''Exemplaria'' 25.3 (2013): 252-64.<br />
<br />
Clopper, Lawrence. ''Drama, Play, and Game: English Festive Culture in the Medieval and Early Modern Period''. Chicago, 2001.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “The Chester Cycle in Sixteenth-Century Religious Culture," ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 37.3 (2007): 532-47.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. ''Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints: Theater, Gender, and Religion in Late Medieval England''. University of Pennsylvania, 2004.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Biblical Drama in Post-Apartheid South Africa: The Chester Plays in Afterlife.” ''Transformations in Biblical Literary Traditions: Incarnation, Narrative,'' ''and Ethics''. Eds. D.H. Williams and Philip Donnelly, Notre Dame University Press, 2014. 268-88.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Drama: 1191-1952.” ''Exemplaria'' 28.3 (2016): 264-76.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Reading REED: History and the Records of Early English Drama.” ''Literary Practice and Social Change in Britain, 1380-1530''. Ed. Lee Patterson, University of California Press, 1990. 248-84.<br />
<br />
Davidson, Clifford, ed. ''Gesture in Medieval Drama and Art''. Medieval Institute, 2001.<br />
<br />
Elliott, John R., Jr. ''Playing God: Medieval Mysteries on the Modern Stage''. University of Toronto Press, 1989.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard. “Dramatic History: On the Diachronic and Synchronic in the Study of Early English Drama.” ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 35:1 (2005): 39-66.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard K. “’Nowe Ys Common This Daye’: Enoch and Elias, Antichrist, and the Structure of the Chester Cycle.” ''Homo, Memento Finis: The Iconography of Just'' ''Judgment in Medieval Art and Drama''. Ed. David Bevington, et. al. Medieval Institute, 1985. 221-57.<br />
<br />
Enders, Jody. ''The Medieval Theater of Cruelty: Rhetoric, Memory, Violence.'' Cornell University Press, 2002.<br />
<br />
Gardiner, Harold. ''Mysteries’ End: An Investigation of the Last Days of the Medieval Religious Stage.'' Yale University Press, 1946.<br />
<br />
Hardison, O.B., Jr. ''Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages: Essays in the Origin and Early History of Modern Drama''. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965.<br />
<br />
Holsinger, Bruce. “Analytical Survey 6: Medieval Literature and Cultures of Performance.” ''New Medieval Literatures'' 6 (2003): 271-311.<br />
<br />
James, Mervyn. “Ritual, Drama, and Social Body in the Late Medieval Town.” ''Past & Present'' 98 (1983):3-29.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela, ed. ''The Routledge Research Companion to Early Drama and Performance.'' Routledge, 2017.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela. ''The York Mystery Cycle and the Worship of the City''. D.S. Breer, 2006.<br />
<br />
Kolve, V.A. ''The Play Called Corpus Christi.'' Stanford University Press, 1966.<br />
<br />
Lerud, Theodore. ''Memory, Images, and the English Corpus Christi Drama''. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Gender and Medieval Drama.'' D.S. Brewer, 2004.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Modern Mysteries: Contemporary Productions of Medieval English Dramas.'' D.S. Brewer, 2007. <br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Medieval English Drama: Performance and Spectatorship.'' Polity Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Parker, Andrew, and Eve Kosofsky Sedwick, eds. ''Performativity and Performance.'' Routledge,1995.<br />
<br />
Ong, Walter. ''Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word.'' Methuen, 1982.<br />
<br />
Overlie, Mary. ''Standing in Space: The Six Viewpoints Theory and Practice''. Fallon Press, 2016.<br />
<br />
Rogerson, Margaret. ''Playing a Part in History: The York Mysteries, 1951-2006''. University of Toronto Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Sergi, Matthew. Work-in-progress on ''Play Texts and Public Practice in the Chester Cycle,'' c.1421-1607.<br />
<br />
Schreyer, Kurt. ''Shakespeare’s Medieval Craft: Memories of the Mysteries on the London Stage.'' Cornell University Press, 2014.<br />
<br />
Soleo-Shanks, Jenna. “Resurrecting Callimachus: Pop Music Puppets, and the Necessity of Performance in Teaching Medieval Drama." ''Teaching Medieval and Early Modern'' ''Cross-Cultural Encounters''. Eds. Karina F. Attar and Lynn Shutters, Palgrave Macmillan 2014. 199-213.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. “The Culture of the Spectator.” ''Theater Journal'' 34 (1992): 15-29.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. ''Ritual Imports: Performing Medieval Drama in America'', Cornell University Press, 2005.<br />
<br />
Stevens, Martin. ''Four Middle English Mystery Cycles.'' Princeton University Press, 1987.<br />
<br />
Stevenson, Jill. ''Performance, Cognitive Theory, and Devotional Culture: Sensual Piety in Late Medieval York.'' Palgrave MacMillan, 2010.<br />
<br />
Travis, Peter W. ''Dramatic Design in the Chester Cycle''. University of Chicago Press, 1982.<br />
<br />
Turner, Victor. ''From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play''. PAJ Books, 1982<br />
<br />
Westfall, Suzanne R. ''Patrons and Performance: Early Tudor Household Revels''. Clarendon Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
Continue on to ''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|Verba et Res]]''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]: Lesson Plans 1 through 4.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
'''Page written by'''<br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler | Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy&diff=28478Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy2018-03-31T18:40:54Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>''This article is under construction''<br />
<br />
This article - conceived and written by Barbara J. Bono, Maria S. Horne, and Michelle Markey Butler - is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance.<br />
<br />
==Introduction==<br />
<br />
===Medieval drama truly comes alive in performance.=== <br />
This is, of course, a statement true of all works in the dramatic genre. However, it is especially true of medieval drama, which frequently addressed in embodied form large and ultimate questions about humanity's place in creation and the scheme of history, and did so in direct and explicit relation to its audiences, with extraordinary emotive and affective range from the obscene to the exalted. <br />
[[File:028728.jpg|thumb|left|Miss Edith Wynne Matthison in the role of Everyman (c. 1902)|504x504px]]<br />
<br />
Medieval drama is integrated into the curriculum for theatre majors at most universities in the United States. However, there, rather than being part of acting technique or performance-based courses, or of staged productions, the subject is most often studied only very briefly in lecture courses like Theatre History. Meanwhile, in departments of literature, medieval drama is sometimes included as a topic in a broader medieval or British literature class or as a minor prequel to the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, but it is seldom given much time or attention, and its performative nature is largely neglected.<br />
<br />
But we would argue that medieval drama is accessible, exciting, adaptable, and inspirational to interested communities of all ages and abilities - from lower grade levels to highly-trained practitioners - for drama itself is the ideal synesthetic and interdisciplinary vehicle for community formation and differential learning. There is also contemporaneity in medieval drama: humor, music, and fun, as well as metaphor, allegories, and subtexts which speak to who we are today. And while the task of accessing this excitement may seem daunting, in this article we have put together a set of resources - combining language, action, and spectacle - to get you started.<br />
<br />
The first step in bridging the gap between performance and literary study is alerting students and teachers to the new wealth of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Medieval_and_early_English_drama.2C_print_and_on-line_editions|readily-available textual and general scholarly resources]] for these plays, which reach far beyond the frequently anthologized ''Everyman'' or the de-contextualized bit of a biblical cycle play.<br />
<br />
==Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre==<br />
<br />
The second step is to make at least a beginning at "putting the plays up on their feet." To that end we have supplied a series of ten performance-based Lesson Plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing, to considering the symbolic shape of an action, to preliminary training toward full performance and modern adaptation. While these Lesson Plans are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous [http://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-set-free Folger Shakespeare Set Free teaching manuals], namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology.<br />
<br />
===[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama|''Verba et Res''/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 ======<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
[[File:Monreale, Christ the Creator.JPG|thumb|''Christo Pantocratore''. Monreale Cathedral, Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|800x800px]]<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_1:_Playing_around_with_medieval_language Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_2:_The_twenty_props_you_need_to_put_on_any_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_3:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history Lesson Plan 3: Typology, or medieval living history]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_4:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history_and_tableau_vivant Lesson Plan 4: Typology, or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'']''<nowiki/>''<br />
<br />
===[[Setting_the_Medieval_Stage |Setting the Medieval Stage]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 5 through 7 ======<br />
<br />
The spaces of medieval drama were various, labile, and indeed often mobile. The York Biblical cycle plays processed annually on pageant carts into and about the city to stop at York Minster and end on the market Pavement; small travelling companies acted other plays, performing in open spaces, inn yards, or great houses. Later, as plays retreated into manuscript, they might have been brought out for occasional declamation. Plays of such sharp moment and open engagement could, in theory, take place anywhere on this middle earth. As Peter Brook famously began his 1968 classic, ''The Empty Space'', “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and that is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged,” and modern revivals of medieval plays have utilized halls, cloisters, hillsides, city plazas and streetscapes, as well as more formal stages. These three Lesson Plans encourage you to find a suitable space for your play exercises, from a classroom with the desks pushed back to the more formal stage to the outdoor green space which might draw in community passers-by. Then we offer you a selection of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers |monologues]] for actors and especially powerful [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes |scenes]] to help develop the craft of your ensemble. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_5:_Stages_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 5: Stages for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_6:_Filling_the_space._Medieval_monologues_and_the_power_of_words Lesson Plan 6: Filling the space. Medieval monologues and the power of words]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_7:_Creating_and_inhabiting_the_space._Scenes_from_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 7: Creating and inhabiting the space. Scenes from medieval drama]<br />
<br />
=== [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]] ===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 8 through 10 ======<br />
<br />
Medieval drama engaged and hoped to transform its audiences with its biting and cathartic humor, its pointed social observation, its religiously inflected heights and depths, and its joy, and it forged community in its gatherings. <br />
[[File:Barbers' Baptism 147274.jpg|thumb|''The Baptism'' from the York Mystery Plays performed from a cart in the streets of York in front of St William's College.|400x400px]]<br />
These are goals to which we can aspire in our teaching, and we can do this with youngsters and oldsters as well as formal students and professionals, and in our street and cities as well as in our classrooms and regular theaters. Some of us are fortunate enough to be theatre professionals, and to do this as the core of our vocation. Others do it more occasionally, or aspire to do something like it in our communities. <br />
<br />
In these final three Lesson Plans we invite you to think hard about the audiences whom you hope to reach in your work, and we offer you the inspiring account of two younger academics from our group who have had the training, creativity, and institutional support to mount entire student productions, in one case for a large public university Honors College seminar filled with STEM students, and in another at a liberal arts college embedded in a large city. <br />
<br />
Finally, we encourage you to take the tradition of street performance of medieval drama and the example of some modern adaptations to think about its transformative potential for pressing modern needs such as increased civic engagement, social justice, and ecological awareness. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_8:_Determining_your_audience_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 8: Determining your audience for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_9:_Performance_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 9: Performance of medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_10:_Adaptations_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 10: Adaptations of medieval drama]<br />
<br />
== Medieval and early English drama, print and on-line editions ==<br />
One may wonder why we do not see more Medieval Theatre productions on the university stage nowadays. Part of the answer may be that for the non-medievalist, and in particular for the performer not versed in medieval drama, approaching this enterprise could be daunting, starting with the selection of the play, where to find it, whether to use Middle English or a modernized, and which edition of text to use. To help streamline this process, and because there is no such a resource readily available for pedagogical purposes, we decided to compile a short list of medieval plays both in print and online editions, as well as modernized and unmodernized, as you will find in this section . <br />
<br />
===Print editions===<br />
<br />
''The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama''. Christina M. Fitzgerald and John T. Sebastian. Broadview, 2012.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama: An Anthology''. Greg Walker. Wiley-Blackwell, 2000.<br />
<br />
''Three Late Medieval Morality Plays''. G.A. Lester. New Mermaids, 2002. <br />
<br />
''York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling''. Richard Beadle and Pamela King. Oxford University Press, 2009<br />
<br />
''Early English Drama: An Anthology''. John C. Coldewey. Routledge, 1993.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama''. David Bevington. Hackett, 1975. <br />
<br />
The ''Arden Early English Drama'' series of texts from the late fifteenth to the late seventeenth centuries currently includes ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
===On-line editions===<br />
<br />
Online editions vary considerably in quality. Below are some that we have found to be well edited for both scholarly and pedagogical purposes. <br><br />
[[File:V.a.354 98v-99r.jpg|thumb|522x522px|Medieval plays were first preserved in manuscripts like this unique copy of the morality play ''Wisdom'' (c. 1460-63), preserved in the Macro plays at the Folger Shakespeare Library.|left]]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
==== Modernized ====<br />
<br />
:[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html#tab The N-town Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag The York Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/the-towneley-cycle-of-plays/ The Towneley Plays]<br />
<br><br />
====Unmodernized====<br />
<br />
:The TEAMS Middle English Text Series: <br />
http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== <br>Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers ==<br />
[[File:019807.jpg|thumb|900x900px|An angel announces the birth of Christ in the 2015-2016 Folger''The Second'' ''Shepherds' Play''|centre]]<br />
<nowiki> </nowiki><br />
<br />
Choosing a great monologue is a task that confronts actors who are always searching for the best new monologue for their next audition. Audition pieces need to be strong, original, and not overdone. <br />
<br />
Medieval drama provides an exceptional vehicle for exploration and it allows the actor to utilize a variety of acting techniques, genres, and styles while performing. Here are some suggestions for monologues. <br />
<br />
While the casting suggestions given here are gender- and age-normative, directors and actors may want to think about mixing up these conventions for special effect and/or to suit their needs.<br />
<br><br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Role<br />
!Gender <br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll (First Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This speech opens the play. Coll complains about the conditions that poor men like himself have to endure and the ways they are abused by rich men. The speech is important in its sympathy for the plight of the medieval working class, and also thematically: after Coll speaks, it is easy to understand why salvation in the form of the baby Jesus is needed to come into the world.<br />
|Lines 1-54<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology.'' Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Gib (Second Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This is the second speech of the play. Gib complains about the difficulties of being married, and how much he regrets it, but it’s too late. This speech is important for its insight into medieval humor (for better or worse, the ‘take my wife, please’ vein of jokes has been mined for a long time); thematically, it establishes that salvation is needed in the world because humans, in particular the sexes, are at odds.<br />
|Lines 55-108<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|The York ''Fall of the Angels''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only this individual pageant but the York cycle as a whole. It sets the scene for both pageant and play, laying out themes that will recur throughout: the nature of God, the nature of creation, the nature of faith, the nature of worship, the consequences of disobedience.<br />
|Lines 1-34<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English] <br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|The York ''Crucifixion''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|This is Jesus’ speech from the cross after the soldiers finally manage to get him stretched and nailed to it.<br />
|Lines 253-264<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens the final pageant of the cycle. It harkens back to the first pageant and reminds the audience of all that happened between then and now, explaining the need for an end to be made and judgement given.<br />
|Lines 1-64<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|In this speech, Jesus addresses the human characters but, of course, also the audience, explaining why the judgement is going down as it does.<br />
|Lines 231-300<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|Chester''The Fall of Lucifer''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only the pageant but the cycle as a whole, laying out its important themes.<br />
|Lines 1-51<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/index.html Modern English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|N-town ''Passion Play 1''<br />
|Satan<br />
|Super-natural<br />
|This speech opens the Passion Play in the N-town manuscript. It is an important example of the ‘boast’ type of speech, common in medieval and early modern drama, where a villain or tyrant tells the audience who he is and that he is up to no good. [Shakespeare’s Richard III’s opening speech is a grandchild of this genre].<br />
|Lines 1-124<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/sugano-the-n-town-plays Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|Digby ''Mary Magdalene''<br />
|Mary Magdalene<br />
|Female<br />
|In this speech, Mary Magdalene preaches about the creation of the world to a heathen king, hoping to persuade him to leave his pagan ways.<br />
|Lines 1481-1526<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes ==<br />
It’s time to get Theatre students excited about performing Medieval drama. <br />
<br />
The question for many is where to begin? How do I find a play? Where do I find a good scene? What edition is the best for performance? We are aware that there is too much and too little out there. And we also noted the need for teachers and students alike to have access to an inventory of scenes and monologues and good editions of plays. So, we have compiled these resources to get you started.<br />
<br />
Also, keep in mind that while in many instances characters are all male, and probably youngish to middle-age, when they are representative/allegorical characters, gender and age may not matter much when casting the roles.<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Roles<br />
!Gender<br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of Scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|New Guise, Nowadays, Nought, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the vices New Guise, Nowadays, and Nought try to tempt Mankind into sin. They fail spectacularly. Instead of recruiting Mankind as a diabolic minion, the devils are beaten up by him. This scene is important for understanding medieval drama because it illustrates physical action as an indispensable component that must be carefully choreographed and rehearsed to avoid injuring any of the actors. It also shows the use of physical comedy in medieval drama.<br />
|Lines 345-401<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|Titivillus, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the devil Titivillus has been called in by the other devils or vices who have failed to tempt Mankind into sin. Titivillus is invisible and inaudible to Mankind; but the audience can see and hear him, and they know Mankind cannot. This last piece is crucial, because Titivillus repeatedly speaks to the audience as if they are on his side, telling them to keep quiet to further his goal of tempting Mankind into sin (when of course they really are quiet because of their role as audience). This scene is one of several in the play that uses the audience’s role as audience to incite them to do bad things, thereby demonstrating that the audience needs redemption as much as does the character Mankind.<br />
|Lines 526-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|''Fulgens and Lucres''<br />
|A<br />
B<br />
|Male<br />
|This scene opens the play. In it, A and B interact with the audience and with each other, all the while claiming that they are not part of the play, but there will be a play and they’re anxious to see it. B explains to A what the play will be about.<br />
The scene is important because it demonstrates the fluid, meta-theatrical relationship between audience and play in early English theatre.<br />
|Lines 1 - 201<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|''Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham'' (scene 1)<br />
|Sheriff,<br />
Knight, <br />
<br />
and Robin Hood<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the Knight offers to capture Robin Hood for the Sheriff, who agrees to pay the Knight if he is successful. The Knight finds Robin Hood and engages with him in a series of tests of strength and skill. At last they fight. Robin Hood wins, kills the Knight, and declares that he will dress himself in the Knight’s clothes and take his head to the Sheriff to claim the reward for ‘killing’ Robin Hood.<br />
This scene is useful in the classroom for several reasons. It is one of a very few surviving pieces of secular medieval English drama. It also provides an opportunity to demonstrate the challenges presented by the extant texts. There are few stage directions in early drama; but as this scene makes clear, it is crucial to puzzle out the action. Most of this scene is, in fact, action. How long would the scene run? That’s entirely dependent upon how a performance decides to handle the action. The contests could be quick, or they could be elaborate.<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/16EWuJ02hFOhUxADG1zF-nk-TdzPa-0q8/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S6PFlgKa_tQBL9lwX76GlXbuv6KKj5Fa/view?usp=sharing Regularized Spelling]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/robyn-hod-and-the-shryff-off-notyngham Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll,<br />
<br />
Gib,<br />
<br />
Daw,<br />
<br />
Mak,<br />
<br />
Gyll<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
Female<br />
|In this scene, the shepherds (Coll, Gib, and Daw) come to Mak and Gyll’s house, looking for their stolen sheep. Mak has indeed stolen the sheep and has persuaded his wife Gyll to help him hide it by putting it in their cradle and pretending it is their newborn baby.<br />
The scene importantly demonstrates how medieval drama employs humor for thematic goals. For example, Mak swears to the shepherds that if he stole the sheep, the ‘baby’ will be the first meal he eats that day. It’s a funny line, for the audience knows the ‘baby’ is actually a sheep that Mak has every intention of eating. But discussion of eating the sheep/baby also underscores the nativity theme of the play, which celebrates the birth of a baby, Jesus, who is also a “lamb” who will be eaten (in the form of communion) for the benefit of humans. The parodic profane nativity highlights the sacred nativity.<br />
|Lines 476-628<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|''The Castle of Perseverance''<br />
|Mercy,<br />
<br />
Justice,<br />
<br />
Truth,<br />
<br />
Peace,<br />
<br />
God<br />
<br />
|Eternal<br />
|Humanum Genus, the play’s Mankind figure, has behaved wickedly most of his life. But as he is dying, he realizes his wickedness. His very last word is “Mercy,” begging God to save him from hell. In this scene, Justice and Truth argue before God why Humanum Genus should be damned. Peace and Mercy give their reasons why he should be saved. The scene resembles a modern courtroom drama, with Truth and Justice as the prosecuting attorneys, Mercy and Peace acting for the defense, and God the Judge listening to all sides before giving his verdict.<br />
All characters are female except God, who is male. All are eternal figures.<br />
|Lines 3129-3544<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/cascomp.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/klausner-castle-of-perseverance Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|''Brome Abraham and Isaac''<br />
|Abraham,<br />
<br />
Isaac,<br />
<br />
the Angel<br />
|Male<br />
|Abraham is old. Isaac is a child. The Angel is ageless.<br />
Abraham has been ordered by God to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Naturally, Abraham is reluctant to kill his child, but he also wants to be obedient to God. In this scene, we see Abraham’s struggle. We also see medieval drama’s typological understanding of the sacrifice of Isaac as foreshadowing the sacrifice of Jesus.<br />
|Lines 290-332<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/noa/pdf/13BromePlay_1_12.pdf Modern (lightly) English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/AJD3529.0001.001/1:4.6?rgn=div2;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|''Johan Johan''<br />
|Tib the Wife,<br />
John the Husband, and Johan Johan the priest<br />
|Female<br />
<br />
Male<br />
|Tib is female and young adult. John the Husband is male and adult, perhaps a bit older than Tib, but theirs is not necessarily a May/December marriage. Johan Johan is male and adult.<br />
The priest has been carrying on with several women in the area, including Tib. Tib and the priest laugh at the husband’s thickheadness in not realizing their liaison.. But John the Husband begins to get suspicious. This scene is particularly rich in physical comedy, as the husband is chafing wax from a candle to mend a leaky pail, with obvious masturbatory overtones--i.e,, the priest is getting real sex, the husband has to make do on his own.<br />
|Lines 439-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?id=h0U4AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA67#v=onepage&q&f=false Text]<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|''Wisdom''<br />
|Lucifer,<br />
<br />
Mind,<br />
<br />
Will,<br />
<br />
Understanding<br />
|Allegorical<br />
|Lucifer explains to the audience that he is going to tempt the good guys, does so, and then brags about it.<br />
|Lines 325-55<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Some Productions of Medieval Plays, Online ==<br />
You can access an extensive [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5cWcydg0JFis9914C0KX7iz59jwg6-xV# YouTube playlist of medieval drama] online. Additionally, here is a resource list for some titles:<br />
<br />
=== ''Everyman'' ===<br />
You can find digital versions of various productions online, including a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkM8v0m3URg# 2012 ''Everyman''] production at the Portland Community College Performing Arts Center which utilized large-scale puppets and a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvZFBZB10LA# 2016 ''Everyman''] production by the Laurier Historical Society at Wilfrid Laurier University. The play has been adapted as a commercial film twice in recent years in modernized (2002) and period (2007) productions.<br />
<br />
=== ''Mankind'' ===<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4acAjs2TGa8# 1999 ''Mankind''] staging by Duquesne University Medieval and Renaissance Players. <br />
<br />
University students staged an improvisatory modernized production of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsTyvD8E9Mk# ''Mankind''] as a final course project in 2016.<br />
<br />
=== Biblical cycle plays and passion plays ===<br />
The Blackhills Passion plays were performed in Spearfish, South Dakota from 1939 to 2008, and at their winter home in Lake Wales, Florida from 1953 to 1999.<br />
<br />
The Mormon Hill Cumorah biblical pageant in Palmyra, New York has been performed since 1935: http://www.hillcumorah.org/ <br />
<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn0pcYONuxc# 2013 Chester Noah] play performed by the Liverpool University Players.<br />
<br />
The Chester Mystery plays were performed in a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRthPA2nJyw# 2008 modernized musical version].<br />
<br />
The Oberammergau Passion Play has been performed continuously in that Bavarian village since 1634. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KeVtnndSsc# The trailer for the 2020 production]. <br />
<br />
The Towneley Second Shepherds’ Play has long been a favorite Christmas holiday production, and was recently revived at the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RomR1sxDlus# Folger Theater] in 2016. <br />
<br />
[https://muse.jhu.edu/article/34991# Yiimimangaliso: The Mysteries], a version of the Chester mysteries, was staged in South Africa and London in 2001 and has been revived since. <br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, England: Videos from recent York mystery plays are available on-line at several sites. See, for example, [http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/york-mystery-plays-1973# York Mystery Plays 1973], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nyFLOlEupM# York Mystery Plays 2010], and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_IE4izf_6c# York Mystery Plays 2016].<br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, Toronto: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIImNnV1Ty0# 2010 “Crucifixion”].<br />
<br />
The [http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/front-page/# Poculi Ludique Societas], or PLS in Toronto, has for over 50 years now sponsored productions of early plays, from the beginnings of medieval drama to as late as the middle of the seventeenth century.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Selected Bibliography ==<br />
Albin, Andrew. “Sonorous Presence, and the Performance of Christian Community in the Chester Shepherds Play.” ''Early Theatre'' 16.2 (2013): 33-57.<br />
<br />
Aronson-Lehavi, Sharon. ''Street Scenes: Late Medieval Acting and Performance''. Palgrave MacmIllan, 2011.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. “The Present of Past Things: The York Corpus Christi Cycle as a Contemporary Theatre of Memory.” ''Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies'' 26.2 (1996): 35-79.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. ''Signifying God: Social Relations and Symbolic Act in the York Corpus Christi Plays''. University of Chicago Press, 2001.<br />
<br />
Bevington, David. ''From “Mankind” to Marlowe: Growth of Structure in the Popular Drama of Tudor England''. Harvard University Press, 1962.<br />
<br />
Butler, Judith. ''Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative''. Routledge, 1997.<br />
<br />
Carlson, Marvin. “Medieval Street Performers Speak.” ''TDR:The Drama Review'', 57.4 (2013): 86-94.<br />
<br />
Chaganti, Seeta. “The Platea: Pre- and Postmodern: A Landscape of Medieval Performance Studies.” ''Exemplaria'' 25.3 (2013): 252-64.<br />
<br />
Clopper, Lawrence. ''Drama, Play, and Game: English Festive Culture in the Medieval and Early Modern Period''. Chicago, 2001.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “The Chester Cycle in Sixteenth-Century Religious Culture," ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 37.3 (2007): 532-47.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. ''Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints: Theater, Gender, and Religion in Late Medieval England''. University of Pennsylvania, 2004.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Biblical Drama in Post-Apartheid South Africa: The Chester Plays in Afterlife.” ''Transformations in Biblical Literary Traditions: Incarnation, Narrative,'' ''and Ethics''. Eds. D.H. Williams and Philip Donnelly, Notre Dame University Press, 2014. 268-88.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Drama: 1191-1952.” ''Exemplaria'' 28.3 (2016): 264-76.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Reading REED: History and the Records of Early English Drama.” ''Literary Practice and Social Change in Britain, 1380-1530''. Ed. Lee Patterson, University of California Press, 1990. 248-84.<br />
<br />
Davidson, Clifford, ed. ''Gesture in Medieval Drama and Art''. Medieval Institute, 2001.<br />
<br />
Elliott, John R., Jr. ''Playing God: Medieval Mysteries on the Modern Stage''. University of Toronto Press, 1989.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard. “Dramatic History: On the Diachronic and Synchronic in the Study of Early English Drama.” ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 35:1 (2005): 39-66.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard K. “’Nowe Ys Common This Daye’: Enoch and Elias, Antichrist, and the Structure of the Chester Cycle.” ''Homo, Memento Finis: The Iconography of Just'' ''Judgment in Medieval Art and Drama''. Ed. David Bevington, et. al. Medieval Institute, 1985. 221-57.<br />
<br />
Enders, Jody. ''The Medieval Theater of Cruelty: Rhetoric, Memory, Violence.'' Cornell University Press, 2002.<br />
<br />
Gardiner, Harold. ''Mysteries’ End: An Investigation of the Last Days of the Medieval Religious Stage.'' Yale University Press, 1946.<br />
<br />
Hardison, O.B., Jr. ''Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages: Essays in the Origin and Early History of Modern Drama''. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965.<br />
<br />
Holsinger, Bruce. “Analytical Survey 6: Medieval Literature and Cultures of Performance.” ''New Medieval Literatures'' 6 (2003): 271-311.<br />
<br />
James, Mervyn. “Ritual, Drama, and Social Body in the Late Medieval Town.” ''Past & Present'' 98 (1983):3-29.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela, ed. ''The Routledge Research Companion to Early Drama and Performance.'' Routledge, 2017.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela. ''The York Mystery Cycle and the Worship of the City''. D.S. Breer, 2006.<br />
<br />
Kolve, V.A. ''The Play Called Corpus Christi.'' Stanford University Press, 1966.<br />
<br />
Lerud, Theodore. ''Memory, Images, and the English Corpus Christi Drama''. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Gender and Medieval Drama.'' D.S. Brewer, 2004.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Modern Mysteries: Contemporary Productions of Medieval English Dramas.'' D.S. Brewer, 2007. <br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Medieval English Drama: Performance and Spectatorship.'' Polity Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Parker, Andrew, and Eve Kosofsky Sedwick, eds. ''Performativity and Performance.'' Routledge,1995.<br />
<br />
Ong, Walter. ''Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word.'' Methuen, 1982.<br />
<br />
Overlie, Mary. ''Standing in Space: The Six Viewpoints Theory and Practice''. Fallon Press, 2016.<br />
<br />
Rogerson, Margaret. ''Playing a Part in History: The York Mysteries, 1951-2006''. University of Toronto Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Sergi, Matthew. Work-in-progress on ''Play Texts and Public Practice in the Chester Cycle,'' c.1421-1607.<br />
<br />
Schreyer, Kurt. ''Shakespeare’s Medieval Craft: Memories of the Mysteries on the London Stage.'' Cornell University Press, 2014.<br />
<br />
Soleo-Shanks, Jenna. “Resurrecting Callimachus: Pop Music Puppets, and the Necessity of Performance in Teaching Medieval Drama." ''Teaching Medieval and Early Modern'' ''Cross-Cultural Encounters''. Eds. Karina F. Attar and Lynn Shutters, Palgrave Macmillan 2014. 199-213.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. “The Culture of the Spectator.” ''Theater Journal'' 34 (1992): 15-29.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. ''Ritual Imports: Performing Medieval Drama in America'', Cornell University Press, 2005.<br />
<br />
Stevens, Martin. ''Four Middle English Mystery Cycles.'' Princeton University Press, 1987.<br />
<br />
Stevenson, Jill. ''Performance, Cognitive Theory, and Devotional Culture: Sensual Piety in Late Medieval York.'' Palgrave MacMillan, 2010.<br />
<br />
Travis, Peter W. ''Dramatic Design in the Chester Cycle''. University of Chicago Press, 1982.<br />
<br />
Turner, Victor. ''From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play''. PAJ Books, 1982<br />
<br />
Westfall, Suzanne R. ''Patrons and Performance: Early Tudor Household Revels''. Clarendon Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
Continue on to ''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|Verba et Res]]''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]: Lesson Plans 1 through 4.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
'''Page written by'''<br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler | Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy&diff=28444Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy2018-03-25T16:55:52Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>''This article is under construction''<br />
<br />
This article - conceived and written by Barbara J. Bono, Maria S. Horne, and Michelle Markey Butler - is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance.<br />
<br />
==Introduction==<br />
<br />
===Medieval drama truly comes alive in performance.=== <br />
This is, of course, a statement true of all works in the dramatic genre. However, it is especially true of medieval drama, which frequently addressed in embodied form large and ultimate questions about humanity's place in creation and the scheme of history, and did so in direct and explicit relation to its audiences, with extraordinary emotive and affective range from the obscene to the exalted. <br />
[[File:028728.jpg|thumb|left|Miss Edith Wynne Matthison in the role of Everyman (c. 1902)|504x504px]]<br />
<br />
Medieval drama is integrated into the curriculum for theatre majors at most universities in the United States. However, there, rather than being part of acting technique or performance-based courses, or of staged productions, the subject is most often studied only very briefly in lecture courses like Theatre History. Meanwhile, in departments of literature, medieval drama is sometimes included as a topic in a broader medieval or British literature class or as a minor prequel to the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, but it is seldom given much time or attention, and its performative nature is largely neglected.<br />
<br />
But we would argue that medieval drama is accessible, exciting, adaptable, and inspirational to interested communities of all ages and abilities - from lower grade levels to highly-trained practitioners - for drama itself is the ideal synesthetic and interdisciplinary vehicle for community formation and differential learning. There is also contemporaneity in medieval drama: humor, music, and fun, as well as metaphor, allegories, and subtexts which speak to who we are today. And while the task of accessing this excitement may seem daunting, in this article we have put together a set of resources - combining language, action, and spectacle - to get you started.<br />
<br />
The first step in bridging the gap between performance and literary study is alerting students and teachers to the new wealth of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Medieval_and_early_English_drama.2C_print_and_on-line_editions|readily-available textual and general scholarly resources]] for these plays, which reach far beyond the frequently anthologized ''Everyman'' or the de-contextualized bit of a biblical cycle play.<br />
<br />
==Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre==<br />
<br />
The second step is to make at least a beginning at "putting the plays up on their feet." To that end we have supplied a series of ten performance-based Lesson Plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing, to considering the symbolic shape of an action, to preliminary training toward full performance and modern adaptation. While these Lesson Plans are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous [http://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-set-free Folger Shakespeare Set Free teaching manuals], namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology.<br />
<br />
===[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama|''Verba et Res''/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 ======<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
[[File:Monreale, Christ the Creator.JPG|thumb|''Christo Pantocratore''. Monreale Cathedral, Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|800x800px]]<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_1:_Playing_around_with_medieval_language Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_2:_The_twenty_props_you_need_to_put_on_any_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_3:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history Lesson Plan 3: Typology, or medieval living history]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_4:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history_and_tableau_vivant Lesson Plan 4: Typology, or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'']''<nowiki/>''<br />
<br />
===[[Setting_the_Medieval_Stage |Setting the Medieval Stage]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 5 through 7 ======<br />
<br />
The spaces of medieval drama were various, labile, and indeed often mobile. The York Biblical cycle plays processed annually on pageant carts into and about the city to stop at York Minster and end on the market Pavement; small travelling companies acted other plays, performing in open spaces, inn yards, or great houses. Later, as plays retreated into manuscript, they might have been brought out for occasional declamation. Plays of such sharp moment and open engagement could, in theory, take place anywhere on this middle earth. As Peter Brook famously began his 1968 classic, ''The Empty Space'', “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and that is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged,” and modern revivals of medieval plays have utilized halls, cloisters, hillsides, city plazas and streetscapes, as well as more formal stages. These three Lesson Plans encourage you to find a suitable space for your play exercises, from a classroom with the desks pushed back to the more formal stage to the outdoor green space which might draw in community passers-by. Then we offer you a selection of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers |monologues]] for actors and especially powerful [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes |scenes]] to help develop the craft of your ensemble. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_5:_Stages_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 5: Stages for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_6:_Filling_the_space._Medieval_monologues_and_the_power_of_words Lesson Plan 6: Filling the space. Medieval monologues and the power of words]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_7:_Creating_and_inhabiting_the_space._Scenes_from_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 7: Creating and inhabiting the space. Scenes from medieval drama]<br />
<br />
=== [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]] ===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 8 through 10 ======<br />
<br />
Medieval drama engaged and hoped to transform its audiences with its biting and cathartic humor, its pointed social observation, its religiously inflected heights and depths, and its joy, and it forged community in its gatherings. <br />
[[File:Barbers' Baptism 147274.jpg|thumb|''The Baptism'' from the York Mystery Plays performed from a cart in the streets of York in front of St William's College.|400x400px]]<br />
These are goals to which we can aspire in our teaching, and we can do this with youngsters and oldsters as well as formal students and professionals, and in our street and cities as well as in our classrooms and regular theaters. Some of us are fortunate enough to be theatre professionals, and to do this as the core of our vocation. Others do it more occasionally, or aspire to do something like it in our communities. <br />
<br />
In these final three Lesson Plans we invite you to think hard about the audiences whom you hope to reach in your work, and we offer you the inspiring account of two younger academics from our group who have had the training, creativity, and institutional support to mount entire student productions, in one case for a large public university Honors College seminar filled with STEM students, and in another at a liberal arts college embedded in a large city. <br />
<br />
Finally, we encourage you to take the tradition of street performance of medieval drama and the example of some modern adaptations to think about its transformative potential for pressing modern needs such as increased civic engagement, social justice, and ecological awareness. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_8:_Determining_your_audience_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 8: Determining your audience for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_9:_Performance_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 9: Performance of medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_10:_Adaptations_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 10: Adaptations of medieval drama]<br />
<br />
== Medieval and early English drama, print and on-line editions ==<br />
One may wonder why we do not see more Medieval Theatre productions on the university stage nowadays. Part of the answer may be that for the non-medievalist, and in particular for the performer not versed in medieval drama, approaching this enterprise could be daunting, starting with the selection of the play, where to find it, whether to use Middle English or a modernized, and which edition of text to use. To help streamline this process, and because there is no such a resource readily available for pedagogical purposes, we decided to compile a short list of medieval plays both in print and online editions, as well as modernized and unmodernized, as you will find in this section . <br />
<br />
===Print editions===<br />
<br />
''The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama''. Christina M. Fitzgerald and John T. Sebastian. Broadview, 2012.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama: An Anthology''. Greg Walker. Wiley-Blackwell, 2000.<br />
<br />
''Three Late Medieval Morality Plays''. G.A. Lester. New Mermaids, 2002. <br />
<br />
''York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling''. Richard Beadle and Pamela King. Oxford University Press, 2009<br />
<br />
''Early English Drama: An Anthology''. John C. Coldewey. Routledge, 1993.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama''. David Bevington. Hackett, 1975. <br />
<br />
The ''Arden Early English Drama'' series of texts from the late fifteenth to the late seventeenth centuries currently includes ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
===On-line editions===<br />
<br />
Online editions vary considerably in quality. Below are some that we have found to be well edited for both scholarly and pedagogical purposes. <br><br />
[[File:V.a.354 98v-99r.jpg|thumb|522x522px|Medieval plays were first preserved in manuscripts like this unique copy of the morality play ''Wisdom'' (c. 1460-63), preserved in the Macro plays at the Folger Shakespeare Library.|left]]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
==== Modernized ====<br />
<br />
:[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html#tab The N-town Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag The York Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/the-towneley-cycle-of-plays/ The Towneley Plays]<br />
<br><br />
====Unmodernized====<br />
<br />
:The TEAMS Middle English Text Series: <br />
http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== <br>Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers ==<br />
[[File:019807.jpg|thumb|600x600px|An angel announces the birth of Christ in the 2015-2016 Folger''The Second'' ''Shepherds' Play'']]<br />
<nowiki> </nowiki><br />
<br />
Choosing a great monologue is a task that confronts actors who are always searching for the best new monologue for their next audition. Audition pieces need to be strong, original, and not overdone. <br />
<br />
Medieval drama provides an exceptional vehicle for exploration and it allows the actor to utilize a variety of acting techniques, genres, and styles while performing. Here are some suggestions for monologues. <br />
<br />
While the casting suggestions given here are gender- and age-normative, directors and actors may want to think about mixing up these conventions for special effect and/or to suit their needs.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br><br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Role<br />
!Gender <br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll (First Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This speech opens the play. Coll complains about the conditions that poor men like himself have to endure and the ways they are abused by rich men. The speech is important in its sympathy for the plight of the medieval working class, and also thematically: after Coll speaks, it is easy to understand why salvation in the form of the baby Jesus is needed to come into the world.<br />
|Lines 1-54<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology.'' Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Gib (Second Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This is the second speech of the play. Gib complains about the difficulties of being married, and how much he regrets it, but it’s too late. This speech is important for its insight into medieval humor (for better or worse, the ‘take my wife, please’ vein of jokes has been mined for a long time); thematically, it establishes that salvation is needed in the world because humans, in particular the sexes, are at odds.<br />
|Lines 55-108<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|The York ''Fall of the Angels''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only this individual pageant but the York cycle as a whole. It sets the scene for both pageant and play, laying out themes that will recur throughout: the nature of God, the nature of creation, the nature of faith, the nature of worship, the consequences of disobedience.<br />
|Lines 1-34<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English] <br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|The York ''Crucifixion''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|This is Jesus’ speech from the cross after the soldiers finally manage to get him stretched and nailed to it.<br />
|Lines 253-264<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens the final pageant of the cycle. It harkens back to the first pageant and reminds the audience of all that happened between then and now, explaining the need for an end to be made and judgement given.<br />
|Lines 1-64<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|In this speech, Jesus addresses the human characters but, of course, also the audience, explaining why the judgement is going down as it does.<br />
|Lines 231-300<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|Chester''The Fall of Lucifer''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only the pageant but the cycle as a whole, laying out its important themes.<br />
|Lines 1-51<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/index.html Modern English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|N-town ''Passion Play 1''<br />
|Satan<br />
|Super-natural<br />
|This speech opens the Passion Play in the N-town manuscript. It is an important example of the ‘boast’ type of speech, common in medieval and early modern drama, where a villain or tyrant tells the audience who he is and that he is up to no good. [Shakespeare’s Richard III’s opening speech is a grandchild of this genre].<br />
|Lines 1-124<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/sugano-the-n-town-plays Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|Digby ''Mary Magdalene''<br />
|Mary Magdalene<br />
|Female<br />
|In this speech, Mary Magdalene preaches about the creation of the world to a heathen king, hoping to persuade him to leave his pagan ways.<br />
|Lines 1481-1526<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes ==<br />
It’s time to get Theatre students excited about performing Medieval drama. <br />
<br />
The question for many is where to begin? How do I find a play? Where do I find a good scene? What edition is the best for performance? We are aware that there is too much and too little out there. And we also noted the need for teachers and students alike to have access to an inventory of scenes and monologues and good editions of plays. So, we have compiled these resources to get you started.<br />
<br />
Also, keep in mind that while in many instances characters are all male, and probably youngish to middle-age, when they are representative/allegorical characters, gender and age may not matter much when casting the roles.<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Roles<br />
!Gender<br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of Scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|New Guise, Nowadays, Nought, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the vices New Guise, Nowadays, and Nought try to tempt Mankind into sin. They fail spectacularly. Instead of recruiting Mankind as a diabolic minion, the devils are beaten up by him. This scene is important for understanding medieval drama because it illustrates physical action as an indispensable component that must be carefully choreographed and rehearsed to avoid injuring any of the actors. It also shows the use of physical comedy in medieval drama.<br />
|Lines 345-401<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|Titivillus, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the devil Titivillus has been called in by the other devils or vices who have failed to tempt Mankind into sin. Titivillus is invisible and inaudible to Mankind; but the audience can see and hear him, and they know Mankind cannot. This last piece is crucial, because Titivillus repeatedly speaks to the audience as if they are on his side, telling them to keep quiet to further his goal of tempting Mankind into sin (when of course they really are quiet because of their role as audience). This scene is one of several in the play that uses the audience’s role as audience to incite them to do bad things, thereby demonstrating that the audience needs redemption as much as does the character Mankind.<br />
|Lines 526-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|''Fulgens and Lucres''<br />
|A<br />
B<br />
|Male<br />
|This scene opens the play. In it, A and B interact with the audience and with each other, all the while claiming that they are not part of the play, but there will be a play and they’re anxious to see it. B explains to A what the play will be about.<br />
The scene is important because it demonstrates the fluid, meta-theatrical relationship between audience and play in early English theatre.<br />
|Lines 1 - 201<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|''Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham'' (scene 1)<br />
|Sheriff,<br />
Knight, <br />
<br />
and Robin Hood<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the Knight offers to capture Robin Hood for the Sheriff, who agrees to pay the Knight if he is successful. The Knight finds Robin Hood and engages with him in a series of tests of strength and skill. At last they fight. Robin Hood wins, kills the Knight, and declares that he will dress himself in the Knight’s clothes and take his head to the Sheriff to claim the reward for ‘killing’ Robin Hood.<br />
This scene is useful in the classroom for several reasons. It is one of a very few surviving pieces of secular medieval English drama. It also provides an opportunity to demonstrate the challenges presented by the extant texts. There are few stage directions in early drama; but as this scene makes clear, it is crucial to puzzle out the action. Most of this scene is, in fact, action. How long would the scene run? That’s entirely dependent upon how a performance decides to handle the action. The contests could be quick, or they could be elaborate.<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/16EWuJ02hFOhUxADG1zF-nk-TdzPa-0q8/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S6PFlgKa_tQBL9lwX76GlXbuv6KKj5Fa/view?usp=sharing Regularized Spelling]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/robyn-hod-and-the-shryff-off-notyngham Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll,<br />
<br />
Gib,<br />
<br />
Daw,<br />
<br />
Mak,<br />
<br />
Gyll<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
Female<br />
|In this scene, the shepherds (Coll, Gib, and Daw) come to Mak and Gyll’s house, looking for their stolen sheep. Mak has indeed stolen the sheep and has persuaded his wife Gyll to help him hide it by putting it in their cradle and pretending it is their newborn baby.<br />
The scene importantly demonstrates how medieval drama employs humor for thematic goals. For example, Mak swears to the shepherds that if he stole the sheep, the ‘baby’ will be the first meal he eats that day. It’s a funny line, for the audience knows the ‘baby’ is actually a sheep that Mak has every intention of eating. But discussion of eating the sheep/baby also underscores the nativity theme of the play, which celebrates the birth of a baby, Jesus, who is also a “lamb” who will be eaten (in the form of communion) for the benefit of humans. The parodic profane nativity highlights the sacred nativity.<br />
|Lines 476-628<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|''The Castle of Perseverance''<br />
|Mercy,<br />
<br />
Justice,<br />
<br />
Truth,<br />
<br />
Peace,<br />
<br />
God<br />
<br />
|Eternal<br />
|Humanum Genus, the play’s Mankind figure, has behaved wickedly most of his life. But as he is dying, he realizes his wickedness. His very last word is “Mercy,” begging God to save him from hell. In this scene, Justice and Truth argue before God why Humanum Genus should be damned. Peace and Mercy give their reasons why he should be saved. The scene resembles a modern courtroom drama, with Truth and Justice as the prosecuting attorneys, Mercy and Peace acting for the defense, and God the Judge listening to all sides before giving his verdict.<br />
All characters are female except God, who is male. All are eternal figures.<br />
|Lines 3129-3544<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/cascomp.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/klausner-castle-of-perseverance Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|''Brome Abraham and Isaac''<br />
|Abraham,<br />
<br />
Isaac,<br />
<br />
the Angel<br />
|Male<br />
|Abraham is old. Isaac is a child. The Angel is ageless.<br />
Abraham has been ordered by God to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Naturally, Abraham is reluctant to kill his child, but he also wants to be obedient to God. In this scene, we see Abraham’s struggle. We also see medieval drama’s typological understanding of the sacrifice of Isaac as foreshadowing the sacrifice of Jesus.<br />
|Lines 290-332<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/noa/pdf/13BromePlay_1_12.pdf Modern (lightly) English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/AJD3529.0001.001/1:4.6?rgn=div2;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|''Johan Johan''<br />
|Tib the Wife,<br />
John the Husband, and Johan Johan the priest<br />
|Female<br />
<br />
Male<br />
|Tib is female and young adult. John the Husband is male and adult, perhaps a bit older than Tib, but theirs is not necessarily a May/December marriage. Johan Johan is male and adult.<br />
The priest has been carrying on with several women in the area, including Tib. Tib and the priest laugh at the husband’s thickheadness in not realizing their liaison.. But John the Husband begins to get suspicious. This scene is particularly rich in physical comedy, as the husband is chafing wax from a candle to mend a leaky pail, with obvious masturbatory overtones--i.e,, the priest is getting real sex, the husband has to make do on his own.<br />
|Lines 439-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?id=h0U4AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA67#v=onepage&q&f=false Text]<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|''Wisdom''<br />
|Lucifer,<br />
<br />
Mind,<br />
<br />
Will,<br />
<br />
Understanding<br />
|Allegorical<br />
|Lucifer explains to the audience that he is going to tempt the good guys, does so, and then brags about it.<br />
|Lines 325-55<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Some Productions of Medieval Plays, Online ==<br />
You can access an extensive [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5cWcydg0JFis9914C0KX7iz59jwg6-xV# YouTube playlist of medieval drama] online. Additionally, here is a resource list for some titles:<br />
<br />
=== ''Everyman'' ===<br />
You can find digital versions of various productions online, including a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkM8v0m3URg# 2012 ''Everyman''] production at the Portland Community College Performing Arts Center which utilized large-scale puppets and a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvZFBZB10LA# 2016 ''Everyman''] production by the Laurier Historical Society at Wilfrid Laurier University. The play has been adapted as a commercial film twice in recent years in modernized (2002) and period (2007) productions.<br />
<br />
=== ''Mankind'' ===<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4acAjs2TGa8# 1999 ''Mankind''] staging by Duquesne University Medieval and Renaissance Players. <br />
<br />
University students staged an improvisatory modernized production of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsTyvD8E9Mk# ''Mankind''] as a final course project in 2016.<br />
<br />
=== Biblical cycle plays and passion plays ===<br />
The Blackhills Passion plays were performed in Spearfish, South Dakota from 1939 to 2008, and at their winter home in Lake Wales, Florida from 1953 to 1999.<br />
<br />
The Mormon Hill Cumorah biblical pageant in Palmyra, New York has been performed since 1935: http://www.hillcumorah.org/ <br />
<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn0pcYONuxc# 2013 Chester Noah] play performed by the Liverpool University Players.<br />
<br />
The Chester Mystery plays were performed in a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRthPA2nJyw# 2008 modernized musical version].<br />
<br />
The Oberammergau Passion Play has been performed continuously in that Bavarian village since 1634. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KeVtnndSsc# The trailer for the 2020 production]. <br />
<br />
The Towneley Second Shepherds’ Play has long been a favorite Christmas holiday production, and was recently revived at the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RomR1sxDlus# Folger Theater] in 2016. <br />
<br />
[https://muse.jhu.edu/article/34991# Yiimimangaliso: The Mysteries], a version of the Chester mysteries, was staged in South Africa and London in 2001 and has been revived since. <br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, England: Videos from recent York mystery plays are available on-line at several sites. See, for example, [http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/york-mystery-plays-1973# York Mystery Plays 1973], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nyFLOlEupM# York Mystery Plays 2010], and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_IE4izf_6c# York Mystery Plays 2016].<br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, Toronto: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIImNnV1Ty0# 2010 “Crucifixion”].<br />
<br />
The [http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/front-page/# Poculi Ludique Societas], or PLS in Toronto, has for over 50 years now sponsored productions of early plays, from the beginnings of medieval drama to as late as the middle of the seventeenth century.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Selected Bibliography ==<br />
Albin, Andrew. “Sonorous Presence, and the Performance of Christian Community in the Chester Shepherds Play.” ''Early Theatre'' 16.2 (2013): 33-57.<br />
<br />
Aronson-Lehavi, Sharon. ''Street Scenes: Late Medieval Acting and Performance''. Palgrave MacmIllan, 2011.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. “The Present of Past Things: The York Corpus Christi Cycle as a Contemporary Theatre of Memory.” ''Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies'' 26.2 (1996): 35-79.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. ''Signifying God: Social Relations and Symbolic Act in the York Corpus Christi Plays''. University of Chicago Press, 2001.<br />
<br />
Bevington, David. ''From “Mankind” to Marlowe: Growth of Structure in the Popular Drama of Tudor England''. Harvard University Press, 1962.<br />
<br />
Butler, Judith. ''Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative''. Routledge, 1997.<br />
<br />
Carlson, Marvin. “Medieval Street Performers Speak.” ''TDR:The Drama Review'', 57.4 (2013): 86-94.<br />
<br />
Chaganti, Seeta. “The Platea: Pre- and Postmodern: A Landscape of Medieval Performance Studies.” ''Exemplaria'' 25.3 (2013): 252-64.<br />
<br />
Clopper, Lawrence. ''Drama, Play, and Game: English Festive Culture in the Medieval and Early Modern Period''. Chicago, 2001.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “The Chester Cycle in Sixteenth-Century Religious Culture," ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 37.3 (2007): 532-47.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. ''Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints: Theater, Gender, and Religion in Late Medieval England''. University of Pennsylvania, 2004.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Biblical Drama in Post-Apartheid South Africa: The Chester Plays in Afterlife.” ''Transformations in Biblical Literary Traditions: Incarnation, Narrative,'' ''and Ethics''. Eds. D.H. Williams and Philip Donnelly, Notre Dame University Press, 2014. 268-88.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Drama: 1191-1952.” ''Exemplaria'' 28.3 (2016): 264-76.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Reading REED: History and the Records of Early English Drama.” ''Literary Practice and Social Change in Britain, 1380-1530''. Ed. Lee Patterson, University of California Press, 1990. 248-84.<br />
<br />
Davidson, Clifford, ed. ''Gesture in Medieval Drama and Art''. Medieval Institute, 2001.<br />
<br />
Elliott, John R., Jr. ''Playing God: Medieval Mysteries on the Modern Stage''. University of Toronto Press, 1989.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard. “Dramatic History: On the Diachronic and Synchronic in the Study of Early English Drama.” ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 35:1 (2005): 39-66.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard K. “’Nowe Ys Common This Daye’: Enoch and Elias, Antichrist, and the Structure of the Chester Cycle.” ''Homo, Memento Finis: The Iconography of Just'' ''Judgment in Medieval Art and Drama''. Ed. David Bevington, et. al. Medieval Institute, 1985. 221-57.<br />
<br />
Enders, Jody. ''The Medieval Theater of Cruelty: Rhetoric, Memory, Violence.'' Cornell University Press, 2002.<br />
<br />
Gardiner, Harold. ''Mysteries’ End: An Investigation of the Last Days of the Medieval Religious Stage.'' Yale University Press, 1946.<br />
<br />
Hardison, O.B., Jr. ''Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages: Essays in the Origin and Early History of Modern Drama''. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965.<br />
<br />
Holsinger, Bruce. “Analytical Survey 6: Medieval Literature and Cultures of Performance.” ''New Medieval Literatures'' 6 (2003): 271-311.<br />
<br />
James, Mervyn. “Ritual, Drama, and Social Body in the Late Medieval Town.” ''Past & Present'' 98 (1983):3-29.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela, ed. ''The Routledge Research Companion to Early Drama and Performance.'' Routledge, 2017.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela. ''The York Mystery Cycle and the Worship of the City''. D.S. Breer, 2006.<br />
<br />
Kolve, V.A. ''The Play Called Corpus Christi.'' Stanford University Press, 1966.<br />
<br />
Lerud, Theodore. ''Memory, Images, and the English Corpus Christi Drama''. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Gender and Medieval Drama.'' D.S. Brewer, 2004.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Modern Mysteries: Contemporary Productions of Medieval English Dramas.'' D.S. Brewer, 2007. <br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Medieval English Drama: Performance and Spectatorship.'' Polity Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Parker, Andrew, and Eve Kosofsky Sedwick, eds. ''Performativity and Performance.'' Routledge,1995.<br />
<br />
Ong, Walter. ''Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word.'' Methuen, 1982.<br />
<br />
Overlie, Mary. ''Standing in Space: The Six Viewpoints Theory and Practice''. Fallon Press, 2016.<br />
<br />
Rogerson, Margaret. ''Playing a Part in History: The York Mysteries, 1951-2006''. University of Toronto Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Sergi, Matthew. Work-in-progress on ''Play Texts and Public Practice in the Chester Cycle,'' c.1421-1607.<br />
<br />
Schreyer, Kurt. ''Shakespeare’s Medieval Craft: Memories of the Mysteries on the London Stage.'' Cornell University Press, 2014.<br />
<br />
Soleo-Shanks, Jenna. “Resurrecting Callimachus: Pop Music Puppets, and the Necessity of Performance in Teaching Medieval Drama." ''Teaching Medieval and Early Modern'' ''Cross-Cultural Encounters''. Eds. Karina F. Attar and Lynn Shutters, Palgrave Macmillan 2014. 199-213.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. “The Culture of the Spectator.” ''Theater Journal'' 34 (1992): 15-29.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. ''Ritual Imports: Performing Medieval Drama in America'', Cornell University Press, 2005.<br />
<br />
Stevens, Martin. ''Four Middle English Mystery Cycles.'' Princeton University Press, 1987.<br />
<br />
Stevenson, Jill. ''Performance, Cognitive Theory, and Devotional Culture: Sensual Piety in Late Medieval York.'' Palgrave MacMillan, 2010.<br />
<br />
Travis, Peter W. ''Dramatic Design in the Chester Cycle''. University of Chicago Press, 1982.<br />
<br />
Turner, Victor. ''From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play''. PAJ Books, 1982<br />
<br />
Westfall, Suzanne R. ''Patrons and Performance: Early Tudor Household Revels''. Clarendon Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
Continue on to ''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|Verba et Res]]''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]: Lesson Plans 1 through 4.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
'''Page written by'''<br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler | Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy&diff=28443Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy2018-03-25T16:15:53Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>''This article is under construction''<br />
<br />
This article - conceived and written by Barbara J. Bono, Maria S. Horne, and Michelle Markey Butler - is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance.<br />
<br />
==Introduction==<br />
<br />
===Medieval drama truly comes alive in performance.=== <br />
This is, of course, a statement true of all works in the dramatic genre. However, it is especially true of medieval drama, which frequently addressed in embodied form large and ultimate questions about humanity's place in creation and the scheme of history, and did so in direct and explicit relation to its audiences, with extraordinary emotive and affective range from the obscene to the exalted. <br />
[[File:028728.jpg|thumb|left|Miss Edith Wynne Matthison in the role of Everyman (c. 1902)|504x504px]]<br />
<br />
Medieval drama is integrated into the curriculum for theatre majors at most universities in the United States. However, there, rather than being part of acting technique or performance-based courses, or of staged productions, the subject is most often studied only very briefly in lecture courses like Theatre History. Meanwhile, in departments of literature, medieval drama is sometimes included as a topic in a broader medieval or British literature class or as a minor prequel to the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, but it is seldom given much time or attention, and its performative nature is largely neglected.<br />
<br />
But we would argue that medieval drama is accessible, exciting, adaptable, and inspirational to interested communities of all ages and abilities - from lower grade levels to highly-trained practitioners - for drama itself is the ideal synesthetic and interdisciplinary vehicle for community formation and differential learning. There is also contemporaneity in medieval drama: humor, music, and fun, as well as metaphor, allegories, and subtexts which speak to who we are today. And while the task of accessing this excitement may seem daunting, in this article we have put together a set of resources - combining language, action, and spectacle - to get you started.<br />
<br />
The first step in bridging the gap between performance and literary study is alerting students and teachers to the new wealth of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Medieval_and_early_English_drama.2C_print_and_on-line_editions|readily-available textual and general scholarly resources]] for these plays, which reach far beyond the frequently anthologized ''Everyman'' or the de-contextualized bit of a biblical cycle play.<br />
<br />
==Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre==<br />
<br />
The second step is to make at least a beginning at "putting the plays up on their feet." To that end we have supplied a series of ten performance-based Lesson Plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing, to considering the symbolic shape of an action, to preliminary training toward full performance and modern adaptation. While these Lesson Plans are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous [http://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-set-free Folger Shakespeare Set Free teaching manuals], namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology.<br />
<br />
===[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama|''Verba et Res''/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 ======<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
[[File:Monreale, Christ the Creator.JPG|thumb|''Christo Pantocratore''. Monreale Cathedral, Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|800x800px]]<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_1:_Playing_around_with_medieval_language Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_2:_The_twenty_props_you_need_to_put_on_any_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_3:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history Lesson Plan 3: Typology, or medieval living history]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_4:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history_and_tableau_vivant Lesson Plan 4: Typology, or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'']''<nowiki/>''<br />
<br />
===[[Setting_the_Medieval_Stage |Setting the Medieval Stage]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 5 through 7 ======<br />
<br />
The spaces of medieval drama were various, labile, and indeed often mobile. The York Biblical cycle plays processed annually on pageant carts into and about the city to stop at York Minster and end on the market Pavement; small travelling companies acted other plays, performing in open spaces, inn yards, or great houses. Later, as plays retreated into manuscript, they might have been brought out for occasional declamation. Plays of such sharp moment and open engagement could, in theory, take place anywhere on this middle earth. As Peter Brook famously began his 1968 classic, ''The Empty Space'', “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and that is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged,” and modern revivals of medieval plays have utilized halls, cloisters, hillsides, city plazas and streetscapes, as well as more formal stages. These three Lesson Plans encourage you to find a suitable space for your play exercises, from a classroom with the desks pushed back to the more formal stage to the outdoor green space which might draw in community passers-by. Then we offer you a selection of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers |monologues]] for actors and especially powerful [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes |scenes]] to help develop the craft of your ensemble. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_5:_Stages_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 5: Stages for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_6:_Filling_the_space._Medieval_monologues_and_the_power_of_words Lesson Plan 6: Filling the space. Medieval monologues and the power of words]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_7:_Creating_and_inhabiting_the_space._Scenes_from_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 7: Creating and inhabiting the space. Scenes from medieval drama]<br />
<br />
=== [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]] ===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 8 through 10 ======<br />
<br />
Medieval drama engaged and hoped to transform its audiences with its biting and cathartic humor, its pointed social observation, its religiously inflected heights and depths, and its joy, and it forged community in its gatherings. <br />
[[File:Barbers' Baptism 147274.jpg|thumb|''The Baptism'' from the York Mystery Plays performed from a cart in the streets of York in front of St William's College.|400x400px]]<br />
These are goals to which we can aspire in our teaching, and we can do this with youngsters and oldsters as well as formal students and professionals, and in our street and cities as well as in our classrooms and regular theaters. Some of us are fortunate enough to be theatre professionals, and to do this as the core of our vocation. Others do it more occasionally, or aspire to do something like it in our communities. <br />
<br />
In these final three Lesson Plans we invite you to think hard about the audiences whom you hope to reach in your work, and we offer you the inspiring account of two younger academics from our group who have had the training, creativity, and institutional support to mount entire student productions, in one case for a large public university Honors College seminar filled with STEM students, and in another at a liberal arts college embedded in a large city. <br />
<br />
Finally, we encourage you to take the tradition of street performance of medieval drama and the example of some modern adaptations to think about its transformative potential for pressing modern needs such as increased civic engagement, social justice, and ecological awareness. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_8:_Determining_your_audience_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 8: Determining your audience for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_9:_Performance_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 9: Performance of medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_10:_Adaptations_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 10: Adaptations of medieval drama]<br />
<br />
== Medieval and early English drama, print and on-line editions ==<br />
One may wonder why we do not see more Medieval Theatre productions on the university stage nowadays. Part of the answer may be that for the non-medievalist, and in particular for the performer not versed in medieval drama, approaching this enterprise could be daunting, starting with the selection of the play, where to find it, whether to use Middle English or a modernized, and which edition of text to use. To help streamline this process, and because there is no such a resource readily available for pedagogical purposes, we decided to compile a short list of medieval plays both in print and online editions, as well as modernized and unmodernized, as you will find in this section . <br />
<br />
===Print editions===<br />
<br />
''The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama''. Christina M. Fitzgerald and John T. Sebastian. Broadview, 2012.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama: An Anthology''. Greg Walker. Wiley-Blackwell, 2000.<br />
<br />
''Three Late Medieval Morality Plays''. G.A. Lester. New Mermaids, 2002. <br />
<br />
''York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling''. Richard Beadle and Pamela King. Oxford University Press, 2009<br />
<br />
''Early English Drama: An Anthology''. John C. Coldewey. Routledge, 1993.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama''. David Bevington. Hackett, 1975. <br />
<br />
The ''Arden Early English Drama'' series of texts from the late fifteenth to the late seventeenth centuries currently includes ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
===On-line editions===<br />
<br />
Online editions vary considerably in quality. Below are some that we have found to be well edited for both scholarly and pedagogical purposes. <br><br />
[[File:V.a.354 98v-99r.jpg|thumb|522x522px|Medieval plays were first preserved in manuscripts like this unique copy of the morality play ''Wisdom'' (c. 1460-63), preserved in the Macro plays at the Folger Shakespeare Library.|left]]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
==== Modernized ====<br />
<br />
:[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html#tab The N-town Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag The York Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/the-towneley-cycle-of-plays/ The Towneley Plays]<br />
<br><br />
====Unmodernized====<br />
<br />
:The TEAMS Middle English Text Series: <br />
http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== <br>Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers ==<br />
[[File:019807.jpg|thumb|600x600px|An angel announces the birth of Christ in the 2015-2016 Folger''The Second'' ''Shepherdes' Play'']]<br />
<nowiki> </nowiki><br />
<br />
Choosing a great monologue is a task that confronts actors who are always searching for the best new monologue for their next audition. Audition pieces need to be strong, original, and not overdone. <br />
<br />
Medieval drama provides an exceptional vehicle for exploration and it allows the actor to utilize a variety of acting techniques, genres, and styles while performing. Here are some suggestions for monologues. <br />
<br />
While the casting suggestions given here are gender- and age-normative, directors and actors may want to think about mixing up these conventions for special effect and/or to suit their needs.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br><br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Role<br />
!Gender <br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll (First Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This speech opens the play. Coll complains about the conditions that poor men like himself have to endure and the ways they are abused by rich men. The speech is important in its sympathy for the plight of the medieval working class, and also thematically: after Coll speaks, it is easy to understand why salvation in the form of the baby Jesus is needed to come into the world.<br />
|Lines 1-54<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology.'' Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Gib (Second Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This is the second speech of the play. Gib complains about the difficulties of being married, and how much he regrets it, but it’s too late. This speech is important for its insight into medieval humor (for better or worse, the ‘take my wife, please’ vein of jokes has been mined for a long time); thematically, it establishes that salvation is needed in the world because humans, in particular the sexes, are at odds.<br />
|Lines 55-108<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|The York ''Fall of the Angels''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only this individual pageant but the York cycle as a whole. It sets the scene for both pageant and play, laying out themes that will recur throughout: the nature of God, the nature of creation, the nature of faith, the nature of worship, the consequences of disobedience.<br />
|Lines 1-34<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English] <br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|The York ''Crucifixion''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|This is Jesus’ speech from the cross after the soldiers finally manage to get him stretched and nailed to it.<br />
|Lines 253-264<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens the final pageant of the cycle. It harkens back to the first pageant and reminds the audience of all that happened between then and now, explaining the need for an end to be made and judgement given.<br />
|Lines 1-64<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|In this speech, Jesus addresses the human characters but, of course, also the audience, explaining why the judgement is going down as it does.<br />
|Lines 231-300<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|Chester''The Fall of Lucifer''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only the pageant but the cycle as a whole, laying out its important themes.<br />
|Lines 1-51<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/index.html Modern English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|N-town ''Passion Play 1''<br />
|Satan<br />
|Super-natural<br />
|This speech opens the Passion Play in the N-town manuscript. It is an important example of the ‘boast’ type of speech, common in medieval and early modern drama, where a villain or tyrant tells the audience who he is and that he is up to no good. [Shakespeare’s Richard III’s opening speech is a grandchild of this genre].<br />
|Lines 1-124<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/sugano-the-n-town-plays Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|Digby ''Mary Magdalene''<br />
|Mary Magdalene<br />
|Female<br />
|In this speech, Mary Magdalene preaches about the creation of the world to a heathen king, hoping to persuade him to leave his pagan ways.<br />
|Lines 1481-1526<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes ==<br />
It’s time to get Theatre students excited about performing Medieval drama. <br />
<br />
The question for many is where to begin? How do I find a play? Where do I find a good scene? What edition is the best for performance? We are aware that there is too much and too little out there. And we also noted the need for teachers and students alike to have access to an inventory of scenes and monologues and good editions of plays. So, we have compiled these resources to get you started.<br />
<br />
Also, keep in mind that while in many instances characters are all male, and probably youngish to middle-age, when they are representative/allegorical characters, gender and age may not matter much when casting the roles.<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Roles<br />
!Gender<br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of Scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|New Guise, Nowadays, Nought, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the vices New Guise, Nowadays, and Nought try to tempt Mankind into sin. They fail spectacularly. Instead of recruiting Mankind as a diabolic minion, the devils are beaten up by him. This scene is important for understanding medieval drama because it illustrates physical action as an indispensable component that must be carefully choreographed and rehearsed to avoid injuring any of the actors. It also shows the use of physical comedy in medieval drama.<br />
|Lines 345-401<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|Titivillus, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the devil Titivillus has been called in by the other devils or vices who have failed to tempt Mankind into sin. Titivillus is invisible and inaudible to Mankind; but the audience can see and hear him, and they know Mankind cannot. This last piece is crucial, because Titivillus repeatedly speaks to the audience as if they are on his side, telling them to keep quiet to further his goal of tempting Mankind into sin (when of course they really are quiet because of their role as audience). This scene is one of several in the play that uses the audience’s role as audience to incite them to do bad things, thereby demonstrating that the audience needs redemption as much as does the character Mankind.<br />
|Lines 526-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|''Fulgens and Lucres''<br />
|A<br />
B<br />
|Male<br />
|This scene opens the play. In it, A and B interact with the audience and with each other, all the while claiming that they are not part of the play, but there will be a play and they’re anxious to see it. B explains to A what the play will be about.<br />
The scene is important because it demonstrates the fluid, meta-theatrical relationship between audience and play in early English theatre.<br />
|Lines 1 - 201<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|''Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham'' (scene 1)<br />
|Sheriff,<br />
Knight, <br />
<br />
and Robin Hood<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the Knight offers to capture Robin Hood for the Sheriff, who agrees to pay the Knight if he is successful. The Knight finds Robin Hood and engages with him in a series of tests of strength and skill. At last they fight. Robin Hood wins, kills the Knight, and declares that he will dress himself in the Knight’s clothes and take his head to the Sheriff to claim the reward for ‘killing’ Robin Hood.<br />
This scene is useful in the classroom for several reasons. It is one of a very few surviving pieces of secular medieval English drama. It also provides an opportunity to demonstrate the challenges presented by the extant texts. There are few stage directions in early drama; but as this scene makes clear, it is crucial to puzzle out the action. Most of this scene is, in fact, action. How long would the scene run? That’s entirely dependent upon how a performance decides to handle the action. The contests could be quick, or they could be elaborate.<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/16EWuJ02hFOhUxADG1zF-nk-TdzPa-0q8/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S6PFlgKa_tQBL9lwX76GlXbuv6KKj5Fa/view?usp=sharing Regularized Spelling]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/robyn-hod-and-the-shryff-off-notyngham Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll,<br />
<br />
Gib,<br />
<br />
Daw,<br />
<br />
Mak,<br />
<br />
Gyll<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
Female<br />
|In this scene, the shepherds (Coll, Gib, and Daw) come to Mak and Gyll’s house, looking for their stolen sheep. Mak has indeed stolen the sheep and has persuaded his wife Gyll to help him hide it by putting it in their cradle and pretending it is their newborn baby.<br />
The scene importantly demonstrates how medieval drama employs humor for thematic goals. For example, Mak swears to the shepherds that if he stole the sheep, the ‘baby’ will be the first meal he eats that day. It’s a funny line, for the audience knows the ‘baby’ is actually a sheep that Mak has every intention of eating. But discussion of eating the sheep/baby also underscores the nativity theme of the play, which celebrates the birth of a baby, Jesus, who is also a “lamb” who will be eaten (in the form of communion) for the benefit of humans. The parodic profane nativity highlights the sacred nativity.<br />
|Lines 476-628<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|''The Castle of Perseverance''<br />
|Mercy,<br />
<br />
Justice,<br />
<br />
Truth,<br />
<br />
Peace,<br />
<br />
God<br />
<br />
|Eternal<br />
|Humanum Genus, the play’s Mankind figure, has behaved wickedly most of his life. But as he is dying, he realizes his wickedness. His very last word is “Mercy,” begging God to save him from hell. In this scene, Justice and Truth argue before God why Humanum Genus should be damned. Peace and Mercy give their reasons why he should be saved. The scene resembles a modern courtroom drama, with Truth and Justice as the prosecuting attorneys, Mercy and Peace acting for the defense, and God the Judge listening to all sides before giving his verdict.<br />
All characters are female except God, who is male. All are eternal figures.<br />
|Lines 3129-3544<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/cascomp.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/klausner-castle-of-perseverance Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|''Brome Abraham and Isaac''<br />
|Abraham,<br />
<br />
Isaac,<br />
<br />
the Angel<br />
|Male<br />
|Abraham is old. Isaac is a child. The Angel is ageless.<br />
Abraham has been ordered by God to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Naturally, Abraham is reluctant to kill his child, but he also wants to be obedient to God. In this scene, we see Abraham’s struggle. We also see medieval drama’s typological understanding of the sacrifice of Isaac as foreshadowing the sacrifice of Jesus.<br />
|Lines 290-332<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/noa/pdf/13BromePlay_1_12.pdf Modern (lightly) English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/AJD3529.0001.001/1:4.6?rgn=div2;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|''Johan Johan''<br />
|Tib the Wife,<br />
John the Husband, and Johan Johan the priest<br />
|Female<br />
<br />
Male<br />
|Tib is female and young adult. John the Husband is male and adult, perhaps a bit older than Tib, but theirs is not necessarily a May/December marriage. Johan Johan is male and adult.<br />
The priest has been carrying on with several women in the area, including Tib. Tib and the priest laugh at the husband’s thickheadness in not realizing their liaison.. But John the Husband begins to get suspicious. This scene is particularly rich in physical comedy, as the husband is chafing wax from a candle to mend a leaky pail, with obvious masturbatory overtones--i.e,, the priest is getting real sex, the husband has to make do on his own.<br />
|Lines 439-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?id=h0U4AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA67#v=onepage&q&f=false Text]<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|''Wisdom''<br />
|Lucifer,<br />
<br />
Mind,<br />
<br />
Will,<br />
<br />
Understanding<br />
|Allegorical<br />
|Lucifer explains to the audience that he is going to tempt the good guys, does so, and then brags about it.<br />
|Lines 325-55<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Some Productions of Medieval Plays, Online ==<br />
You can access an extensive [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5cWcydg0JFis9914C0KX7iz59jwg6-xV# YouTube playlist of medieval drama] online. Additionally, here is a resource list for some titles:<br />
<br />
=== ''Everyman'' ===<br />
You can find digital versions of various productions online, including a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkM8v0m3URg# 2012 ''Everyman''] production at the Portland Community College Performing Arts Center which utilized large-scale puppets and a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvZFBZB10LA# 2016 ''Everyman''] production by the Laurier Historical Society at Wilfrid Laurier University. The play has been adapted as a commercial film twice in recent years in modernized (2002) and period (2007) productions.<br />
<br />
=== ''Mankind'' ===<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4acAjs2TGa8# 1999 ''Mankind''] staging by Duquesne University Medieval and Renaissance Players. <br />
<br />
University students staged an improvisatory modernized production of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsTyvD8E9Mk# ''Mankind''] as a final course project in 2016.<br />
<br />
=== Biblical cycle plays and passion plays ===<br />
The Blackhills Passion plays were performed in Spearfish, South Dakota from 1939 to 2008, and at their winter home in Lake Wales, Florida from 1953 to 1999.<br />
<br />
The Mormon Hill Cumorah biblical pageant in Palmyra, New York has been performed since 1935: http://www.hillcumorah.org/ <br />
<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn0pcYONuxc# 2013 Chester Noah] play performed by the Liverpool University Players.<br />
<br />
The Chester Mystery plays were performed in a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRthPA2nJyw# 2008 modernized musical version].<br />
<br />
The Oberammergau Passion Play has been performed continuously in that Bavarian village since 1634. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KeVtnndSsc# The trailer for the 2020 production]. <br />
<br />
The Towneley Second Shepherds’ Play has long been a favorite Christmas holiday production, and was recently revived at the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RomR1sxDlus# Folger Theater] in 2016. <br />
<br />
[https://muse.jhu.edu/article/34991# Yiimimangaliso: The Mysteries], a version of the Chester mysteries, was staged in South Africa and London in 2001 and has been revived since. <br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, England: Videos from recent York mystery plays are available on-line at several sites. See, for example, [http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/york-mystery-plays-1973# York Mystery Plays 1973], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nyFLOlEupM# York Mystery Plays 2010], and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_IE4izf_6c# York Mystery Plays 2016].<br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, Toronto: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIImNnV1Ty0# 2010 “Crucifixion”].<br />
<br />
The [http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/front-page/# Poculi Ludique Societas], or PLS in Toronto, has for over 50 years now sponsored productions of early plays, from the beginnings of medieval drama to as late as the middle of the seventeenth century.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Selected Bibliography ==<br />
Albin, Andrew. “Sonorous Presence, and the Performance of Christian Community in the Chester Shepherds Play.” ''Early Theatre'' 16.2 (2013): 33-57.<br />
<br />
Aronson-Lehavi, Sharon. ''Street Scenes: Late Medieval Acting and Performance''. Palgrave MacmIllan, 2011.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. “The Present of Past Things: The York Corpus Christi Cycle as a Contemporary Theatre of Memory.” ''Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies'' 26.2 (1996): 35-79.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. ''Signifying God: Social Relations and Symbolic Act in the York Corpus Christi Plays''. University of Chicago Press, 2001.<br />
<br />
Bevington, David. ''From “Mankind” to Marlowe: Growth of Structure in the Popular Drama of Tudor England''. Harvard University Press, 1962.<br />
<br />
Butler, Judith. ''Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative''. Routledge, 1997.<br />
<br />
Carlson, Marvin. “Medieval Street Performers Speak.” ''TDR:The Drama Review'', 57.4 (2013): 86-94.<br />
<br />
Chaganti, Seeta. “The Platea: Pre- and Postmodern: A Landscape of Medieval Performance Studies.” ''Exemplaria'' 25.3 (2013): 252-64.<br />
<br />
Clopper, Lawrence. ''Drama, Play, and Game: English Festive Culture in the Medieval and Early Modern Period''. Chicago, 2001.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “The Chester Cycle in Sixteenth-Century Religious Culture," ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 37.3 (2007): 532-47.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. ''Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints: Theater, Gender, and Religion in Late Medieval England''. University of Pennsylvania, 2004.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Biblical Drama in Post-Apartheid South Africa: The Chester Plays in Afterlife.” ''Transformations in Biblical Literary Traditions: Incarnation, Narrative,'' ''and Ethics''. Eds. D.H. Williams and Philip Donnelly, Notre Dame University Press, 2014. 268-88.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Drama: 1191-1952.” ''Exemplaria'' 28.3 (2016): 264-76.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Reading REED: History and the Records of Early English Drama.” ''Literary Practice and Social Change in Britain, 1380-1530''. Ed. Lee Patterson, University of California Press, 1990. 248-84.<br />
<br />
Davidson, Clifford, ed. ''Gesture in Medieval Drama and Art''. Medieval Institute, 2001.<br />
<br />
Elliott, John R., Jr. ''Playing God: Medieval Mysteries on the Modern Stage''. University of Toronto Press, 1989.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard. “Dramatic History: On the Diachronic and Synchronic in the Study of Early English Drama.” ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 35:1 (2005): 39-66.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard K. “’Nowe Ys Common This Daye’: Enoch and Elias, Antichrist, and the Structure of the Chester Cycle.” ''Homo, Memento Finis: The Iconography of Just'' ''Judgment in Medieval Art and Drama''. Ed. David Bevington, et. al. Medieval Institute, 1985. 221-57.<br />
<br />
Enders, Jody. ''The Medieval Theater of Cruelty: Rhetoric, Memory, Violence.'' Cornell University Press, 2002.<br />
<br />
Gardiner, Harold. ''Mysteries’ End: An Investigation of the Last Days of the Medieval Religious Stage.'' Yale University Press, 1946.<br />
<br />
Hardison, O.B., Jr. ''Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages: Essays in the Origin and Early History of Modern Drama''. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965.<br />
<br />
Holsinger, Bruce. “Analytical Survey 6: Medieval Literature and Cultures of Performance.” ''New Medieval Literatures'' 6 (2003): 271-311.<br />
<br />
James, Mervyn. “Ritual, Drama, and Social Body in the Late Medieval Town.” ''Past & Present'' 98 (1983):3-29.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela, ed. ''The Routledge Research Companion to Early Drama and Performance.'' Routledge, 2017.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela. ''The York Mystery Cycle and the Worship of the City''. D.S. Breer, 2006.<br />
<br />
Kolve, V.A. ''The Play Called Corpus Christi.'' Stanford University Press, 1966.<br />
<br />
Lerud, Theodore. ''Memory, Images, and the English Corpus Christi Drama''. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Gender and Medieval Drama.'' D.S. Brewer, 2004.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Modern Mysteries: Contemporary Productions of Medieval English Dramas.'' D.S. Brewer, 2007. <br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Medieval English Drama: Performance and Spectatorship.'' Polity Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Parker, Andrew, and Eve Kosofsky Sedwick, eds. ''Performativity and Performance.'' Routledge,1995.<br />
<br />
Ong, Walter. ''Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word.'' Methuen, 1982.<br />
<br />
Overlie, Mary. ''Standing in Space: The Six Viewpoints Theory and Practice''. Fallon Press, 2016.<br />
<br />
Rogerson, Margaret. ''Playing a Part in History: The York Mysteries, 1951-2006''. University of Toronto Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Sergi, Matthew. Work-in-progress on ''Play Texts and Public Practice in the Chester Cycle,'' c.1421-1607.<br />
<br />
Schreyer, Kurt. ''Shakespeare’s Medieval Craft: Memories of the Mysteries on the London Stage.'' Cornell University Press, 2014.<br />
<br />
Soleo-Shanks, Jenna. “Resurrecting Callimachus: Pop Music Puppets, and the Necessity of Performance in Teaching Medieval Drama." ''Teaching Medieval and Early Modern'' ''Cross-Cultural Encounters''. Eds. Karina F. Attar and Lynn Shutters, Palgrave Macmillan 2014. 199-213.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. “The Culture of the Spectator.” ''Theater Journal'' 34 (1992): 15-29.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. ''Ritual Imports: Performing Medieval Drama in America'', Cornell University Press, 2005.<br />
<br />
Stevens, Martin. ''Four Middle English Mystery Cycles.'' Princeton University Press, 1987.<br />
<br />
Stevenson, Jill. ''Performance, Cognitive Theory, and Devotional Culture: Sensual Piety in Late Medieval York.'' Palgrave MacMillan, 2010.<br />
<br />
Travis, Peter W. ''Dramatic Design in the Chester Cycle''. University of Chicago Press, 1982.<br />
<br />
Turner, Victor. ''From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play''. PAJ Books, 1982<br />
<br />
Westfall, Suzanne R. ''Patrons and Performance: Early Tudor Household Revels''. Clarendon Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
Continue on to ''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|Verba et Res]]''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]: Lesson Plans 1 through 4.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
'''Page written by'''<br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler | Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy&diff=28442Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy2018-03-25T16:15:06Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>''This article is under construction''<br />
<br />
This article - conceived and written by Barbara J. Bono, Maria S. Horne, and Michelle Markey Butler - is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance.<br />
<br />
==Introduction==<br />
<br />
===Medieval drama truly comes alive in performance.=== <br />
This is, of course, a statement true of all works in the dramatic genre. However, it is especially true of medieval drama, which frequently addressed in embodied form large and ultimate questions about humanity's place in creation and the scheme of history, and did so in direct and explicit relation to its audiences, with extraordinary emotive and affective range from the obscene to the exalted. <br />
[[File:028728.jpg|thumb|left|Miss Edith Wynne Matthison in the role of Everyman (c. 1902)|504x504px]]<br />
<br />
Medieval drama is integrated into the curriculum for theatre majors at most universities in the United States. However, there, rather than being part of acting technique or performance-based courses, or of staged productions, the subject is most often studied only very briefly in lecture courses like Theatre History. Meanwhile, in departments of literature, medieval drama is sometimes included as a topic in a broader medieval or British literature class or as a minor prequel to the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, but it is seldom given much time or attention, and its performative nature is largely neglected.<br />
<br />
But we would argue that medieval drama is accessible, exciting, adaptable, and inspirational to interested communities of all ages and abilities - from lower grade levels to highly-trained practitioners - for drama itself is the ideal synesthetic and interdisciplinary vehicle for community formation and differential learning. There is also contemporaneity in medieval drama: humor, music, and fun, as well as metaphor, allegories, and subtexts which speak to who we are today. And while the task of accessing this excitement may seem daunting, in this article we have put together a set of resources - combining language, action, and spectacle - to get you started.<br />
<br />
The first step in bridging the gap between performance and literary study is alerting students and teachers to the new wealth of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Medieval_and_early_English_drama.2C_print_and_on-line_editions|readily-available textual and general scholarly resources]] for these plays, which reach far beyond the frequently anthologized ''Everyman'' or the de-contextualized bit of a biblical cycle play.<br />
<br />
==Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre==<br />
<br />
The second step is to make at least a beginning at "putting the plays up on their feet." To that end we have supplied a series of ten performance-based Lesson Plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing, to considering the symbolic shape of an action, to preliminary training toward full performance and modern adaptation. While these Lesson Plans are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous [http://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-set-free Folger Shakespeare Set Free teaching manuals], namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology.<br />
<br />
===[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama|''Verba et Res''/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 ======<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
[[File:Monreale, Christ the Creator.JPG|thumb|''Christo Pantocratore''. Monreale Cathedral, Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|800x800px]]<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_1:_Playing_around_with_medieval_language Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_2:_The_twenty_props_you_need_to_put_on_any_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_3:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history Lesson Plan 3: Typology, or medieval living history]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_4:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history_and_tableau_vivant Lesson Plan 4: Typology, or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'']''<nowiki/>''<br />
<br />
===[[Setting_the_Medieval_Stage |Setting the Medieval Stage]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 5 through 7 ======<br />
<br />
The spaces of medieval drama were various, labile, and indeed often mobile. The York Biblical cycle plays processed annually on pageant carts into and about the city to stop at York Minster and end on the market Pavement; small travelling companies acted other plays, performing in open spaces, inn yards, or great houses. Later, as plays retreated into manuscript, they might have been brought out for occasional declamation. Plays of such sharp moment and open engagement could, in theory, take place anywhere on this middle earth. As Peter Brook famously began his 1968 classic, ''The Empty Space'', “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and that is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged,” and modern revivals of medieval plays have utilized halls, cloisters, hillsides, city plazas and streetscapes, as well as more formal stages. These three Lesson Plans encourage you to find a suitable space for your play exercises, from a classroom with the desks pushed back to the more formal stage to the outdoor green space which might draw in community passers-by. Then we offer you a selection of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers |monologues]] for actors and especially powerful [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes |scenes]] to help develop the craft of your ensemble. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_5:_Stages_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 5: Stages for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_6:_Filling_the_space._Medieval_monologues_and_the_power_of_words Lesson Plan 6: Filling the space. Medieval monologues and the power of words]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_7:_Creating_and_inhabiting_the_space._Scenes_from_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 7: Creating and inhabiting the space. Scenes from medieval drama]<br />
<br />
=== [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]] ===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 8 through 10 ======<br />
<br />
Medieval drama engaged and hoped to transform its audiences with its biting and cathartic humor, its pointed social observation, its religiously inflected heights and depths, and its joy, and it forged community in its gatherings. <br />
[[File:Barbers' Baptism 147274.jpg|thumb|''The Baptism'' from the York Mystery Plays performed from a cart in the streets of York in front of St William's College.|400x400px]]<br />
These are goals to which we can aspire in our teaching, and we can do this with youngsters and oldsters as well as formal students and professionals, and in our street and cities as well as in our classrooms and regular theaters. Some of us are fortunate enough to be theatre professionals, and to do this as the core of our vocation. Others do it more occasionally, or aspire to do something like it in our communities. <br />
<br />
In these final three Lesson Plans we invite you to think hard about the audiences whom you hope to reach in your work, and we offer you the inspiring account of two younger academics from our group who have had the training, creativity, and institutional support to mount entire student productions, in one case for a large public university Honors College seminar filled with STEM students, and in another at a liberal arts college embedded in a large city. <br />
<br />
Finally, we encourage you to take the tradition of street performance of medieval drama and the example of some modern adaptations to think about its transformative potential for pressing modern needs such as increased civic engagement, social justice, and ecological awareness. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_8:_Determining_your_audience_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 8: Determining your audience for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_9:_Performance_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 9: Performance of medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_10:_Adaptations_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 10: Adaptations of medieval drama]<br />
<br />
== Medieval and early English drama, print and on-line editions ==<br />
One may wonder why we do not see more Medieval Theatre productions on the university stage nowadays. Part of the answer may be that for the non-medievalist, and in particular for the performer not versed in medieval drama, approaching this enterprise could be daunting, starting with the selection of the play, where to find it, whether to use Middle English or a modernized, and which edition of text to use. To help streamline this process, and because there is no such a resource readily available for pedagogical purposes, we decided to compile a short list of medieval plays both in print and online editions, as well as modernized and unmodernized, as you will find in this section . <br />
<br />
===Print editions===<br />
<br />
''The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama''. Christina M. Fitzgerald and John T. Sebastian. Broadview, 2012.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama: An Anthology''. Greg Walker. Wiley-Blackwell, 2000.<br />
<br />
''Three Late Medieval Morality Plays''. G.A. Lester. New Mermaids, 2002. <br />
<br />
''York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling''. Richard Beadle and Pamela King. Oxford University Press, 2009<br />
<br />
''Early English Drama: An Anthology''. John C. Coldewey. Routledge, 1993.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama''. David Bevington. Hackett, 1975. <br />
<br />
The ''Arden Early English Drama'' series of texts from the late fifteenth to the late seventeenth centuries currently includes ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
===On-line editions===<br />
<br />
Online editions vary considerably in quality. Below are some that we have found to be well edited for both scholarly and pedagogical purposes. <br><br />
[[File:V.a.354 98v-99r.jpg|thumb|522x522px|Medieval plays were first preserved in manuscripts like this unique copy of the morality play ''Wisdom'' (c. 1460-63), preserved in the Macro plays at the Folger Shakespeare Library.|left]]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
==== Modernized ====<br />
<br />
:[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html#tab The N-town Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag The York Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/the-towneley-cycle-of-plays/ The Towneley Plays]<br />
<br><br />
====Unmodernized====<br />
<br />
:The TEAMS Middle English Text Series: <br />
http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== <br>Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers ==<br />
[[File:019807.jpg|thumb|600x600px|An angel announces the birth of Christ in the 2015-2016 Folger''The Second'' ''Shepherdes' Play'']]<br />
<nowiki> </nowiki><br />
<br />
Choosing a great monologue is a task that confronts actors who are always searching for the best new monologue for their next audition. Audition pieces need to be strong, original, and not overdone. <br />
<br />
Medieval drama provides an exceptional vehicle for exploration and it allows the actor to utilize a variety of acting techniques, genres, and styles while performing. Here are some suggestions for monologues. <br />
<br />
While the casting suggestions given here are gender- and age-normative, directors and actors may want to think about mixing up these conventions for special effect and/or to suit their needs.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br><br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Role<br />
!Gender <br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll (First Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This speech opens the play. Coll complains about the conditions that poor men like himself have to endure and the ways they are abused by rich men. The speech is important in its sympathy for the plight of the medieval working class, and also thematically: after Coll speaks, it is easy to understand why salvation in the form of the baby Jesus is needed to come into the world.<br />
|Lines 1-54<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology.'' Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Gib (Second Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This is the second speech of the play. Gib complains about the difficulties of being married, and how much he regrets it, but it’s too late. This speech is important for its insight into medieval humor (for better or worse, the ‘take my wife, please’ vein of jokes has been mined for a long time); thematically, it establishes that salvation is needed in the world because humans, in particular the sexes, are at odds.<br />
|Lines 55-108<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|The York ''Fall of the Angels''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only this individual pageant but the York cycle as a whole. It sets the scene for both pageant and play, laying out themes that will recur throughout: the nature of God, the nature of creation, the nature of faith, the nature of worship, the consequences of disobedience.<br />
|Lines 1-34<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English] <br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|The York ''Crucifixion''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|This is Jesus’ speech from the cross after the soldiers finally manage to get him stretched and nailed to it.<br />
|Lines 253-264<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens the final pageant of the cycle. It harkens back to the first pageant and reminds the audience of all that happened between then and now, explaining the need for an end to be made and judgement given.<br />
|Lines 1-64<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|In this speech, Jesus addresses the human characters but, of course, also the audience, explaining why the judgement is going down as it does.<br />
|Lines 231-300<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|Chester''The Fall of Lucifer''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only the pageant but the cycle as a whole, laying out its important themes.<br />
|Lines 1-51<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/index.html Modern English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|N-town ''Passion Play 1''<br />
|Satan<br />
|Super-natural<br />
|This speech opens the Passion Play in the N-town manuscript. It is an important example of the ‘boast’ type of speech, common in medieval and early modern drama, where a villain or tyrant tells the audience who he is and that he is up to no good. [Shakespeare’s Richard III’s opening speech is a grandchild of this genre].<br />
|Lines 1-124<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/sugano-the-n-town-plays Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|Digby ''Mary Magdalene''<br />
|Mary Magdalene<br />
|Female<br />
|In this speech, Mary Magdalene preaches about the creation of the world to a heathen king, hoping to persuade him to leave his pagan ways.<br />
|Lines 1481-1526<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes ==<br />
It’s time to get Theatre students excited about performing Medieval drama. <br />
<br />
The question for many is where to begin? How do I find a play Where do I find a good scene? What edition is the best for performance? We are aware that there is too much and too little out there. And we also noted the need for teachers and students alike to have access to an inventory of scenes and monologues and good editions of plays. So, we have compiled these resources to get you started.<br />
<br />
Also, keep in mind that while in many instances characters are all male, and probably youngish to middle-age, when they are representative/allegorical characters, gender and age may not matter much when casting the roles.<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Roles<br />
!Gender<br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of Scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|New Guise, Nowadays, Nought, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the vices New Guise, Nowadays, and Nought try to tempt Mankind into sin. They fail spectacularly. Instead of recruiting Mankind as a diabolic minion, the devils are beaten up by him. This scene is important for understanding medieval drama because it illustrates physical action as an indispensable component that must be carefully choreographed and rehearsed to avoid injuring any of the actors. It also shows the use of physical comedy in medieval drama.<br />
|Lines 345-401<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|Titivillus, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the devil Titivillus has been called in by the other devils or vices who have failed to tempt Mankind into sin. Titivillus is invisible and inaudible to Mankind; but the audience can see and hear him, and they know Mankind cannot. This last piece is crucial, because Titivillus repeatedly speaks to the audience as if they are on his side, telling them to keep quiet to further his goal of tempting Mankind into sin (when of course they really are quiet because of their role as audience). This scene is one of several in the play that uses the audience’s role as audience to incite them to do bad things, thereby demonstrating that the audience needs redemption as much as does the character Mankind.<br />
|Lines 526-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|''Fulgens and Lucres''<br />
|A<br />
B<br />
|Male<br />
|This scene opens the play. In it, A and B interact with the audience and with each other, all the while claiming that they are not part of the play, but there will be a play and they’re anxious to see it. B explains to A what the play will be about.<br />
The scene is important because it demonstrates the fluid, meta-theatrical relationship between audience and play in early English theatre.<br />
|Lines 1 - 201<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|''Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham'' (scene 1)<br />
|Sheriff,<br />
Knight, <br />
<br />
and Robin Hood<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the Knight offers to capture Robin Hood for the Sheriff, who agrees to pay the Knight if he is successful. The Knight finds Robin Hood and engages with him in a series of tests of strength and skill. At last they fight. Robin Hood wins, kills the Knight, and declares that he will dress himself in the Knight’s clothes and take his head to the Sheriff to claim the reward for ‘killing’ Robin Hood.<br />
This scene is useful in the classroom for several reasons. It is one of a very few surviving pieces of secular medieval English drama. It also provides an opportunity to demonstrate the challenges presented by the extant texts. There are few stage directions in early drama; but as this scene makes clear, it is crucial to puzzle out the action. Most of this scene is, in fact, action. How long would the scene run? That’s entirely dependent upon how a performance decides to handle the action. The contests could be quick, or they could be elaborate.<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/16EWuJ02hFOhUxADG1zF-nk-TdzPa-0q8/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S6PFlgKa_tQBL9lwX76GlXbuv6KKj5Fa/view?usp=sharing Regularized Spelling]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/robyn-hod-and-the-shryff-off-notyngham Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll,<br />
<br />
Gib,<br />
<br />
Daw,<br />
<br />
Mak,<br />
<br />
Gyll<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
Female<br />
|In this scene, the shepherds (Coll, Gib, and Daw) come to Mak and Gyll’s house, looking for their stolen sheep. Mak has indeed stolen the sheep and has persuaded his wife Gyll to help him hide it by putting it in their cradle and pretending it is their newborn baby.<br />
The scene importantly demonstrates how medieval drama employs humor for thematic goals. For example, Mak swears to the shepherds that if he stole the sheep, the ‘baby’ will be the first meal he eats that day. It’s a funny line, for the audience knows the ‘baby’ is actually a sheep that Mak has every intention of eating. But discussion of eating the sheep/baby also underscores the nativity theme of the play, which celebrates the birth of a baby, Jesus, who is also a “lamb” who will be eaten (in the form of communion) for the benefit of humans. The parodic profane nativity highlights the sacred nativity.<br />
|Lines 476-628<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|''The Castle of Perseverance''<br />
|Mercy,<br />
<br />
Justice,<br />
<br />
Truth,<br />
<br />
Peace,<br />
<br />
God<br />
<br />
|Eternal<br />
|Humanum Genus, the play’s Mankind figure, has behaved wickedly most of his life. But as he is dying, he realizes his wickedness. His very last word is “Mercy,” begging God to save him from hell. In this scene, Justice and Truth argue before God why Humanum Genus should be damned. Peace and Mercy give their reasons why he should be saved. The scene resembles a modern courtroom drama, with Truth and Justice as the prosecuting attorneys, Mercy and Peace acting for the defense, and God the Judge listening to all sides before giving his verdict.<br />
All characters are female except God, who is male. All are eternal figures.<br />
|Lines 3129-3544<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/cascomp.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/klausner-castle-of-perseverance Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|''Brome Abraham and Isaac''<br />
|Abraham,<br />
<br />
Isaac,<br />
<br />
the Angel<br />
|Male<br />
|Abraham is old. Isaac is a child. The Angel is ageless.<br />
Abraham has been ordered by God to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Naturally, Abraham is reluctant to kill his child, but he also wants to be obedient to God. In this scene, we see Abraham’s struggle. We also see medieval drama’s typological understanding of the sacrifice of Isaac as foreshadowing the sacrifice of Jesus.<br />
|Lines 290-332<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/noa/pdf/13BromePlay_1_12.pdf Modern (lightly) English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/AJD3529.0001.001/1:4.6?rgn=div2;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|''Johan Johan''<br />
|Tib the Wife,<br />
John the Husband, and Johan Johan the priest<br />
|Female<br />
<br />
Male<br />
|Tib is female and young adult. John the Husband is male and adult, perhaps a bit older than Tib, but theirs is not necessarily a May/December marriage. Johan Johan is male and adult.<br />
The priest has been carrying on with several women in the area, including Tib. Tib and the priest laugh at the husband’s thickheadness in not realizing their liaison.. But John the Husband begins to get suspicious. This scene is particularly rich in physical comedy, as the husband is chafing wax from a candle to mend a leaky pail, with obvious masturbatory overtones--i.e,, the priest is getting real sex, the husband has to make do on his own.<br />
|Lines 439-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?id=h0U4AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA67#v=onepage&q&f=false Text]<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|''Wisdom''<br />
|Lucifer,<br />
<br />
Mind,<br />
<br />
Will,<br />
<br />
Understanding<br />
|Allegorical<br />
|Lucifer explains to the audience that he is going to tempt the good guys, does so, and then brags about it.<br />
|Lines 325-55<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Some Productions of Medieval Plays, Online ==<br />
You can access an extensive [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5cWcydg0JFis9914C0KX7iz59jwg6-xV# YouTube playlist of medieval drama] online. Additionally, here is a resource list for some titles:<br />
<br />
=== ''Everyman'' ===<br />
You can find digital versions of various productions online, including a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkM8v0m3URg# 2012 ''Everyman''] production at the Portland Community College Performing Arts Center which utilized large-scale puppets and a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvZFBZB10LA# 2016 ''Everyman''] production by the Laurier Historical Society at Wilfrid Laurier University. The play has been adapted as a commercial film twice in recent years in modernized (2002) and period (2007) productions.<br />
<br />
=== ''Mankind'' ===<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4acAjs2TGa8# 1999 ''Mankind''] staging by Duquesne University Medieval and Renaissance Players. <br />
<br />
University students staged an improvisatory modernized production of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsTyvD8E9Mk# ''Mankind''] as a final course project in 2016.<br />
<br />
=== Biblical cycle plays and passion plays ===<br />
The Blackhills Passion plays were performed in Spearfish, South Dakota from 1939 to 2008, and at their winter home in Lake Wales, Florida from 1953 to 1999.<br />
<br />
The Mormon Hill Cumorah biblical pageant in Palmyra, New York has been performed since 1935: http://www.hillcumorah.org/ <br />
<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn0pcYONuxc# 2013 Chester Noah] play performed by the Liverpool University Players.<br />
<br />
The Chester Mystery plays were performed in a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRthPA2nJyw# 2008 modernized musical version].<br />
<br />
The Oberammergau Passion Play has been performed continuously in that Bavarian village since 1634. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KeVtnndSsc# The trailer for the 2020 production]. <br />
<br />
The Towneley Second Shepherds’ Play has long been a favorite Christmas holiday production, and was recently revived at the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RomR1sxDlus# Folger Theater] in 2016. <br />
<br />
[https://muse.jhu.edu/article/34991# Yiimimangaliso: The Mysteries], a version of the Chester mysteries, was staged in South Africa and London in 2001 and has been revived since. <br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, England: Videos from recent York mystery plays are available on-line at several sites. See, for example, [http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/york-mystery-plays-1973# York Mystery Plays 1973], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nyFLOlEupM# York Mystery Plays 2010], and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_IE4izf_6c# York Mystery Plays 2016].<br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, Toronto: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIImNnV1Ty0# 2010 “Crucifixion”].<br />
<br />
The [http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/front-page/# Poculi Ludique Societas], or PLS in Toronto, has for over 50 years now sponsored productions of early plays, from the beginnings of medieval drama to as late as the middle of the seventeenth century.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Selected Bibliography ==<br />
Albin, Andrew. “Sonorous Presence, and the Performance of Christian Community in the Chester Shepherds Play.” ''Early Theatre'' 16.2 (2013): 33-57.<br />
<br />
Aronson-Lehavi, Sharon. ''Street Scenes: Late Medieval Acting and Performance''. Palgrave MacmIllan, 2011.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. “The Present of Past Things: The York Corpus Christi Cycle as a Contemporary Theatre of Memory.” ''Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies'' 26.2 (1996): 35-79.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. ''Signifying God: Social Relations and Symbolic Act in the York Corpus Christi Plays''. University of Chicago Press, 2001.<br />
<br />
Bevington, David. ''From “Mankind” to Marlowe: Growth of Structure in the Popular Drama of Tudor England''. Harvard University Press, 1962.<br />
<br />
Butler, Judith. ''Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative''. Routledge, 1997.<br />
<br />
Carlson, Marvin. “Medieval Street Performers Speak.” ''TDR:The Drama Review'', 57.4 (2013): 86-94.<br />
<br />
Chaganti, Seeta. “The Platea: Pre- and Postmodern: A Landscape of Medieval Performance Studies.” ''Exemplaria'' 25.3 (2013): 252-64.<br />
<br />
Clopper, Lawrence. ''Drama, Play, and Game: English Festive Culture in the Medieval and Early Modern Period''. Chicago, 2001.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “The Chester Cycle in Sixteenth-Century Religious Culture," ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 37.3 (2007): 532-47.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. ''Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints: Theater, Gender, and Religion in Late Medieval England''. University of Pennsylvania, 2004.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Biblical Drama in Post-Apartheid South Africa: The Chester Plays in Afterlife.” ''Transformations in Biblical Literary Traditions: Incarnation, Narrative,'' ''and Ethics''. Eds. D.H. Williams and Philip Donnelly, Notre Dame University Press, 2014. 268-88.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Drama: 1191-1952.” ''Exemplaria'' 28.3 (2016): 264-76.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Reading REED: History and the Records of Early English Drama.” ''Literary Practice and Social Change in Britain, 1380-1530''. Ed. Lee Patterson, University of California Press, 1990. 248-84.<br />
<br />
Davidson, Clifford, ed. ''Gesture in Medieval Drama and Art''. Medieval Institute, 2001.<br />
<br />
Elliott, John R., Jr. ''Playing God: Medieval Mysteries on the Modern Stage''. University of Toronto Press, 1989.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard. “Dramatic History: On the Diachronic and Synchronic in the Study of Early English Drama.” ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 35:1 (2005): 39-66.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard K. “’Nowe Ys Common This Daye’: Enoch and Elias, Antichrist, and the Structure of the Chester Cycle.” ''Homo, Memento Finis: The Iconography of Just'' ''Judgment in Medieval Art and Drama''. Ed. David Bevington, et. al. Medieval Institute, 1985. 221-57.<br />
<br />
Enders, Jody. ''The Medieval Theater of Cruelty: Rhetoric, Memory, Violence.'' Cornell University Press, 2002.<br />
<br />
Gardiner, Harold. ''Mysteries’ End: An Investigation of the Last Days of the Medieval Religious Stage.'' Yale University Press, 1946.<br />
<br />
Hardison, O.B., Jr. ''Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages: Essays in the Origin and Early History of Modern Drama''. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965.<br />
<br />
Holsinger, Bruce. “Analytical Survey 6: Medieval Literature and Cultures of Performance.” ''New Medieval Literatures'' 6 (2003): 271-311.<br />
<br />
James, Mervyn. “Ritual, Drama, and Social Body in the Late Medieval Town.” ''Past & Present'' 98 (1983):3-29.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela, ed. ''The Routledge Research Companion to Early Drama and Performance.'' Routledge, 2017.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela. ''The York Mystery Cycle and the Worship of the City''. D.S. Breer, 2006.<br />
<br />
Kolve, V.A. ''The Play Called Corpus Christi.'' Stanford University Press, 1966.<br />
<br />
Lerud, Theodore. ''Memory, Images, and the English Corpus Christi Drama''. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Gender and Medieval Drama.'' D.S. Brewer, 2004.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Modern Mysteries: Contemporary Productions of Medieval English Dramas.'' D.S. Brewer, 2007. <br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Medieval English Drama: Performance and Spectatorship.'' Polity Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Parker, Andrew, and Eve Kosofsky Sedwick, eds. ''Performativity and Performance.'' Routledge,1995.<br />
<br />
Ong, Walter. ''Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word.'' Methuen, 1982.<br />
<br />
Overlie, Mary. ''Standing in Space: The Six Viewpoints Theory and Practice''. Fallon Press, 2016.<br />
<br />
Rogerson, Margaret. ''Playing a Part in History: The York Mysteries, 1951-2006''. University of Toronto Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Sergi, Matthew. Work-in-progress on ''Play Texts and Public Practice in the Chester Cycle,'' c.1421-1607.<br />
<br />
Schreyer, Kurt. ''Shakespeare’s Medieval Craft: Memories of the Mysteries on the London Stage.'' Cornell University Press, 2014.<br />
<br />
Soleo-Shanks, Jenna. “Resurrecting Callimachus: Pop Music Puppets, and the Necessity of Performance in Teaching Medieval Drama." ''Teaching Medieval and Early Modern'' ''Cross-Cultural Encounters''. Eds. Karina F. Attar and Lynn Shutters, Palgrave Macmillan 2014. 199-213.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. “The Culture of the Spectator.” ''Theater Journal'' 34 (1992): 15-29.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. ''Ritual Imports: Performing Medieval Drama in America'', Cornell University Press, 2005.<br />
<br />
Stevens, Martin. ''Four Middle English Mystery Cycles.'' Princeton University Press, 1987.<br />
<br />
Stevenson, Jill. ''Performance, Cognitive Theory, and Devotional Culture: Sensual Piety in Late Medieval York.'' Palgrave MacMillan, 2010.<br />
<br />
Travis, Peter W. ''Dramatic Design in the Chester Cycle''. University of Chicago Press, 1982.<br />
<br />
Turner, Victor. ''From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play''. PAJ Books, 1982<br />
<br />
Westfall, Suzanne R. ''Patrons and Performance: Early Tudor Household Revels''. Clarendon Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
Continue on to ''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|Verba et Res]]''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]: Lesson Plans 1 through 4.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
'''Page written by'''<br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler | Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28441Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-25T15:16:30Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|533x533px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|681x681px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|600x600px|left]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page from the 15th century ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary) showing Christ rising from the tomb, prefigured by Samson carrying off the gates of Gaza (left) and Jonah released from the belly of the whale (right)]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px|left]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
<br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|500x500px]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|554x554px]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1,. '''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. '''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century) <br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|545x545px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)|left]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1) <br />
<br />
3. '''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|400x400px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380|left]]<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28440Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-25T15:14:45Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|533x533px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|681x681px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|600x600px|left]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page from the 15th century ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary) showing Christ rising from the tomb, prefigured by Samson carrying off the gates of Gaza (left) and Jonah released from the belly of the whale (right)]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px|left]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
<br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|500x500px]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|left|554x554px]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1,. '''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. '''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century) <br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|545x545px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)|left]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1) <br />
<br />
3. '''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|400x400px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380|left]]<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28439Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-25T15:13:21Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|533x533px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|681x681px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|600x600px|left]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page from the 15th century ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary) showing Christ rising from the tomb, prefigured by Samson carrying off the gates of Gaza (left) and Jonah released from the belly of the whale (right)]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px|left]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
<br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|500x500px]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|left|554x554px]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1,. '''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. '''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century) <br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|614x614px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)|left]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1) <br />
<br />
3. '''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|400x400px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380|left]]<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28438Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-25T15:10:26Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|533x533px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|681x681px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|600x600px|left]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page from the 15th century ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary) showing Christ rising from the tomb, prefigured by Samson carrying off the gates of Gaza (left) and Jonah released from the belly of the whale (right)]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px|left]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
<br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|500x500px]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|left|554x554px]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1.<br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century)<br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|614x614px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)|left]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1)<br />
<br />
3. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|400x400px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380|left]]<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28437Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-25T15:09:16Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|533x533px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|681x681px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|600x600px|left]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page from the 15th century ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary) showing Christ rising from the tomb, prefigured by Samson carrying off the gates of Gaza (left) and Jonah released from the belly of the whale (right)]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px|left]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
<br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|500x500px]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|left|554x554px]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1.<br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century)<br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|614x614px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1)<br />
<br />
3. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|400x400px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380|left]]<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28436Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-25T15:07:28Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|533x533px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|681x681px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|600x600px|left]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page from the 15th century ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary) showing Christ rising from the tomb, prefigured by Samson carrying off the gates of Gaza (left) and Jonah released from the belly of the whale (right)]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
<br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|500x500px]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|left|554x554px]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1.<br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century)<br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|614x614px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1)<br />
<br />
3. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|400x400px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380|left]]<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28435Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-25T15:06:39Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|533x533px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|681x681px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|600x600px|left]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|left|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page from the 15th century ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary) showing Christ rising from the tomb, prefigured by Samson carrying off the gates of Gaza (left) and Jonah released from the belly of the whale (right)]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
<br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|500x500px]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|left|554x554px]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1.<br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century)<br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|614x614px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1)<br />
<br />
3. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|400x400px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380|left]]<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28434Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-25T15:05:36Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|533x533px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|681x681px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|600x600px]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|left|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page from the 15th century ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary) showing Christ rising from the tomb, prefigured by Samson carrying off the gates of Gaza (left) and Jonah released from the belly of the whale (right)]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
<br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|500x500px]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|left|554x554px]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1.<br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century)<br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|614x614px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1)<br />
<br />
3. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|400x400px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380|left]]<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations&diff=28433Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations2018-03-25T13:53:06Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction.<br />
[[File:25.3.16 Chester Passion 002 (25968988741).jpg|thumb|The Chester Mystery Passions, 2016]]<br />
<br />
This article is the third and last of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy, and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance, which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance.<br />
<br />
As the title ''Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations ''suggests, this article focuses on a series of three performance-based lesson plans to help produce and stage medieval drama in your school and community. <br />
Back to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 8 through 10 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
A series of three performance-based Lesson Plans which provide preliminary training toward full performance and modern adaptation in medieval drama.<br />
<br />
Medieval drama engaged and hoped to transform its audiences with its biting and cathartic humor, its pointed social observation, its religiously inflected heights and depths, and its joy, and it forged community in its gatherings. These are goals to which we can aspire in our teaching, and we can do this with youngsters and oldsters as well as formal students and professionals, and in our street and cities as well as in our classrooms and regular theaters. Some of us are fortunate enough to be theatre professionals, and to do this as the core of our vocation. Others do it more occasionally, or aspire to do something like it in our communities. In these final three Lesson Plans we invite you to think hard about the audiences whom you hope to reach in your work, and we offer you the inspiring account of two younger academics from our group who have had the training, creativity, and institutional support to mount entire student productions, in one case for a large public university Honors College seminar filled with STEM students, and in another at a liberal arts college embedded in a large city.Finally, we encourage you to take the tradition of street performance of medieval drama and the example of some modern adaptations to think about its transformative potential for pressing modern needs such as increased civic engagement, social justice, and ecological awareness.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 8: Determining your audience for medieval drama ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Now that you have read, studied, thought about, blocked, and even begun to act and stage a selection of medieval dramas in your class or group, consider whether, when, and how you would like to perform these plays—single scenes, single pageants, or even an entire cycle or full-length play—for an outside audience. Some possibilities include an in-class performance at the end of the unit or the semester, for yourselves or invited outsiders; a performance as part of a student conference or festival; or a community performance. Discuss and plan for whatever resources you are going to need for such a performance, including not just the choice of text and the overall artistic vision of it, but also the budget, space, more extensive costuming, lighting and special effects, outreach, publicity and advertising, etc. This is the moment to call upon all of the different abilities of your group—e.g. students from marketing, engineering and the sciences, activists, etc., etc.—since you will need far more than just literary critics and actors.<br><br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In discussion, divide up student roles for the upcoming production and establish an action plan and calendar for each group.<br><br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Students should be focused and engaged in the task, and within a class session or two have and begin working toward a firm and realistic calendar for production.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 9: Performance of medieval drama ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
<br />
Medieval drama came from the life of its many communities—our records of it are largely civic-based (see REED), and even when it was performed by acting troupes those productions were extraordinarily responsive to the occasional performance conditions they encountered in the streets, in great halls, or in the open air—and there is a long tradition of modern “amateur” performances of medieval drama, some of them still active, and others recorded in modern media such as film and video. <br />
<br />
[[File:Cropped-P1010315.jpg|thumb|700x700px|The Lord Baltimore’s Production of the N-Town “Massacre of the Innocents/ Death of Herod”]]<br />
<br />
Today the fact that virtually everyone now carries a smartphone video camera on their person makes it enticingly possible not just to mount such amateur performances, but to preserve and disseminate them as well.<br><br />
<br />
Furthermore, the many challenges of putting on such a production can attract and employ the skills and talents of many kinds of students—STEM, business and management, media and arts, differentially-educated and prepared, ablest and disabled, etc.—working creatively together. Some of us have mounted such productions in class—from small-scale scene work to full plays or sequences—and some of us aspire to move them out from the classroom to larger audiences as live productions, films, or even renewed civic pageants. For example, one member of our group is part of a community activist organization in a multicultural, religiously-plural city neighborhood which might mount a street festival pageant-wagon style cycle play stressing economic-justice and environmental issues.<br><br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In this section we include a brief description and an attached fuller account of two such college-based performances of full medieval plays, mounted by instructors who had the advantage of having a significant part or virtually all of the semester to develop and put them on. In addition, we include a Syllabus which implies the preparation, stages, and timeline required to mount such performances. We encourage you to follow these examples, all or in part: <br />
<br />
:[https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1kVLF1AUNYgRU91eTZDazBKTkk/view# Syllabus: Fireworks and Trap-Doors: A Hands-On Workshop in Early Theater Production and Special Effects] taught by [[Michelle Butler | Michelle Markey Butler]]. The [https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1kVLF1AUNYgUEVKbDZ2NldCRFE/view# 15-week course calendar ] for the course details scheduled assignments and readings. The course culminated with a full performance of an adaptation of the Tolkien short story “Leaf by Niggle” as a “medieval” play and the N-town “Slaughter of the Innocents. ''Death of Herod'' [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K6u9JHK5zQ&feature=youtu.be# Part 1] and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDklaSiWEJE# Part 2] culminated the Spring 2015 course. Blog posts for both performances can be found at [http://lordbaltimorescompany.umd.edu/# Lord Baltimore’s Company] <br />
<br />
:[https://fordhammedievaldramatists.wordpress.com/engl-4148/# Syllabus: ''Medieval Drama in Performance''] Spring 2017, cross-listed English and Theater interdisciplinary capstone course culminating in full performance of the Chester “Antichrist,” taught by [[Andrew Albin|Andrew Albin.]] For more see: [https://fordhammedievaldramatists.wordpress.com# Fordham Medieval Dramatists].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Many of today’s students hunger for social engagement and efficacy, including in the arts and artistic practice. The example of medieval drama--which arose from the deepest issues and questions of its communities; involved their technical, economic, political, and confessional energies; and drew them all into ritual and symbolic practice and considerations--provides a bridge to such engagement in the twenty-first century. Such efforts can stand near the cherished center—rather than merely the decorative periphery—of educational communities such as high schools and colleges; they can enable and direct restricted communities like prisons and eldercare homes to life-sustaining and creative activity; and they can enliven daily communities such as our neighborhoods and towns. Performance is everywhere; medieval drama channels it in communitarian, significant and transformative directions. That would be a good life lesson proceeding forward from academic “Lessons” such as these.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 10: Adaptations of medieval drama ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Medieval drama is truly world drama--then, when it offered broad narratives of history or allegories of human behavior or natural processes--and now, when it continues to be widely current and adaptable across world cultures. “Creation to Last Judgment” plays—both ones performed as civic cycles, like those from York and Chester, and those compiled in manuscript, like the N-Town and Towneley plays—presumed to treat all of salvation history. Morality plays such as Mankind and The Castle of Perseverance dramatized the struggle for salvation of representative everymen. Saints’ plays centered on exemplary figures of piety or heroism. Derivative forms like Henry Medwall’s ''Nature'', John Skelton’s ''Magnificence'', or the plays of John Bale dealt with problems in natural or moral philosophy or political theory. The sweep and scope of medieval drama is part of its attraction, and it held its traditional forms for hundreds of years, while its revivals and adaptations, from passion plays, to biblical pageants, to stark allegories, to rollicking city comedies, to present-day dramas of truth and reconciliation, have had and continue to have broad appeal. For some of the final exercises in our unit or course, we would like to invite students to explore and to think creatively about some of the current adaptations of the stories, motifs, and scope of medieval drama to the modern world, and perhaps to make their own “world” art. <br><br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Brainstorm with students about what some modern adaptations of medieval plays might look like. To get them going, explain the world-wide endurance of Passion Plays such as those in Oberammergau, Bavaria, and in Catholic countries; tell them about the on-going Mormon extension of biblical drama in Palmyra, New York; have them read Jenna Soleo-Shanks account of a modern feminist re-working of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim’s ''Callimachus''; and show them images and clips from productions such as the late 1990s South African ''Yiimimangaliso: The Mysteries''. Have them speculate about how productions of such socio-political, religious, environmental, and community import might take to the streets or to newer media again as aspects of public art. If time and energy permit, have them attempt a piece of their own such broadly significant art: a song; an original artwork; a children’s book; a short film or play; their own pageant or cycle.<br><br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Students should feel intrigued by the private creative and public extensions of this wide-ranging and traditional art form, and ideally feel impelled to continue to re-cast it in contemporary forms. <br />
<br />
Go to ''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|Verba et Res]]''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]: Lesson Plans 1 through 4.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]].<br />
<br />
'''Page written by'''<br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler | Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations&diff=28432Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations2018-03-25T13:46:10Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction.<br />
[[File:25.3.16 Chester Passion 002 (25968988741).jpg|thumb|The Chester Mystery Passions, 2016]]<br />
<br />
This article is the third and last of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy, and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance, which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance.<br />
<br />
As the title ''Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations ''suggests, this article focuses on a series of three performance-based lesson plans to help produce and stage medieval drama in your school and community. <br />
Back to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 8 through 10 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
A series of three performance-based Lesson Plans which provide preliminary training toward full performance and modern adaptation in medieval drama.<br />
<br />
Medieval drama engaged and hoped to transform its audiences with its biting and cathartic humor, its pointed social observation, its religiously inflected heights and depths, and its joy, and it forged community in its gatherings. These are goals to which we can aspire in our teaching, and we can do this with youngsters and oldsters as well as formal students and professionals, and in our street and cities as well as in our classrooms and regular theaters. Some of us are fortunate enough to be theatre professionals, and to do this as the core of our vocation. Others do it more occasionally, or aspire to do something like it in our communities. In these final three Lesson Plans we invite you to think hard about the audiences whom you hope to reach in your work, and we offer you the inspiring account of two younger academics from our group who have had the training, creativity, and institutional support to mount entire student productions, in one case for a large public university Honors College seminar filled with STEM students, and in another at a liberal arts college embedded in a large city.Finally, we encourage you to take the tradition of street performance of medieval drama and the example of some modern adaptations to think about its transformative potential for pressing modern needs such as increased civic engagement, social justice, and ecological awareness.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 8: Determining your audience for medieval drama ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Now that you have read, studied, thought about, blocked, and even begun to act and stage a selection of medieval dramas in your class or group, consider whether, when, and how you would like to perform these plays—single scenes, single pageants, or even an entire cycle or full-length play—for an outside audience. Some possibilities include an in-class performance at the end of the unit or the semester, for yourselves or invited outsiders; a performance as part of a student conference or festival; or a community performance. Discuss and plan for whatever resources you are going to need for such a performance, including not just the choice of text and the overall artistic vision of it, but also the budget, space, more extensive costuming, lighting and special effects, outreach, publicity and advertising, etc. This is the moment to call upon all of the different abilities of your group—e.g. students from marketing, engineering and the sciences, activists, etc., etc.—since you will need far more than just literary critics and actors.<br><br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In discussion, divide up student roles for the upcoming production and establish an action plan and calendar for each group.<br><br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Students should be focused and engaged in the task, and within a class session or two have and begin working toward a firm and realistic calendar for production.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 9: Performance of medieval drama ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
<br />
Medieval drama came from the life of its many communities—our records of it are largely civic-based (see REED), and even when it was performed by acting troupes those productions were extraordinarily responsive to the occasional performance conditions they encountered in the streets, in great halls, or in the open air—and there is a long tradition of modern “amateur” performances of medieval drama, some of them still active, and others recorded in modern media such as film and video. <br />
<br />
[[File:Cropped-P1010315.jpg|thumb|700x700px|The Lord Baltimore’s Production of the N-Town “Massacre of the Innocents/ Death of Herod”]]<br />
<br />
Today the fact that virtually everyone now carries a smartphone video camera on their person makes it enticingly possible not just to mount such amateur performances, but to preserve and disseminate them as well.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
Furthermore, the many challenges of putting on such a production can attract and employ the skills and talents of many kinds of students—STEM, business and management, media and arts, differentially-educated and prepared, ablest and disabled, etc.—working creatively together. Some of us have mounted such productions in class—from small-scale scene work to full plays or sequences—and some of us aspire to move them out from the classroom to larger audiences as live productions, films, or even renewed civic pageants. For example, one member of our group is part of a community activist organization in a multicultural, religiously-plural city neighborhood which might mount a street festival pageant-wagon style cycle play stressing economic-justice and environmental issues.<br><br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In this section we include a brief description and an attached fuller account of two such college-based performances of full medieval plays, mounted by instructors who had the advantage of having a significant part or virtually all of the semester to develop and put them on. In addition, we include a Syllabus which implies the preparation, stages, and timeline required to mount such performances. We encourage you to follow these examples, all or in part: <br />
<br />
:[https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1kVLF1AUNYgRU91eTZDazBKTkk/view# Syllabus: Fireworks and Trap-Doors: A Hands-On Workshop in Early Theater Production and Special Effects] taught by [[Michelle Butler | Michelle Markey Butler]]. The [https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1kVLF1AUNYgUEVKbDZ2NldCRFE/view# 15-week course calendar ] for the course details scheduled assignments and readings. The course culminated with a full performance of an adaptation of the Tolkien short story “Leaf by Niggle” as a “medieval” play and the N-town “Slaughter of the Innocents. ''Death of Herod'' [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K6u9JHK5zQ&feature=youtu.be# Part 1] and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDklaSiWEJE# Part 2] culminated the Spring 2015 course. Blog posts for both performances can be found at [http://lordbaltimorescompany.umd.edu/# Lord Baltimore’s Company] <br />
<br />
:[https://fordhammedievaldramatists.wordpress.com/engl-4148/# Syllabus: ''Medieval Drama in Performance''] Spring 2017, cross-listed English and Theater interdisciplinary capstone course culminating in full performance of the Chester “Antichrist,” taught by [[Andrew Albin|Andrew Albin.]] For more see: [https://fordhammedievaldramatists.wordpress.com# Fordham Medieval Dramatists].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Many of today’s students hunger for social engagement and efficacy, including in the arts and artistic practice. The example of medieval drama--which arose from the deepest issues and questions of its communities; involved their technical, economic, political, and confessional energies; and drew them all into ritual and symbolic practice and considerations--provides a bridge to such engagement in the twenty-first century. Such efforts can stand near the cherished center—rather than merely the decorative periphery—of educational communities such as high schools and colleges; they can enable and direct restricted communities like prisons and eldercare homes to life-sustaining and creative activity; and they can enliven daily communities such as our neighborhoods and towns. Performance is everywhere; medieval drama channels it in communitarian, significant and transformative directions. That would be a good life lesson proceeding forward from academic “Lessons” such as these.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 10: Adaptations of medieval drama ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Medieval drama is truly world drama--then, when it offered broad narratives of history or allegories of human behavior or natural processes--and now, when it continues to be widely current and adaptable across world cultures. “Creation to Last Judgment” plays—both ones performed as civic cycles, like those from York and Chester, and those compiled in manuscript, like the N-Town and Towneley plays—presumed to treat all of salvation history. Morality plays such as Mankind and The Castle of Perseverance dramatized the struggle for salvation of representative everymen. Saints’ plays centered on exemplary figures of piety or heroism. Derivative forms like Henry Medwall’s Nature, John Skelton’s Magnificence, or the plays of John Bale dealt with problems in natural or moral philosophy or political theory. The sweep and scope of medieval drama is part of its attraction, and it held its traditional forms for hundreds of years, while its revivals and adaptations, from passion plays, to biblical pageants, to stark allegories, to rollicking city comedies, to present-day dramas of truth and reconciliation, have had and continue to have broad appeal. For some of the final exercises in our unit or course, we would like to invite students to explore and to think creatively about some of the current adaptations of the stories, motifs, and scope of medieval drama to the modern world, and perhaps to make their own “world” art. <br><br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Brainstorm with students about what some modern adaptations of medieval plays might look like. To get them going, explain the world-wide endurance of Passion Plays such as those in Oberammergau, Bavaria, and in Catholic countries; tell them about the on-going Mormon extension of biblical drama in Palmyra, New York; have them read Jenna Soleo-Shanks account of a modern feminist re-working of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim’s ''Callimachus''; and show them images and clips from productions such as the late 1990s South African ''Yiimimangaliso: The Mysteries''. Have them speculate about how productions of such socio-political, religious, environmental, and community import might take to the streets or to newer media again as aspects of public art. If time and energy permit, have them attempt a piece of their own such broadly significant art: a song; an original artwork; a children’s book; a short film or play; their own pageant or cycle.<br><br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Students should feel intrigued by the private creative and public extensions of this wide-ranging and traditional art form, and ideally feel impelled to continue to re-cast it in contemporary forms. <br />
<br />
Go to ''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|Verba et Res]]''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]: Lesson Plans 1 through 4.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]].<br />
<br />
'''Page written by'''<br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler | Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations&diff=28431Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations2018-03-25T13:43:01Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction.<br />
[[File:25.3.16 Chester Passion 002 (25968988741).jpg|thumb|The Chester Mystery Passions, 2016]]<br />
<br />
This article is the third and last of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy, and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance, which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance.<br />
<br />
As the title ''Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations ''suggests, this article focuses on a series of three performance-based lesson plans to help produce and stage medieval drama in your school and community. <br />
Back to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 8 through 10 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
A series of three performance-based Lesson Plans which provide preliminary training toward full performance and modern adaptation in medieval drama.<br />
<br />
Medieval drama engaged and hoped to transform its audiences with its biting and cathartic humor, its pointed social observation, its religiously inflected heights and depths, and its joy, and it forged community in its gatherings. These are goals to which we can aspire in our teaching, and we can do this with youngsters and oldsters as well as formal students and professionals, and in our street and cities as well as in our classrooms and regular theaters. Some of us are fortunate enough to be theatre professionals, and to do this as the core of our vocation. Others do it more occasionally, or aspire to do something like it in our communities. In these final three Lesson Plans we invite you to think hard about the audiences whom you hope to reach in your work, and we offer you the inspiring account of two younger academics from our group who have had the training, creativity, and institutional support to mount entire student productions, in one case for a large public university Honors College seminar filled with STEM students, and in another at a liberal arts college embedded in a large city.Finally, we encourage you to take the tradition of street performance of medieval drama and the example of some modern adaptations to think about its transformative potential for pressing modern needs such as increased civic engagement, social justice, and ecological awareness.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 8: Determining your audience for medieval drama ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Now that you have read, studied, thought about, blocked, and even begun to act and stage a selection of medieval dramas in your class or group, consider whether, when, and how you would like to perform these plays—single scenes, single pageants, or even an entire cycle or full-length play—for an outside audience. Some possibilities include an in-class performance at the end of the unit or the semester, for yourselves or invited outsiders; a performance as part of a student conference or festival; or a community performance. Discuss and plan for whatever resources you are going to need for such a performance, including not just the choice of text and the overall artistic vision of it, but also the budget, space, more extensive costuming, lighting and special effects, outreach, publicity and advertising, etc. This is the moment to call upon all of the different abilities of your group—e.g. students from marketing, engineering and the sciences, activists, etc., etc.—since you will need far more than just literary critics and actors.<br><br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In discussion, divide up student roles for the upcoming production and establish an action plan and calendar for each group.<br><br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Students should be focused and engaged in the task, and within a class session or two have and begin working toward a firm and realistic calendar for production.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 9: Performance of medieval drama ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
<br />
Medieval drama came from the life of its many communities—our records of it are largely civic-based (see REED), and even when it was performed by acting troupes those productions were extraordinarily responsive to the occasional performance conditions they encountered in the streets, in great halls, or in the open air—and there is a long tradition of modern “amateur” performances of medieval drama, some of them still active, and others recorded in modern media such as film and video. <br />
<br />
[[File:Cropped-P1010315.jpg|thumb|600x600px|The Lord Baltimore’s Production of the N-Town “Massacre of the Innocents/ Death of Herod”]]<br />
<br />
Today the fact that virtually everyone now carries a smartphone video camera on their person makes it enticingly possible not just to mount such amateur performances, but to preserve and disseminate them as well.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
Furthermore, the many challenges of putting on such a production can attract and employ the skills and talents of many kinds of students—STEM, business and management, media and arts, differentially-educated and prepared, ablest and disabled, etc.—working creatively together. Some of us have mounted such productions in class—from small-scale scene work to full plays or sequences—and some of us aspire to move them out from the classroom to larger audiences as live productions, films, or even renewed civic pageants. For example, one member of our group is part of a community activist organization in a multicultural, religiously-plural city neighborhood which might mount a street festival pageant-wagon style cycle play stressing economic-justice and environmental issues.<br><br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In this section we include a brief description and an attached fuller account of two such college-based performances of full medieval plays, mounted by instructors who had the advantage of having a significant part or virtually all of the semester to develop and put them on. In addition, we include a Syllabus which implies the preparation, stages, and timeline required to mount such performances. We encourage you to follow these examples, all or in part: <br />
<br />
:[https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1kVLF1AUNYgRU91eTZDazBKTkk/view# Syllabus: Fireworks and Trap-Doors: A Hands-On Workshop in Early Theater Production and Special Effects] taught by [[Michelle Butler | Michelle Markey Butler]]. The [https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1kVLF1AUNYgUEVKbDZ2NldCRFE/view# 15-week course calendar ] for the course details scheduled assignments and readings. The course culminated with a full performance of an adaptation of the Tolkien short story “Leaf by Niggle” as a “medieval” play and the N-town “Slaughter of the Innocents. ''Death of Herod'' [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K6u9JHK5zQ&feature=youtu.be# Part 1] and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDklaSiWEJE# Part 2] culminated the Spring 2015 course. Blog posts for both performances can be found at [http://lordbaltimorescompany.umd.edu/# Lord Baltimore’s Company] <br />
<br />
:[https://fordhammedievaldramatists.wordpress.com/engl-4148/# Syllabus: ''Medieval Drama in Performance''] Spring 2017, cross-listed English and Theater interdisciplinary capstone course culminating in full performance of the Chester “Antichrist,” taught by [[Andrew Albin|Andrew Albin.]] For more see: [https://fordhammedievaldramatists.wordpress.com# Fordham Medieval Dramatists].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Many of today’s students hunger for social engagement and efficacy, including in the arts and artistic practice. The example of medieval drama--which arose from the deepest issues and questions of its communities; involved their technical, economic, political, and confessional energies; and drew them all into ritual and symbolic practice and considerations--provides a bridge to such engagement in the twenty-first century. Such efforts can stand near the cherished center—rather than merely the decorative periphery—of educational communities such as high schools and colleges; they can enable and direct restricted communities like prisons and eldercare homes to life-sustaining and creative activity; and they can enliven daily communities such as our neighborhoods and towns. Performance is everywhere; medieval drama channels it in communitarian, significant and transformative directions. That would be a good life lesson proceeding forward from academic “Lessons” such as these.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 10: Adaptations of medieval drama ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Medieval drama is truly world drama--then, when it offered broad narratives of history or allegories of human behavior or natural processes--and now, when it continues to be widely current and adaptable across world cultures. “Creation to Last Judgment” plays—both ones performed as civic cycles, like those from York and Chester, and those compiled in manuscript, like the N-Town and Towneley plays—presumed to treat all of salvation history. Morality plays such as Mankind and The Castle of Perseverance dramatized the struggle for salvation of representative everymen. Saints’ plays centered on exemplary figures of piety or heroism. Derivative forms like Henry Medwall’s Nature, John Skelton’s Magnificence, or the plays of John Bale dealt with problems in natural or moral philosophy or political theory. The sweep and scope of medieval drama is part of its attraction, and it held its traditional forms for hundreds of years, while its revivals and adaptations, from passion plays, to biblical pageants, to stark allegories, to rollicking city comedies, to present-day dramas of truth and reconciliation, have had and continue to have broad appeal. For some of the final exercises in our unit or course, we would like to invite students to explore and to think creatively about some of the current adaptations of the stories, motifs, and scope of medieval drama to the modern world, and perhaps to make their own “world” art. <br><br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Brainstorm with students about what some modern adaptations of medieval plays might look like. To get them going, explain the world-wide endurance of Passion Plays such as those in Oberammergau, Bavaria, and in Catholic countries; tell them about the on-going Mormon extension of biblical drama in Palmyra, New York; have them read Jenna Soleo-Shanks account of a modern feminist re-working of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim’s ''Callimachus''; and show them images and clips from productions such as the late 1990s South African ''Yiimimangaliso: The Mysteries''. Have them speculate about how productions of such socio-political, religious, environmental, and community import might take to the streets or to newer media again as aspects of public art. If time and energy permit, have them attempt a piece of their own such broadly significant art: a song; an original artwork; a children’s book; a short film or play; their own pageant or cycle.<br><br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Students should feel intrigued by the private creative and public extensions of this wide-ranging and traditional art form, and ideally feel impelled to continue to re-cast it in contemporary forms. <br />
<br />
Go to ''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|Verba et Res]]''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]: Lesson Plans 1 through 4.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]].<br />
<br />
'''Page written by'''<br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler | Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Setting_the_Medieval_Stage&diff=28430Setting the Medieval Stage2018-03-25T13:38:34Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction.<br />
<br />
This article is the second of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance.<br />
<br />
As the ''Setting the Medieval Stage'' title name suggests, this article focuses on a series of three performance-based lesson plans for Medieval Theatre to help create a space in which to perform medieval drama. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
Go back to ''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|Verba et Res]]''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]: Lesson Plans 1 through 4.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 5 through 7 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
Below we supply a a series of three performance-based Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama, which consider the symbolic shape of an action in medieval drama.<br />
<br />
The spaces of medieval drama were various, labile, and indeed often mobile. The York Biblical cycle plays processed annually on pageant carts into and about the city to stop at York Minster and end on the market Pavement; small travelling companies acted other plays, performing in open spaces, inn yards, or great houses. Later, as plays retreated into manuscript, they might have been brought out for occasional declamation. <br />
<br />
Plays of such sharp moment and open engagement could, in theory, take place anywhere on this middle earth. As Peter Brook famously began his 1968 classic, ''The Empty Space'', “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and that is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged,” and modern revivals of medieval plays have utilized halls, cloisters, hillsides, city plazas and streetscapes, as well as more formal stages. <br />
<br />
These three Lesson Plans encourage you to find a suitable space for your play exercises, from a classroom with the desks pushed back to the more formal stage to <br />
the outdoor green space which might draw in community passers-by. Then we offer you a selection of monologues and especially powerful scenes to help develop the craft of your ensemble.<br />
<br><br />
== Lesson Plan 5: Stages for medieval drama ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
[[File:Coventry-mystery-pageant-thomas-sharp-david-gee-1825.jpg|''Representation of a Pageant Vehicle at the time of Performance'', frontispiece to ''A Dissertation on the Pageants or Dramatic Mysteries Recently Performed at Coventry by the trading Companies of that City'' by Thomas Sharpe, 1825|thumb|377x377px]]<br />
A discussion and ideally also a series of site-visitations of likely campus or community sites for a modern performance of your play texts.<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have the students read over the section on [[Medieval Drama: Staging Contexts|Staging Medieval Drama]], including the links, in advance of class. Then in class have them get up and illustrate—through on-the-board drawings or the positioning their own bodies—the nature of pageant, place-and-scaffold and hall play stagings. <br />
<br />
Discuss how best to adapt their plays to staging in this particular classroom, and what alternative sites might be available on campus and in the community. If there are time and resources, explore some of these alternative sites either in the flesh or virtually.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Students should begin to get a sense of the spaces in which their words will be articulated and their bodies will move. Send them home to begin to sketch some of the key moments or ''tableau vivant ''for your chosen play(s), complete with props and costumes, within some of these potential spaces. <br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 6: Filling the space. Medieval monologues and the power of words<br> ==<br />
<br />
=== <br>What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Professional actors audition all of the time by preparing and presenting powerful and nuanced monologues. Medieval drama offers many such opportunities, and often little-known gems. These monologues are not primarily motivated by an individual self or character; instead they are also expressions of a creatural position within a theological and social system in which the audience likewise is bound. <br />
[[File:Laughing Fool.jpg|left|thumb|Netherlandish oil painting of a laughing fool, c. 1500|624x624px]] <br />
<br><br />
Our exercises to date in voice, vocabulary, objects, position, relation, costuming and place have been steps in preparation for some degree of that historical understanding. We have compiled a list of outstanding medieval monologues from the canon of medieval plays, and by now you should be aware of other passages derived from your own readings. Choose several, and have your students begin to prepare them for presentation.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
<br />
Have your students chose a monologue of their choice from the supplied list of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers|striking monologues from medieval plays]] or from the plays you have been reading in class. <br />
Being able to choose their own monologue will help students to develop a sense of ownership over the material they are to perform. <br />
<br />
Once the text has been selected, they will prepare their monologue for in-class performance, critique and discussion. Ask them to start working on their piece, applying what they have learned in the previous classes (see Lessons 1-5) and also from their own research as well as acting technique: make sure they read the text out loud, make strong choices (asking who, what, where, when, why, etc.), and stand the text up for performance presentation. <br />
<br />
To maximize class time, you may choose to split the group into pairs, and have the students first practice back and forth with each other, making sure that they use full vocalization and that their physical expression is connected to their voice, the text, and given circumstances. The teacher should be actively engaged at this stage, possibly circulating throughout the room, encouraging the student pairs in their work. <br />
<br />
At least one class session should be devoted to rehearsal and another one to giving each student the opportunity to perform his or her monologue for the entire group, followed by a discussion and critique of the work, with the objective of advancing ideas on how to better perform it next time around. At home students should rehearse while applying the verbal “notes” (the observations and critiques of their classmates) they have received in class, as well as aiming toward getting their monologue “off book” (memorized).<br />
<br />
Even a preliminary approach to this intensive practice may take more than one class session. Keep in mind that this work should be process-oriented rather than final product-driven.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Students should begin to have a sense of the verbal force and physicality of entire climactic or turning point moments within these dramas, and should begin to be comfortable working with each other toward this realization and critiquing each other’s presentations.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 7: Creating and inhabiting the space. Scenes from medieval drama ==<br />
<br />
=== <br>What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Actors work on scenes to develop and perfect their acting tools, while also expanding their creativity and range. Medieval drama provides an exceptional vehicle for exploration of the range and scope of human action, and allows actors to utilize a variety of acting techniques, genres, and styles. These texts are a great tool to break free from ingrained conventions and a source for the rediscovery of deep potentialities of thoroughly motivated and embodied symbolic actions. Have your students stretch their sense of what is possible on the stage by beginning to stage some powerful scenes.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
[[File:Second_Shepherds'_cast_Folger_Consort_2007.jpeg|thumb|500x500px|Folger Performance of the Second Shepherds' Play (2007)]]Have your students choose a scene from our [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes|list of challenging scenes from medieval plays, for acting classes ]] or another from the plays you have been reading. Students working in pairs or clusters should then tackle this scene work from the standpoint of the total dramatic action in which the scenes are embedded, and should begin by creating place, both physical and sensory. <br />
<br />
Ask them to consider basic questions such as: Where does this action take place? How is it being performed? Where is the audience in relationship to the action? etc. These answers will invariably affect the physical life of the action on the stage (e.g. entrances and exits, stage directions, the use of the acting space, etc.). <br />
<br />
You may also choose to follow the same dynamics described in Lesson Six, including working on these scenes within the framework of more general, not exclusively medieval, acting and performance classes. Either way, encourage your students to be inventive and to explore not just a classical or naturalistic rendition of the action but rather to approach their scene work from a variety of possible modalities (such as collective creation, devised performance, experimental theater, interdisciplinarity, intermediality, viewpoints, and many other theatrical techniques).<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Students should begin to have a sense of the embodied force of entire climactic or turning point moments within these dramas, and should begin to engage and work with each other toward this realization as they critique each other’s presentations.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
Go back to ''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|Verba et Res]]''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]: Lesson Plans 1 through 4.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
'''Page written by'''<br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler | Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Setting_the_Medieval_Stage&diff=28429Setting the Medieval Stage2018-03-25T13:36:50Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction.<br />
<br />
This article is the second of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance.<br />
<br />
As the ''Setting the Medieval Stage'' title name suggests, this article focuses on a series of three performance-based lesson plans for Medieval Theatre to help create a space in which to perform medieval drama. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
Go back to ''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|Verba et Res]]''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]: Lesson Plans 1 through 4.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 5 through 7 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
Below we supply a a series of three performance-based Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama, which consider the symbolic shape of an action in medieval drama.<br />
<br />
The spaces of medieval drama were various, labile, and indeed often mobile. The York Biblical cycle plays processed annually on pageant carts into and about the city to stop at York Minster and end on the market Pavement; small travelling companies acted other plays, performing in open spaces, inn yards, or great houses. Later, as plays retreated into manuscript, they might have been brought out for occasional declamation. <br />
<br />
Plays of such sharp moment and open engagement could, in theory, take place anywhere on this middle earth. As Peter Brook famously began his 1968 classic, ''The Empty Space'', “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and that is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged,” and modern revivals of medieval plays have utilized halls, cloisters, hillsides, city plazas and streetscapes, as well as more formal stages. <br />
<br />
These three Lesson Plans encourage you to find a suitable space for your play exercises, from a classroom with the desks pushed back to the more formal stage to <br />
the outdoor green space which might draw in community passers-by. Then we offer you a selection of monologues and especially powerful scenes to help develop the craft of your ensemble.<br />
<br><br />
== Lesson Plan 5: Stages for medieval drama ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
[[File:Coventry-mystery-pageant-thomas-sharp-david-gee-1825.jpg|''Representation of a Pageant Vehicle at the time of Performance'', frontispiece to ''A Dissertation on the Pageants or Dramatic Mysteries Recently Performed at Coventry by the trading Companies of that City'' by Thomas Sharpe, 1825|thumb|377x377px]]<br />
A discussion and ideally also a series of site-visitations of likely campus or community sites for a modern performance of your play texts.<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have the students read over the section on [[Medieval Drama: Staging Contexts|Staging Medieval Drama]], including the links, in advance of class. Then in class have them get up and illustrate—through on-the-board drawings or the positioning their own bodies—the nature of pageant, place-and-scaffold and hall play stagings. <br />
<br />
Discuss how best to adapt their plays to staging in this particular classroom, and what alternative sites might be available on campus and in the community. If there are time and resources, explore some of these alternative sites either in the flesh or virtually.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Students should begin to get a sense of the spaces in which their words will be articulated and their bodies will move. Send them home to begin to sketch some of the key moments or ''tableau vivant ''for your chosen play(s), complete with props and costumes, within some of these potential spaces. <br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 6: Filling the space. Medieval monologues and the power of words<br> ==<br />
<br />
=== <br>What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Professional actors audition all of the time by preparing and presenting powerful and nuanced monologues. Medieval drama offers many such opportunities, and often little-known gems. These monologues are not primarily motivated by an individual self or character; instead they are also expressions of a creatural position within a theological and social system in which the audience likewise is bound. <br />
[[File:Laughing Fool.jpg|left|thumb|Netherlandish oil painting of a laughing fool, c. 1500|357x357px]] <br />
<br><br />
Our exercises to date in voice, vocabulary, objects, position, relation, costuming and place have been steps in preparation for some degree of that historical understanding. We have compiled a list of outstanding medieval monologues from the canon of medieval plays, and by now you should be aware of other passages derived from your own readings. Choose several, and have your students begin to prepare them for presentation.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
<br />
Have your students chose a monologue of their choice from the supplied list of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers|striking monologues from medieval plays]] or from the plays you have been reading in class. <br />
Being able to choose their own monologue will help students to develop a sense of ownership over the material they are to perform. <br />
<br />
Once the text has been selected, they will prepare their monologue for in-class performance, critique and discussion. Ask them to start working on their piece, applying what they have learned in the previous classes (see Lessons 1-5) and also from their own research as well as acting technique: make sure they read the text out loud, make strong choices (asking who, what, where, when, why, etc.), and stand the text up for performance presentation. <br />
<br />
To maximize class time, you may choose to split the group into pairs, and have the students first practice back and forth with each other, making sure that they use full vocalization and that their physical expression is connected to their voice, the text, and given circumstances. The teacher should be actively engaged at this stage, possibly circulating throughout the room, encouraging the student pairs in their work. <br />
<br />
At least one class session should be devoted to rehearsal and another one to giving each student the opportunity to perform his or her monologue for the entire group, followed by a discussion and critique of the work, with the objective of advancing ideas on how to better perform it next time around. At home students should rehearse while applying the verbal “notes” (the observations and critiques of their classmates) they have received in class, as well as aiming toward getting their monologue “off book” (memorized).<br />
<br />
Even a preliminary approach to this intensive practice may take more than one class session. Keep in mind that this work should be process-oriented rather than final product-driven.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Students should begin to have a sense of the verbal force and physicality of entire climactic or turning point moments within these dramas, and should begin to be comfortable working with each other toward this realization and critiquing each other’s presentations.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 7: Creating and inhabiting the space. Scenes from medieval drama ==<br />
<br />
=== <br>What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Actors work on scenes to develop and perfect their acting tools, while also expanding their creativity and range. Medieval drama provides an exceptional vehicle for exploration of the range and scope of human action, and allows actors to utilize a variety of acting techniques, genres, and styles. These texts are a great tool to break free from ingrained conventions and a source for the rediscovery of deep potentialities of thoroughly motivated and embodied symbolic actions. Have your students stretch their sense of what is possible on the stage by beginning to stage some powerful scenes.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
[[File:Second_Shepherds'_cast_Folger_Consort_2007.jpeg|thumb|500x500px|Folger Performance of the Second Shepherds' Play (2007)]]Have your students choose a scene from our [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes|list of challenging scenes from medieval plays, for acting classes ]] or another from the plays you have been reading. Students working in pairs or clusters should then tackle this scene work from the standpoint of the total dramatic action in which the scenes are embedded, and should begin by creating place, both physical and sensory. <br />
<br />
Ask them to consider basic questions such as: Where does this action take place? How is it being performed? Where is the audience in relationship to the action? etc. These answers will invariably affect the physical life of the action on the stage (e.g. entrances and exits, stage directions, the use of the acting space, etc.). <br />
<br />
You may also choose to follow the same dynamics described in Lesson Six, including working on these scenes within the framework of more general, not exclusively medieval, acting and performance classes. Either way, encourage your students to be inventive and to explore not just a classical or naturalistic rendition of the action but rather to approach their scene work from a variety of possible modalities (such as collective creation, devised performance, experimental theater, interdisciplinarity, intermediality, viewpoints, and many other theatrical techniques).<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Students should begin to have a sense of the embodied force of entire climactic or turning point moments within these dramas, and should begin to engage and work with each other toward this realization as they critique each other’s presentations.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
Go back to ''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|Verba et Res]]''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]: Lesson Plans 1 through 4.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
'''Page written by'''<br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler | Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28428Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-25T13:33:14Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|533x533px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|681x681px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|600x600px]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|left|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page of the ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary).]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
<br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|500x500px]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|left|554x554px]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1.<br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century)<br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|614x614px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1)<br />
<br />
3. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|400x400px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380|left]]<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28427Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-25T13:30:11Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|533x533px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|681x681px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|600x600px]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|left|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page of the ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary).]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
<br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|500x500px]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|left|554x554px]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1.<br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century)<br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|614x614px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1)<br />
<br />
3. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|485x485px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380|left]]<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28426Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-25T13:28:39Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|533x533px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|681x681px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|600x600px]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|left|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page of the ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary).]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
<br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|500x500px]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|left|554x554px]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1.<br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century)<br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|614x614px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1)<br />
<br />
3. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|600x600px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380|left]]<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28425Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-25T13:24:46Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|533x533px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|681x681px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|600x600px]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|left|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page of the ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary).]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
<br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|500x500px]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|left|554x554px]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1.<br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century)<br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|614x614px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1)<br />
<br />
3. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|485x485px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380|left]]<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28424Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-25T13:22:39Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|533x533px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|681x681px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|600x600px]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|left|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page of the ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary).]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
<br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|500x500px]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|left|554x554px]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1.<br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century)<br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|614x614px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1)<br />
<br />
3. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|485x485px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380|left]]<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28423Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-25T13:20:34Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|533x533px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|681x681px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|600x600px]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|left|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page of the ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary).]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
:<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
<br><br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|500x500px]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|left|554x554px]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1.<br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century)<br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|614x614px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1)<br />
<br />
3. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|485x485px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380|left]]<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28422Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-25T13:19:43Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|533x533px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|681x681px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|600x600px]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|left|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page of the ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary).]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
:<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
<br><br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|600x600px]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|left|554x554px]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1.<br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century)<br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|614x614px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1)<br />
<br />
3. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|485x485px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380|left]]<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28421Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-25T13:17:19Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|533x533px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|681x681px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|600x600px]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|left|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page of the ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary).]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
:<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
<br><br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|434x434px|right]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|left|554x554px]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1.<br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century)<br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|614x614px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1)<br />
<br />
3. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|485x485px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380|left]]<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28420Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-25T13:16:20Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|533x533px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|681x681px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|600x600px]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|left|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page of the ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary).]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
:<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
<br><br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|434x434px|right]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|left|633x633px]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1.<br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century)<br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|614x614px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1)<br />
<br />
3. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|485x485px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380|left]]<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28419Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-25T13:13:31Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|533x533px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|681x681px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|600x600px]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|left|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page of the ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary).]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
:<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
<br><br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|434x434px|right]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|left]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1.<br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century)<br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|614x614px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1)<br />
<br />
3. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|485x485px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380|left]]<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28418Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-25T13:12:39Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|467x467px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|681x681px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|600x600px]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|left|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page of the ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary).]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
:<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
<br><br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|434x434px|right]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|left]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1.<br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century)<br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|614x614px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1)<br />
<br />
3. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|485x485px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380|left]]<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28417Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-25T13:11:19Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|467x467px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|681x681px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|533x533px]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|left|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page of the ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary).]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
:<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
<br><br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|434x434px|right]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|left]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1.<br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century)<br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|614x614px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1)<br />
<br />
3. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|485x485px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380|left]]<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28416Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-25T13:05:39Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|467x467px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|599x599px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|533x533px]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|left|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page of the ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary).]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
:<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
<br><br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|434x434px|right]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|left]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1.<br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century)<br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|614x614px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1)<br />
<br />
3. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|485x485px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380|left]]<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy&diff=28415Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy2018-03-24T22:15:52Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>''This article is under construction''<br />
<br />
This article - conceived and written by Barbara J. Bono, Maria S. Horne, and Michelle Markley Butler - is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance.<br />
<br />
==Introduction==<br />
<br />
===Medieval drama truly comes alive in performance.=== <br />
This is, of course, a statement true of all works in the dramatic genre. However, it is especially true of medieval drama, which frequently addressed in embodied form large and ultimate questions about humanity's place in creation and the scheme of history, and did so in direct and explicit relation to its audiences, with extraordinary emotive and affective range from the obscene to the exalted. <br />
[[File:028728.jpg|thumb|left|Miss Edith Wynne Matthison in the role of Everyman (c. 1902)|504x504px]]<br />
<br />
Medieval drama is integrated into the curriculum for theatre majors at most universities in the United States. However, there, rather than being part of acting technique or performance-based courses, or of staged productions, the subject is most often studied only very briefly in lecture courses like Theatre History. Meanwhile, in departments of literature, medieval drama is sometimes included as a topic in a broader medieval or British literature class or as a minor prequel to the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, but it is seldom given much time or attention, and its performative nature is largely neglected.<br />
<br />
But we would argue that medieval drama is accessible, exciting, adaptable, and inspirational to interested communities of all ages and abilities - from lower grade levels to highly-trained practitioners - for drama itself is the ideal synesthetic and interdisciplinary vehicle for community formation and differential learning. There is also contemporaneity in medieval drama: humor, music, and fun, as well as metaphor, allegories, and subtexts which speak to who we are today. And while the task of accessing this excitement may seem daunting, in this article we have put together a set of resources - combining language, action, and spectacle - to get you started.<br />
<br />
The first step in bridging the gap between performance and literary study is alerting students and teachers to the new wealth of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Medieval_and_early_English_drama.2C_print_and_on-line_editions|readily-available textual and general scholarly resources]] for these plays, which reach far beyond the frequently anthologized ''Everyman'' or the de-contextualized bit of a biblical cycle play.<br />
<br />
==Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre==<br />
<br />
The second step is to make at least a beginning at "putting the plays up on their feet." To that end we have supplied a series of ten performance-based Lesson Plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing, to considering the symbolic shape of an action, to preliminary training toward full performance and modern adaptation. While these Lesson Plans are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous [http://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-set-free Folger Shakespeare Set Free teaching manuals], namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology.<br />
<br />
===[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama|''Verba et Res''/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 ======<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
[[File:Monreale, Christ the Creator.JPG|thumb|''Christo Pantocratore''. Monreale Cathedral, Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|800x800px]]<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_1:_Playing_around_with_medieval_language Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_2:_The_twenty_props_you_need_to_put_on_any_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_3:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history Lesson Plan 3: Typology, or medieval living history]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_4:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history_and_tableau_vivant Lesson Plan 4: Typology, or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'']''<nowiki/>''<br />
<br />
===[[Setting_the_Medieval_Stage |Setting the Medieval Stage]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 5 through 7 ======<br />
<br />
The spaces of medieval drama were various, labile, and indeed often mobile. The York Biblical cycle plays processed annually on pageant carts into and about the city to stop at York Minster and end on the market Pavement; small travelling companies acted other plays, performing in open spaces, inn yards, or great houses. Later, as plays retreated into manuscript, they might have been brought out for occasional declamation. Plays of such sharp moment and open engagement could, in theory, take place anywhere on this middle earth. As Peter Brook famously began his 1968 classic, ''The Empty Space'', “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and that is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged,” and modern revivals of medieval plays have utilized halls, cloisters, hillsides, city plazas and streetscapes, as well as more formal stages. These three Lesson Plans encourage you to find a suitable space for your play exercises, from a classroom with the desks pushed back to the more formal stage to the outdoor green space which might draw in community passers-by. Then we offer you a selection of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers |monologues]] for actors and especially powerful [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes |scenes]] to help develop the craft of your ensemble. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_5:_Stages_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 5: Stages for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_6:_Filling_the_space._Medieval_monologues_and_the_power_of_words Lesson Plan 6: Filling the space. Medieval monologues and the power of words]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_7:_Creating_and_inhabiting_the_space._Scenes_from_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 7: Creating and inhabiting the space. Scenes from medieval drama]<br />
<br />
=== [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]] ===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 8 through 10 ======<br />
<br />
Medieval drama engaged and hoped to transform its audiences with its biting and cathartic humor, its pointed social observation, its religiously inflected heights and depths, and its joy, and it forged community in its gatherings. <br />
[[File:Barbers' Baptism 147274.jpg|thumb|''The Baptism'' from the York Mystery Plays performed from a cart in the streets of York in front of St William's College.|400x400px]]<br />
These are goals to which we can aspire in our teaching, and we can do this with youngsters and oldsters as well as formal students and professionals, and in our street and cities as well as in our classrooms and regular theaters. Some of us are fortunate enough to be theatre professionals, and to do this as the core of our vocation. Others do it more occasionally, or aspire to do something like it in our communities. <br />
<br />
In these final three Lesson Plans we invite you to think hard about the audiences whom you hope to reach in your work, and we offer you the inspiring account of two younger academics from our group who have had the training, creativity, and institutional support to mount entire student productions, in one case for a large public university Honors College seminar filled with STEM students, and in another at a liberal arts college embedded in a large city. <br />
<br />
Finally, we encourage you to take the tradition of street performance of medieval drama and the example of some modern adaptations to think about its transformative potential for pressing modern needs such as increased civic engagement, social justice, and ecological awareness. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_8:_Determining_your_audience_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 8: Determining your audience for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_9:_Performance_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 9: Performance of medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_10:_Adaptations_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 10: Adaptations of medieval drama]<br />
<br />
== Medieval and early English drama, print and on-line editions ==<br />
One may wonder why we do not see more Medieval Theatre productions on the university stage nowadays. Part of the answer may be that for the non-medievalist, and in particular for the performer not versed in medieval drama, approaching this enterprise could be daunting, starting with the selection of the play, where to find it, whether to use Middle English or a modernized, and which edition of text to use. To help streamline this process, and because there is no such a resource readily available for pedagogical purposes, we decided to compile a short list of medieval plays both in print and online editions, as well as modernized and unmodernized, as you will find in this section . <br />
<br />
===Print editions===<br />
<br />
''The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama''. Christina M. Fitzgerald and John T. Sebastian. Broadview, 2012.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama: An Anthology''. Greg Walker. Wiley-Blackwell, 2000.<br />
<br />
''Three Late Medieval Morality Plays''. G.A. Lester. New Mermaids, 2002. <br />
<br />
''York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling''. Richard Beadle and Pamela King. Oxford University Press, 2009<br />
<br />
''Early English Drama: An Anthology''. John C. Coldewey. Routledge, 1993.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama''. David Bevington. Hackett, 1975. <br />
<br />
The ''Arden Early English Drama'' series of texts from the late fifteenth to the late seventeenth centuries currently includes ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
===On-line editions===<br />
<br />
Online editions vary considerably in quality. Below are some that we have found to be well edited for both scholarly and pedagogical purposes. <br><br />
[[File:V.a.354 98v-99r.jpg|thumb|522x522px|Medieval plays were first preserved in manuscripts like this unique copy of the morality play ''Wisdom'' (c. 1460-63), preserved in the Macro plays at the Folger Shakespeare Library.|left]]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
==== Modernized ====<br />
<br />
:[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html#tab The N-town Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag The York Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/the-towneley-cycle-of-plays/ The Towneley Plays]<br />
<br><br />
====Unmodernized====<br />
<br />
:The TEAMS Middle English Text Series: <br />
http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== <br>Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers ==<br />
[[File:019807.jpg|thumb|600x600px|An angel announces the birth of Christ in the 2015-2016 Folger''The Second'' ''Shepherdes' Play'']]<br />
<nowiki> </nowiki><br />
<br />
Choosing a great monologue is a task that confronts actors who are always searching for the best new monologue for their next audition. Audition pieces need to be strong, original, and not overdone. <br />
<br />
Medieval drama provides an exceptional vehicle for exploration and it allows the actor to utilize a variety of acting techniques, genres, and styles while performing. Here are some suggestions for monologues. <br />
<br />
While the casting suggestions given here are gender- and age-normative, directors and actors may want to think about mixing up these conventions for special effect and/or to suit their needs.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br><br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Role<br />
!Gender <br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll (First Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This speech opens the play. Coll complains about the conditions that poor men like himself have to endure and the ways they are abused by rich men. The speech is important in its sympathy for the plight of the medieval working class, and also thematically: after Coll speaks, it is easy to understand why salvation in the form of the baby Jesus is needed to come into the world.<br />
|Lines 1-54<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology.'' Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Gib (Second Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This is the second speech of the play. Gib complains about the difficulties of being married, and how much he regrets it, but it’s too late. This speech is important for its insight into medieval humor (for better or worse, the ‘take my wife, please’ vein of jokes has been mined for a long time); thematically, it establishes that salvation is needed in the world because humans, in particular the sexes, are at odds.<br />
|Lines 55-108<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|The York ''Fall of the Angels''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only this individual pageant but the York cycle as a whole. It sets the scene for both pageant and play, laying out themes that will recur throughout: the nature of God, the nature of creation, the nature of faith, the nature of worship, the consequences of disobedience.<br />
|Lines 1-34<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English] <br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|The York ''Crucifixion''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|This is Jesus’ speech from the cross after the soldiers finally manage to get him stretched and nailed to it.<br />
|Lines 253-264<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens the final pageant of the cycle. It harkens back to the first pageant and reminds the audience of all that happened between then and now, explaining the need for an end to be made and judgement given.<br />
|Lines 1-64<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|In this speech, Jesus addresses the human characters but, of course, also the audience, explaining why the judgement is going down as it does.<br />
|Lines 231-300<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|Chester''The Fall of Lucifer''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only the pageant but the cycle as a whole, laying out its important themes.<br />
|Lines 1-51<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/index.html Modern English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|N-town ''Passion Play 1''<br />
|Satan<br />
|Super-natural<br />
|This speech opens the Passion Play in the N-town manuscript. It is an important example of the ‘boast’ type of speech, common in medieval and early modern drama, where a villain or tyrant tells the audience who he is and that he is up to no good. [Shakespeare’s Richard III’s opening speech is a grandchild of this genre].<br />
|Lines 1-124<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/sugano-the-n-town-plays Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|Digby ''Mary Magdalene''<br />
|Mary Magdalene<br />
|Female<br />
|In this speech, Mary Magdalene preaches about the creation of the world to a heathen king, hoping to persuade him to leave his pagan ways.<br />
|Lines 1481-1526<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes ==<br />
It’s time to get Theatre students excited about performing Medieval drama. <br />
<br />
The question for many is where to begin? How do I find a play Where do I find a good scene? What edition is the best for performance? We are aware that there is too much and too little out there. And we also noted the need for teachers and students alike to have access to an inventory of scenes and monologues and good editions of plays. So, we have compiled these resources to get you started.<br />
<br />
Also, keep in mind that while in many instances characters are all male, and probably youngish to middle-age, when they are representative/allegorical characters, gender and age may not matter much when casting the roles.<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Roles<br />
!Gender<br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of Scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|New Guise, Nowadays, Nought, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the vices New Guise, Nowadays, and Nought try to tempt Mankind into sin. They fail spectacularly. Instead of recruiting Mankind as a diabolic minion, the devils are beaten up by him. This scene is important for understanding medieval drama because it illustrates physical action as an indispensable component that must be carefully choreographed and rehearsed to avoid injuring any of the actors. It also shows the use of physical comedy in medieval drama.<br />
|Lines 345-401<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|Titivillus, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the devil Titivillus has been called in by the other devils or vices who have failed to tempt Mankind into sin. Titivillus is invisible and inaudible to Mankind; but the audience can see and hear him, and they know Mankind cannot. This last piece is crucial, because Titivillus repeatedly speaks to the audience as if they are on his side, telling them to keep quiet to further his goal of tempting Mankind into sin (when of course they really are quiet because of their role as audience). This scene is one of several in the play that uses the audience’s role as audience to incite them to do bad things, thereby demonstrating that the audience needs redemption as much as does the character Mankind.<br />
|Lines 526-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|''Fulgens and Lucres''<br />
|A<br />
B<br />
|Male<br />
|This scene opens the play. In it, A and B interact with the audience and with each other, all the while claiming that they are not part of the play, but there will be a play and they’re anxious to see it. B explains to A what the play will be about.<br />
The scene is important because it demonstrates the fluid, meta-theatrical relationship between audience and play in early English theatre.<br />
|Lines 1 - 201<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|''Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham'' (scene 1)<br />
|Sheriff,<br />
Knight, <br />
<br />
and Robin Hood<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the Knight offers to capture Robin Hood for the Sheriff, who agrees to pay the Knight if he is successful. The Knight finds Robin Hood and engages with him in a series of tests of strength and skill. At last they fight. Robin Hood wins, kills the Knight, and declares that he will dress himself in the Knight’s clothes and take his head to the Sheriff to claim the reward for ‘killing’ Robin Hood.<br />
This scene is useful in the classroom for several reasons. It is one of a very few surviving pieces of secular medieval English drama. It also provides an opportunity to demonstrate the challenges presented by the extant texts. There are few stage directions in early drama; but as this scene makes clear, it is crucial to puzzle out the action. Most of this scene is, in fact, action. How long would the scene run? That’s entirely dependent upon how a performance decides to handle the action. The contests could be quick, or they could be elaborate.<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/16EWuJ02hFOhUxADG1zF-nk-TdzPa-0q8/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S6PFlgKa_tQBL9lwX76GlXbuv6KKj5Fa/view?usp=sharing Regularized Spelling]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/robyn-hod-and-the-shryff-off-notyngham Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll,<br />
<br />
Gib,<br />
<br />
Daw,<br />
<br />
Mak,<br />
<br />
Gyll<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
Female<br />
|In this scene, the shepherds (Coll, Gib, and Daw) come to Mak and Gyll’s house, looking for their stolen sheep. Mak has indeed stolen the sheep and has persuaded his wife Gyll to help him hide it by putting it in their cradle and pretending it is their newborn baby.<br />
The scene importantly demonstrates how medieval drama employs humor for thematic goals. For example, Mak swears to the shepherds that if he stole the sheep, the ‘baby’ will be the first meal he eats that day. It’s a funny line, for the audience knows the ‘baby’ is actually a sheep that Mak has every intention of eating. But discussion of eating the sheep/baby also underscores the nativity theme of the play, which celebrates the birth of a baby, Jesus, who is also a “lamb” who will be eaten (in the form of communion) for the benefit of humans. The parodic profane nativity highlights the sacred nativity.<br />
|Lines 476-628<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|''The Castle of Perseverance''<br />
|Mercy,<br />
<br />
Justice,<br />
<br />
Truth,<br />
<br />
Peace,<br />
<br />
God<br />
<br />
|Eternal<br />
|Humanum Genus, the play’s Mankind figure, has behaved wickedly most of his life. But as he is dying, he realizes his wickedness. His very last word is “Mercy,” begging God to save him from hell. In this scene, Justice and Truth argue before God why Humanum Genus should be damned. Peace and Mercy give their reasons why he should be saved. The scene resembles a modern courtroom drama, with Truth and Justice as the prosecuting attorneys, Mercy and Peace acting for the defense, and God the Judge listening to all sides before giving his verdict.<br />
All characters are female except God, who is male. All are eternal figures.<br />
|Lines 3129-3544<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/cascomp.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/klausner-castle-of-perseverance Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|''Brome Abraham and Isaac''<br />
|Abraham,<br />
<br />
Isaac,<br />
<br />
the Angel<br />
|Male<br />
|Abraham is old. Isaac is a child. The Angel is ageless.<br />
Abraham has been ordered by God to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Naturally, Abraham is reluctant to kill his child, but he also wants to be obedient to God. In this scene, we see Abraham’s struggle. We also see medieval drama’s typological understanding of the sacrifice of Isaac as foreshadowing the sacrifice of Jesus.<br />
|Lines 290-332<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/noa/pdf/13BromePlay_1_12.pdf Modern (lightly) English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/AJD3529.0001.001/1:4.6?rgn=div2;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|''Johan Johan''<br />
|Tib the Wife,<br />
John the Husband, and Johan Johan the priest<br />
|Female<br />
<br />
Male<br />
|Tib is female and young adult. John the Husband is male and adult, perhaps a bit older than Tib, but theirs is not necessarily a May/December marriage. Johan Johan is male and adult.<br />
The priest has been carrying on with several women in the area, including Tib. Tib and the priest laugh at the husband’s thickheadness in not realizing their liaison.. But John the Husband begins to get suspicious. This scene is particularly rich in physical comedy, as the husband is chafing wax from a candle to mend a leaky pail, with obvious masturbatory overtones--i.e,, the priest is getting real sex, the husband has to make do on his own.<br />
|Lines 439-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?id=h0U4AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA67#v=onepage&q&f=false Text]<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|''Wisdom''<br />
|Lucifer,<br />
<br />
Mind,<br />
<br />
Will,<br />
<br />
Understanding<br />
|Allegorical<br />
|Lucifer explains to the audience that he is going to tempt the good guys, does so, and then brags about it.<br />
|Lines 325-55<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Some Productions of Medieval Plays, Online ==<br />
You can access an extensive [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5cWcydg0JFis9914C0KX7iz59jwg6-xV# YouTube playlist of medieval drama] online. Additionally, here is a resource list for some titles:<br />
<br />
=== ''Everyman'' ===<br />
You can find digital versions of various productions online, including a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkM8v0m3URg# 2012 ''Everyman''] production at the Portland Community College Performing Arts Center which utilized large-scale puppets and a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvZFBZB10LA# 2016 ''Everyman''] production by the Laurier Historical Society at Wilfrid Laurier University. The play has been adapted as a commercial film twice in recent years in modernized (2002) and period (2007) productions.<br />
<br />
=== ''Mankind'' ===<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4acAjs2TGa8# 1999 ''Mankind''] staging by Duquesne University Medieval and Renaissance Players. <br />
<br />
University students staged an improvisatory modernized production of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsTyvD8E9Mk# ''Mankind''] as a final course project in 2016.<br />
<br />
=== Biblical cycle plays and passion plays ===<br />
The Blackhills Passion plays were performed in Spearfish, South Dakota from 1939 to 2008, and at their winter home in Lake Wales, Florida from 1953 to 1999.<br />
<br />
The Mormon Hill Cumorah biblical pageant in Palmyra, New York has been performed since 1935: http://www.hillcumorah.org/ <br />
<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn0pcYONuxc# 2013 Chester Noah] play performed by the Liverpool University Players.<br />
<br />
The Chester Mystery plays were performed in a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRthPA2nJyw# 2008 modernized musical version].<br />
<br />
The Oberammergau Passion Play has been performed continuously in that Bavarian village since 1634. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KeVtnndSsc# The trailer for the 2020 production]. <br />
<br />
The Towneley Second Shepherds’ Play has long been a favorite Christmas holiday production, and was recently revived at the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RomR1sxDlus# Folger Theater] in 2016. <br />
<br />
[https://muse.jhu.edu/article/34991# Yiimimangaliso: The Mysteries], a version of the Chester mysteries, was staged in South Africa and London in 2001 and has been revived since. <br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, England: Videos from recent York mystery plays are available on-line at several sites. See, for example, [http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/york-mystery-plays-1973# York Mystery Plays 1973], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nyFLOlEupM# York Mystery Plays 2010], and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_IE4izf_6c# York Mystery Plays 2016].<br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, Toronto: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIImNnV1Ty0# 2010 “Crucifixion”].<br />
<br />
The [http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/front-page/# Poculi Ludique Societas], or PLS in Toronto, has for over 50 years now sponsored productions of early plays, from the beginnings of medieval drama to as late as the middle of the seventeenth century.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Selected Bibliography ==<br />
Albin, Andrew. “Sonorous Presence, and the Performance of Christian Community in the Chester Shepherds Play.” ''Early Theatre'' 16.2 (2013): 33-57.<br />
<br />
Aronson-Lehavi, Sharon. ''Street Scenes: Late Medieval Acting and Performance''. Palgrave MacmIllan, 2011.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. “The Present of Past Things: The York Corpus Christi Cycle as a Contemporary Theatre of Memory.” ''Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies'' 26.2 (1996): 35-79.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. ''Signifying God: Social Relations and Symbolic Act in the York Corpus Christi Plays''. University of Chicago Press, 2001.<br />
<br />
Bevington, David. ''From “Mankind” to Marlowe: Growth of Structure in the Popular Drama of Tudor England''. Harvard University Press, 1962.<br />
<br />
Butler, Judith. ''Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative''. Routledge, 1997.<br />
<br />
Carlson, Marvin. “Medieval Street Performers Speak.” ''TDR:The Drama Review'', 57.4 (2013): 86-94.<br />
<br />
Chaganti, Seeta. “The Platea: Pre- and Postmodern: A Landscape of Medieval Performance Studies.” ''Exemplaria'' 25.3 (2013): 252-64.<br />
<br />
Clopper, Lawrence. ''Drama, Play, and Game: English Festive Culture in the Medieval and Early Modern Period''. Chicago, 2001.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “The Chester Cycle in Sixteenth-Century Religious Culture," ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 37.3 (2007): 532-47.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. ''Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints: Theater, Gender, and Religion in Late Medieval England''. University of Pennsylvania, 2004.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Biblical Drama in Post-Apartheid South Africa: The Chester Plays in Afterlife.” ''Transformations in Biblical Literary Traditions: Incarnation, Narrative,'' ''and Ethics''. Eds. D.H. Williams and Philip Donnelly, Notre Dame University Press, 2014. 268-88.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Drama: 1191-1952.” ''Exemplaria'' 28.3 (2016): 264-76.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Reading REED: History and the Records of Early English Drama.” ''Literary Practice and Social Change in Britain, 1380-1530''. Ed. Lee Patterson, University of California Press, 1990. 248-84.<br />
<br />
Davidson, Clifford, ed. ''Gesture in Medieval Drama and Art''. Medieval Institute, 2001.<br />
<br />
Elliott, John R., Jr. ''Playing God: Medieval Mysteries on the Modern Stage''. University of Toronto Press, 1989.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard. “Dramatic History: On the Diachronic and Synchronic in the Study of Early English Drama.” ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 35:1 (2005): 39-66.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard K. “’Nowe Ys Common This Daye’: Enoch and Elias, Antichrist, and the Structure of the Chester Cycle.” ''Homo, Memento Finis: The Iconography of Just'' ''Judgment in Medieval Art and Drama''. Ed. David Bevington, et. al. Medieval Institute, 1985. 221-57.<br />
<br />
Enders, Jody. ''The Medieval Theater of Cruelty: Rhetoric, Memory, Violence.'' Cornell University Press, 2002.<br />
<br />
Gardiner, Harold. ''Mysteries’ End: An Investigation of the Last Days of the Medieval Religious Stage.'' Yale University Press, 1946.<br />
<br />
Hardison, O.B., Jr. ''Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages: Essays in the Origin and Early History of Modern Drama''. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965.<br />
<br />
Holsinger, Bruce. “Analytical Survey 6: Medieval Literature and Cultures of Performance.” ''New Medieval Literatures'' 6 (2003): 271-311.<br />
<br />
James, Mervyn. “Ritual, Drama, and Social Body in the Late Medieval Town.” ''Past & Present'' 98 (1983):3-29.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela, ed. ''The Routledge Research Companion to Early Drama and Performance.'' Routledge, 2017.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela. ''The York Mystery Cycle and the Worship of the City''. D.S. Breer, 2006.<br />
<br />
Kolve, V.A. ''The Play Called Corpus Christi.'' Stanford University Press, 1966.<br />
<br />
Lerud, Theodore. ''Memory, Images, and the English Corpus Christi Drama''. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Gender and Medieval Drama.'' D.S. Brewer, 2004.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Modern Mysteries: Contemporary Productions of Medieval English Dramas.'' D.S. Brewer, 2007. <br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Medieval English Drama: Performance and Spectatorship.'' Polity Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Parker, Andrew, and Eve Kosofsky Sedwick, eds. ''Performativity and Performance.'' Routledge,1995.<br />
<br />
Ong, Walter. ''Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word.'' Methuen, 1982.<br />
<br />
Overlie, Mary. ''Standing in Space: The Six Viewpoints Theory and Practice''. Fallon Press, 2016.<br />
<br />
Rogerson, Margaret. ''Playing a Part in History: The York Mysteries, 1951-2006''. University of Toronto Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Sergi, Matthew. Work-in-progress on ''Play Texts and Public Practice in the Chester Cycle,'' c.1421-1607.<br />
<br />
Schreyer, Kurt. ''Shakespeare’s Medieval Craft: Memories of the Mysteries on the London Stage.'' Cornell University Press, 2014.<br />
<br />
Soleo-Shanks, Jenna. “Resurrecting Callimachus: Pop Music Puppets, and the Necessity of Performance in Teaching Medieval Drama." ''Teaching Medieval and Early Modern'' ''Cross-Cultural Encounters''. Eds. Karina F. Attar and Lynn Shutters, Palgrave Macmillan 2014. 199-213.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. “The Culture of the Spectator.” ''Theater Journal'' 34 (1992): 15-29.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. ''Ritual Imports: Performing Medieval Drama in America'', Cornell University Press, 2005.<br />
<br />
Stevens, Martin. ''Four Middle English Mystery Cycles.'' Princeton University Press, 1987.<br />
<br />
Stevenson, Jill. ''Performance, Cognitive Theory, and Devotional Culture: Sensual Piety in Late Medieval York.'' Palgrave MacMillan, 2010.<br />
<br />
Travis, Peter W. ''Dramatic Design in the Chester Cycle''. University of Chicago Press, 1982.<br />
<br />
Turner, Victor. ''From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play''. PAJ Books, 1982<br />
<br />
Westfall, Suzanne R. ''Patrons and Performance: Early Tudor Household Revels''. Clarendon Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
Continue on to ''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|Verba et Res]]''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]: Lesson Plans 1 through 4.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
'''Page written by'''<br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler | Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy&diff=28414Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy2018-03-24T22:10:17Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>''This article is under construction''<br />
<br />
This article - conceived and written by Barbara J. Bono, Maria S. Horne, and Michelle Markley Butler - is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance.<br />
<br />
==Introduction==<br />
<br />
===Medieval drama truly comes alive in performance.=== <br />
This is, of course, a statement true of all works in the dramatic genre. However, it is especially true of medieval drama, which frequently addressed in embodied form large and ultimate questions about humanity's place in creation and the scheme of history, and did so in direct and explicit relation to its audiences, with extraordinary emotive and affective range from the obscene to the exalted. <br />
[[File:028728.jpg|thumb|left|Miss Edith Wynne Matthison in the role of Everyman (c. 1902)|504x504px]]<br />
<br />
Medieval drama is integrated into the curriculum for theatre majors at most universities in the United States. However, there, rather than being part of acting technique or performance-based courses, or of staged productions, the subject is most often studied only very briefly in lecture courses like Theatre History. Meanwhile, in departments of literature, medieval drama is sometimes included as a topic in a broader medieval or British literature class or as a minor prequel to the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, but it is seldom given much time or attention, and its performative nature is largely neglected.<br />
<br />
But we would argue that medieval drama is accessible, exciting, adaptable, and inspirational to interested communities of all ages and abilities - from lower grade levels to highly-trained practitioners - for drama itself is the ideal synesthetic and interdisciplinary vehicle for community formation and differential learning. There is also contemporaneity in medieval drama: humor, music, and fun, as well as metaphor, allegories, and subtexts which speak to who we are today. And while the task of accessing this excitement may seem daunting, in this article we have put together a set of resources - combining language, action, and spectacle - to get you started.<br />
<br />
The first step in bridging the gap between performance and literary study is alerting students and teachers to the new wealth of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Medieval_and_early_English_drama.2C_print_and_on-line_editions|readily-available textual and general scholarly resources]] for these plays, which reach far beyond the frequently anthologized ''Everyman'' or the de-contextualized bit of a biblical cycle play.<br />
<br />
==Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre==<br />
<br />
The second step is to make at least a beginning at "putting the plays up on their feet." To that end we have supplied a series of ten performance-based Lesson Plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing, to considering the symbolic shape of an action, to preliminary training toward full performance and modern adaptation. While these Lesson Plans are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous [http://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-set-free Folger Shakespeare Set Free teaching manuals], namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology.<br />
<br />
===[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama|''Verba et Res''/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 ======<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
[[File:Monreale, Christ the Creator.JPG|thumb|''Christo Pantocratore''. Monreale Cathedral, Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|667x667px]]<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_1:_Playing_around_with_medieval_language Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_2:_The_twenty_props_you_need_to_put_on_any_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_3:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history Lesson Plan 3: Typology, or medieval living history]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_4:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history_and_tableau_vivant Lesson Plan 4: Typology, or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'']''<nowiki/>''<br />
<br />
===[[Setting_the_Medieval_Stage |Setting the Medieval Stage]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 5 through 7 ======<br />
<br />
The spaces of medieval drama were various, labile, and indeed often mobile. The York Biblical cycle plays processed annually on pageant carts into and about the city to stop at York Minster and end on the market Pavement; small travelling companies acted other plays, performing in open spaces, inn yards, or great houses. Later, as plays retreated into manuscript, they might have been brought out for occasional declamation. Plays of such sharp moment and open engagement could, in theory, take place anywhere on this middle earth. As Peter Brook famously began his 1968 classic, ''The Empty Space'', “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and that is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged,” and modern revivals of medieval plays have utilized halls, cloisters, hillsides, city plazas and streetscapes, as well as more formal stages. These three Lesson Plans encourage you to find a suitable space for your play exercises, from a classroom with the desks pushed back to the more formal stage to the outdoor green space which might draw in community passers-by. Then we offer you a selection of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers |monologues]] for actors and especially powerful [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes |scenes]] to help develop the craft of your ensemble. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_5:_Stages_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 5: Stages for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_6:_Filling_the_space._Medieval_monologues_and_the_power_of_words Lesson Plan 6: Filling the space. Medieval monologues and the power of words]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_7:_Creating_and_inhabiting_the_space._Scenes_from_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 7: Creating and inhabiting the space. Scenes from medieval drama]<br />
<br />
=== [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]] ===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 8 through 10 ======<br />
<br />
Medieval drama engaged and hoped to transform its audiences with its biting and cathartic humor, its pointed social observation, its religiously inflected heights and depths, and its joy, and it forged community in its gatherings. <br />
[[File:Barbers' Baptism 147274.jpg|thumb|''The Baptism'' from the York Mystery Plays performed from a cart in the streets of York in front of St William's College.|400x400px]]<br />
These are goals to which we can aspire in our teaching, and we can do this with youngsters and oldsters as well as formal students and professionals, and in our street and cities as well as in our classrooms and regular theaters. Some of us are fortunate enough to be theatre professionals, and to do this as the core of our vocation. Others do it more occasionally, or aspire to do something like it in our communities. <br />
<br />
In these final three Lesson Plans we invite you to think hard about the audiences whom you hope to reach in your work, and we offer you the inspiring account of two younger academics from our group who have had the training, creativity, and institutional support to mount entire student productions, in one case for a large public university Honors College seminar filled with STEM students, and in another at a liberal arts college embedded in a large city. <br />
<br />
Finally, we encourage you to take the tradition of street performance of medieval drama and the example of some modern adaptations to think about its transformative potential for pressing modern needs such as increased civic engagement, social justice, and ecological awareness. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_8:_Determining_your_audience_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 8: Determining your audience for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_9:_Performance_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 9: Performance of medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_10:_Adaptations_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 10: Adaptations of medieval drama]<br />
<br />
== Medieval and early English drama, print and on-line editions ==<br />
One may wonder why we do not see more Medieval Theatre productions on the university stage nowadays. Part of the answer may be that for the non-medievalist, and in particular for the performer not versed in medieval drama, approaching this enterprise could be daunting, starting with the selection of the play, where to find it, whether to use Middle English or a modernized, and which edition of text to use. To help streamline this process, and because there is no such a resource readily available for pedagogical purposes, we decided to compile a short list of medieval plays both in print and online editions, as well as modernized and unmodernized, as you will find in this section . <br />
<br />
===Print editions===<br />
<br />
''The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama''. Christina M. Fitzgerald and John T. Sebastian. Broadview, 2012.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama: An Anthology''. Greg Walker. Wiley-Blackwell, 2000.<br />
<br />
''Three Late Medieval Morality Plays''. G.A. Lester. New Mermaids, 2002. <br />
<br />
''York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling''. Richard Beadle and Pamela King. Oxford University Press, 2009<br />
<br />
''Early English Drama: An Anthology''. John C. Coldewey. Routledge, 1993.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama''. David Bevington. Hackett, 1975. <br />
<br />
The ''Arden Early English Drama'' series of texts from the late fifteenth to the late seventeenth centuries currently includes ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
===On-line editions===<br />
<br />
Online editions vary considerably in quality. Below are some that we have found to be well edited for both scholarly and pedagogical purposes. <br><br />
[[File:V.a.354 98v-99r.jpg|thumb|522x522px|Medieval plays were first preserved in manuscripts like this unique copy of the morality play ''Wisdom'' (c. 1460-63), preserved in the Macro plays at the Folger Shakespeare Library.|left]]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
==== Modernized ====<br />
<br />
:[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html#tab The N-town Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag The York Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/the-towneley-cycle-of-plays/ The Towneley Plays]<br />
<br><br />
====Unmodernized====<br />
<br />
:The TEAMS Middle English Text Series: <br />
http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== <br>Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers ==<br />
[[File:019807.jpg|thumb|600x600px|An angel announces the birth of Christ in the 2015-2016 Folger''The Second'' ''Shepherdes' Play'']]<br />
<nowiki> </nowiki><br />
<br />
Choosing a great monologue is a task that confronts actors who are always searching for the best new monologue for their next audition. Audition pieces need to be strong, original, and not overdone. <br />
<br />
Medieval drama provides an exceptional vehicle for exploration and it allows the actor to utilize a variety of acting techniques, genres, and styles while performing. Here are some suggestions for monologues. <br />
<br />
While the casting suggestions given here are gender- and age-normative, directors and actors may want to think about mixing up these conventions for special effect and/or to suit their needs.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br><br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Role<br />
!Gender <br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll (First Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This speech opens the play. Coll complains about the conditions that poor men like himself have to endure and the ways they are abused by rich men. The speech is important in its sympathy for the plight of the medieval working class, and also thematically: after Coll speaks, it is easy to understand why salvation in the form of the baby Jesus is needed to come into the world.<br />
|Lines 1-54<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology.'' Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Gib (Second Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This is the second speech of the play. Gib complains about the difficulties of being married, and how much he regrets it, but it’s too late. This speech is important for its insight into medieval humor (for better or worse, the ‘take my wife, please’ vein of jokes has been mined for a long time); thematically, it establishes that salvation is needed in the world because humans, in particular the sexes, are at odds.<br />
|Lines 55-108<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|The York ''Fall of the Angels''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only this individual pageant but the York cycle as a whole. It sets the scene for both pageant and play, laying out themes that will recur throughout: the nature of God, the nature of creation, the nature of faith, the nature of worship, the consequences of disobedience.<br />
|Lines 1-34<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English] <br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|The York ''Crucifixion''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|This is Jesus’ speech from the cross after the soldiers finally manage to get him stretched and nailed to it.<br />
|Lines 253-264<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens the final pageant of the cycle. It harkens back to the first pageant and reminds the audience of all that happened between then and now, explaining the need for an end to be made and judgement given.<br />
|Lines 1-64<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|In this speech, Jesus addresses the human characters but, of course, also the audience, explaining why the judgement is going down as it does.<br />
|Lines 231-300<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|Chester''The Fall of Lucifer''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only the pageant but the cycle as a whole, laying out its important themes.<br />
|Lines 1-51<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/index.html Modern English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|N-town ''Passion Play 1''<br />
|Satan<br />
|Super-natural<br />
|This speech opens the Passion Play in the N-town manuscript. It is an important example of the ‘boast’ type of speech, common in medieval and early modern drama, where a villain or tyrant tells the audience who he is and that he is up to no good. [Shakespeare’s Richard III’s opening speech is a grandchild of this genre].<br />
|Lines 1-124<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/sugano-the-n-town-plays Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|Digby ''Mary Magdalene''<br />
|Mary Magdalene<br />
|Female<br />
|In this speech, Mary Magdalene preaches about the creation of the world to a heathen king, hoping to persuade him to leave his pagan ways.<br />
|Lines 1481-1526<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes ==<br />
It’s time to get Theatre students excited about performing Medieval drama. <br />
<br />
The question for many is where to begin? How do I find a play Where do I find a good scene? What edition is the best for performance? We are aware that there is too much and too little out there. And we also noted the need for teachers and students alike to have access to an inventory of scenes and monologues and good editions of plays. So, we have compiled these resources to get you started.<br />
<br />
Also, keep in mind that while in many instances characters are all male, and probably youngish to middle-age, when they are representative/allegorical characters, gender and age may not matter much when casting the roles.<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Roles<br />
!Gender<br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of Scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|New Guise, Nowadays, Nought, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the vices New Guise, Nowadays, and Nought try to tempt Mankind into sin. They fail spectacularly. Instead of recruiting Mankind as a diabolic minion, the devils are beaten up by him. This scene is important for understanding medieval drama because it illustrates physical action as an indispensable component that must be carefully choreographed and rehearsed to avoid injuring any of the actors. It also shows the use of physical comedy in medieval drama.<br />
|Lines 345-401<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|Titivillus, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the devil Titivillus has been called in by the other devils or vices who have failed to tempt Mankind into sin. Titivillus is invisible and inaudible to Mankind; but the audience can see and hear him, and they know Mankind cannot. This last piece is crucial, because Titivillus repeatedly speaks to the audience as if they are on his side, telling them to keep quiet to further his goal of tempting Mankind into sin (when of course they really are quiet because of their role as audience). This scene is one of several in the play that uses the audience’s role as audience to incite them to do bad things, thereby demonstrating that the audience needs redemption as much as does the character Mankind.<br />
|Lines 526-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|''Fulgens and Lucres''<br />
|A<br />
B<br />
|Male<br />
|This scene opens the play. In it, A and B interact with the audience and with each other, all the while claiming that they are not part of the play, but there will be a play and they’re anxious to see it. B explains to A what the play will be about.<br />
The scene is important because it demonstrates the fluid, meta-theatrical relationship between audience and play in early English theatre.<br />
|Lines 1 - 201<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|''Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham'' (scene 1)<br />
|Sheriff,<br />
Knight, <br />
<br />
and Robin Hood<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the Knight offers to capture Robin Hood for the Sheriff, who agrees to pay the Knight if he is successful. The Knight finds Robin Hood and engages with him in a series of tests of strength and skill. At last they fight. Robin Hood wins, kills the Knight, and declares that he will dress himself in the Knight’s clothes and take his head to the Sheriff to claim the reward for ‘killing’ Robin Hood.<br />
This scene is useful in the classroom for several reasons. It is one of a very few surviving pieces of secular medieval English drama. It also provides an opportunity to demonstrate the challenges presented by the extant texts. There are few stage directions in early drama; but as this scene makes clear, it is crucial to puzzle out the action. Most of this scene is, in fact, action. How long would the scene run? That’s entirely dependent upon how a performance decides to handle the action. The contests could be quick, or they could be elaborate.<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/16EWuJ02hFOhUxADG1zF-nk-TdzPa-0q8/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S6PFlgKa_tQBL9lwX76GlXbuv6KKj5Fa/view?usp=sharing Regularized Spelling]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/robyn-hod-and-the-shryff-off-notyngham Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll,<br />
<br />
Gib,<br />
<br />
Daw,<br />
<br />
Mak,<br />
<br />
Gyll<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
Female<br />
|In this scene, the shepherds (Coll, Gib, and Daw) come to Mak and Gyll’s house, looking for their stolen sheep. Mak has indeed stolen the sheep and has persuaded his wife Gyll to help him hide it by putting it in their cradle and pretending it is their newborn baby.<br />
The scene importantly demonstrates how medieval drama employs humor for thematic goals. For example, Mak swears to the shepherds that if he stole the sheep, the ‘baby’ will be the first meal he eats that day. It’s a funny line, for the audience knows the ‘baby’ is actually a sheep that Mak has every intention of eating. But discussion of eating the sheep/baby also underscores the nativity theme of the play, which celebrates the birth of a baby, Jesus, who is also a “lamb” who will be eaten (in the form of communion) for the benefit of humans. The parodic profane nativity highlights the sacred nativity.<br />
|Lines 476-628<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|''The Castle of Perseverance''<br />
|Mercy,<br />
<br />
Justice,<br />
<br />
Truth,<br />
<br />
Peace,<br />
<br />
God<br />
<br />
|Eternal<br />
|Humanum Genus, the play’s Mankind figure, has behaved wickedly most of his life. But as he is dying, he realizes his wickedness. His very last word is “Mercy,” begging God to save him from hell. In this scene, Justice and Truth argue before God why Humanum Genus should be damned. Peace and Mercy give their reasons why he should be saved. The scene resembles a modern courtroom drama, with Truth and Justice as the prosecuting attorneys, Mercy and Peace acting for the defense, and God the Judge listening to all sides before giving his verdict.<br />
All characters are female except God, who is male. All are eternal figures.<br />
|Lines 3129-3544<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/cascomp.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/klausner-castle-of-perseverance Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|''Brome Abraham and Isaac''<br />
|Abraham,<br />
<br />
Isaac,<br />
<br />
the Angel<br />
|Male<br />
|Abraham is old. Isaac is a child. The Angel is ageless.<br />
Abraham has been ordered by God to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Naturally, Abraham is reluctant to kill his child, but he also wants to be obedient to God. In this scene, we see Abraham’s struggle. We also see medieval drama’s typological understanding of the sacrifice of Isaac as foreshadowing the sacrifice of Jesus.<br />
|Lines 290-332<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/noa/pdf/13BromePlay_1_12.pdf Modern (lightly) English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/AJD3529.0001.001/1:4.6?rgn=div2;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|''Johan Johan''<br />
|Tib the Wife,<br />
John the Husband, and Johan Johan the priest<br />
|Female<br />
<br />
Male<br />
|Tib is female and young adult. John the Husband is male and adult, perhaps a bit older than Tib, but theirs is not necessarily a May/December marriage. Johan Johan is male and adult.<br />
The priest has been carrying on with several women in the area, including Tib. Tib and the priest laugh at the husband’s thickheadness in not realizing their liaison.. But John the Husband begins to get suspicious. This scene is particularly rich in physical comedy, as the husband is chafing wax from a candle to mend a leaky pail, with obvious masturbatory overtones--i.e,, the priest is getting real sex, the husband has to make do on his own.<br />
|Lines 439-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?id=h0U4AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA67#v=onepage&q&f=false Text]<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|''Wisdom''<br />
|Lucifer,<br />
<br />
Mind,<br />
<br />
Will,<br />
<br />
Understanding<br />
|Allegorical<br />
|Lucifer explains to the audience that he is going to tempt the good guys, does so, and then brags about it.<br />
|Lines 325-55<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Some Productions of Medieval Plays, Online ==<br />
You can access an extensive [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5cWcydg0JFis9914C0KX7iz59jwg6-xV# YouTube playlist of medieval drama] online. Additionally, here is a resource list for some titles:<br />
<br />
=== ''Everyman'' ===<br />
You can find digital versions of various productions online, including a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkM8v0m3URg# 2012 ''Everyman''] production at the Portland Community College Performing Arts Center which utilized large-scale puppets and a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvZFBZB10LA# 2016 ''Everyman''] production by the Laurier Historical Society at Wilfrid Laurier University. The play has been adapted as a commercial film twice in recent years in modernized (2002) and period (2007) productions.<br />
<br />
=== ''Mankind'' ===<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4acAjs2TGa8# 1999 ''Mankind''] staging by Duquesne University Medieval and Renaissance Players. <br />
<br />
University students staged an improvisatory modernized production of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsTyvD8E9Mk# ''Mankind''] as a final course project in 2016.<br />
<br />
=== Biblical cycle plays and passion plays ===<br />
The Blackhills Passion plays were performed in Spearfish, South Dakota from 1939 to 2008, and at their winter home in Lake Wales, Florida from 1953 to 1999.<br />
<br />
The Mormon Hill Cumorah biblical pageant in Palmyra, New York has been performed since 1935: http://www.hillcumorah.org/ <br />
<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn0pcYONuxc# 2013 Chester Noah] play performed by the Liverpool University Players.<br />
<br />
The Chester Mystery plays were performed in a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRthPA2nJyw# 2008 modernized musical version].<br />
<br />
The Oberammergau Passion Play has been performed continuously in that Bavarian village since 1634. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KeVtnndSsc# The trailer for the 2020 production]. <br />
<br />
The Towneley Second Shepherds’ Play has long been a favorite Christmas holiday production, and was recently revived at the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RomR1sxDlus# Folger Theater] in 2016. <br />
<br />
[https://muse.jhu.edu/article/34991# Yiimimangaliso: The Mysteries], a version of the Chester mysteries, was staged in South Africa and London in 2001 and has been revived since. <br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, England: Videos from recent York mystery plays are available on-line at several sites. See, for example, [http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/york-mystery-plays-1973# York Mystery Plays 1973], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nyFLOlEupM# York Mystery Plays 2010], and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_IE4izf_6c# York Mystery Plays 2016].<br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, Toronto: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIImNnV1Ty0# 2010 “Crucifixion”].<br />
<br />
The [http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/front-page/# Poculi Ludique Societas], or PLS in Toronto, has for over 50 years now sponsored productions of early plays, from the beginnings of medieval drama to as late as the middle of the seventeenth century.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Selected Bibliography ==<br />
Albin, Andrew. “Sonorous Presence, and the Performance of Christian Community in the Chester Shepherds Play.” ''Early Theatre'' 16.2 (2013): 33-57.<br />
<br />
Aronson-Lehavi, Sharon. ''Street Scenes: Late Medieval Acting and Performance''. Palgrave MacmIllan, 2011.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. “The Present of Past Things: The York Corpus Christi Cycle as a Contemporary Theatre of Memory.” ''Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies'' 26.2 (1996): 35-79.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. ''Signifying God: Social Relations and Symbolic Act in the York Corpus Christi Plays''. University of Chicago Press, 2001.<br />
<br />
Bevington, David. ''From “Mankind” to Marlowe: Growth of Structure in the Popular Drama of Tudor England''. Harvard University Press, 1962.<br />
<br />
Butler, Judith. ''Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative''. Routledge, 1997.<br />
<br />
Carlson, Marvin. “Medieval Street Performers Speak.” ''TDR:The Drama Review'', 57.4 (2013): 86-94.<br />
<br />
Chaganti, Seeta. “The Platea: Pre- and Postmodern: A Landscape of Medieval Performance Studies.” ''Exemplaria'' 25.3 (2013): 252-64.<br />
<br />
Clopper, Lawrence. ''Drama, Play, and Game: English Festive Culture in the Medieval and Early Modern Period''. Chicago, 2001.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “The Chester Cycle in Sixteenth-Century Religious Culture," ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 37.3 (2007): 532-47.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. ''Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints: Theater, Gender, and Religion in Late Medieval England''. University of Pennsylvania, 2004.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Biblical Drama in Post-Apartheid South Africa: The Chester Plays in Afterlife.” ''Transformations in Biblical Literary Traditions: Incarnation, Narrative,'' ''and Ethics''. Eds. D.H. Williams and Philip Donnelly, Notre Dame University Press, 2014. 268-88.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Drama: 1191-1952.” ''Exemplaria'' 28.3 (2016): 264-76.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Reading REED: History and the Records of Early English Drama.” ''Literary Practice and Social Change in Britain, 1380-1530''. Ed. Lee Patterson, University of California Press, 1990. 248-84.<br />
<br />
Davidson, Clifford, ed. ''Gesture in Medieval Drama and Art''. Medieval Institute, 2001.<br />
<br />
Elliott, John R., Jr. ''Playing God: Medieval Mysteries on the Modern Stage''. University of Toronto Press, 1989.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard. “Dramatic History: On the Diachronic and Synchronic in the Study of Early English Drama.” ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 35:1 (2005): 39-66.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard K. “’Nowe Ys Common This Daye’: Enoch and Elias, Antichrist, and the Structure of the Chester Cycle.” ''Homo, Memento Finis: The Iconography of Just'' ''Judgment in Medieval Art and Drama''. Ed. David Bevington, et. al. Medieval Institute, 1985. 221-57.<br />
<br />
Enders, Jody. ''The Medieval Theater of Cruelty: Rhetoric, Memory, Violence.'' Cornell University Press, 2002.<br />
<br />
Gardiner, Harold. ''Mysteries’ End: An Investigation of the Last Days of the Medieval Religious Stage.'' Yale University Press, 1946.<br />
<br />
Hardison, O.B., Jr. ''Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages: Essays in the Origin and Early History of Modern Drama''. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965.<br />
<br />
Holsinger, Bruce. “Analytical Survey 6: Medieval Literature and Cultures of Performance.” ''New Medieval Literatures'' 6 (2003): 271-311.<br />
<br />
James, Mervyn. “Ritual, Drama, and Social Body in the Late Medieval Town.” ''Past & Present'' 98 (1983):3-29.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela, ed. ''The Routledge Research Companion to Early Drama and Performance.'' Routledge, 2017.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela. ''The York Mystery Cycle and the Worship of the City''. D.S. Breer, 2006.<br />
<br />
Kolve, V.A. ''The Play Called Corpus Christi.'' Stanford University Press, 1966.<br />
<br />
Lerud, Theodore. ''Memory, Images, and the English Corpus Christi Drama''. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Gender and Medieval Drama.'' D.S. Brewer, 2004.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Modern Mysteries: Contemporary Productions of Medieval English Dramas.'' D.S. Brewer, 2007. <br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Medieval English Drama: Performance and Spectatorship.'' Polity Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Parker, Andrew, and Eve Kosofsky Sedwick, eds. ''Performativity and Performance.'' Routledge,1995.<br />
<br />
Ong, Walter. ''Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word.'' Methuen, 1982.<br />
<br />
Overlie, Mary. ''Standing in Space: The Six Viewpoints Theory and Practice''. Fallon Press, 2016.<br />
<br />
Rogerson, Margaret. ''Playing a Part in History: The York Mysteries, 1951-2006''. University of Toronto Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Sergi, Matthew. Work-in-progress on ''Play Texts and Public Practice in the Chester Cycle,'' c.1421-1607.<br />
<br />
Schreyer, Kurt. ''Shakespeare’s Medieval Craft: Memories of the Mysteries on the London Stage.'' Cornell University Press, 2014.<br />
<br />
Soleo-Shanks, Jenna. “Resurrecting Callimachus: Pop Music Puppets, and the Necessity of Performance in Teaching Medieval Drama." ''Teaching Medieval and Early Modern'' ''Cross-Cultural Encounters''. Eds. Karina F. Attar and Lynn Shutters, Palgrave Macmillan 2014. 199-213.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. “The Culture of the Spectator.” ''Theater Journal'' 34 (1992): 15-29.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. ''Ritual Imports: Performing Medieval Drama in America'', Cornell University Press, 2005.<br />
<br />
Stevens, Martin. ''Four Middle English Mystery Cycles.'' Princeton University Press, 1987.<br />
<br />
Stevenson, Jill. ''Performance, Cognitive Theory, and Devotional Culture: Sensual Piety in Late Medieval York.'' Palgrave MacMillan, 2010.<br />
<br />
Travis, Peter W. ''Dramatic Design in the Chester Cycle''. University of Chicago Press, 1982.<br />
<br />
Turner, Victor. ''From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play''. PAJ Books, 1982<br />
<br />
Westfall, Suzanne R. ''Patrons and Performance: Early Tudor Household Revels''. Clarendon Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
Continue on to ''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|Verba et Res]]''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]: Lesson Plans 1 through 4.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
'''Page written by'''<br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler | Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy&diff=28413Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy2018-03-24T22:08:06Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>''This article is under construction''<br />
<br />
This article - conceived and written by Barbara J. Bono, Maria S. Horne, and Michelle Markley Butler - is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance.<br />
<br />
==Introduction==<br />
<br />
===Medieval drama truly comes alive in performance.=== <br />
This is, of course, a statement true of all works in the dramatic genre. However, it is especially true of medieval drama, which frequently addressed in embodied form large and ultimate questions about humanity's place in creation and the scheme of history, and did so in direct and explicit relation to its audiences, with extraordinary emotive and affective range from the obscene to the exalted. <br />
[[File:028728.jpg|thumb|left|Miss Edith Wynne Matthison in the role of Everyman (c. 1902)|504x504px]]<br />
<br />
Medieval drama is integrated into the curriculum for theatre majors at most universities in the United States. However, there, rather than being part of acting technique or performance-based courses, or of staged productions, the subject is most often studied only very briefly in lecture courses like Theatre History. Meanwhile, in departments of literature, medieval drama is sometimes included as a topic in a broader medieval or British literature class or as a minor prequel to the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, but it is seldom given much time or attention, and its performative nature is largely neglected.<br />
<br />
But we would argue that medieval drama is accessible, exciting, adaptable, and inspirational to interested communities of all ages and abilities - from lower grade levels to highly-trained practitioners - for drama itself is the ideal synesthetic and interdisciplinary vehicle for community formation and differential learning. There is also contemporaneity in medieval drama: humor, music, and fun, as well as metaphor, allegories, and subtexts which speak to who we are today. And while the task of accessing this excitement may seem daunting, in this article we have put together a set of resources - combining language, action, and spectacle - to get you started.<br />
<br />
The first step in bridging the gap between performance and literary study is alerting students and teachers to the new wealth of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Medieval_and_early_English_drama.2C_print_and_on-line_editions|readily-available textual and general scholarly resources]] for these plays, which reach far beyond the frequently anthologized ''Everyman'' or the de-contextualized bit of a biblical cycle play.<br />
<br />
==Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre==<br />
<br />
The second step is to make at least a beginning at "putting the plays up on their feet." To that end we have supplied a series of ten performance-based Lesson Plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing, to considering the symbolic shape of an action, to preliminary training toward full performance and modern adaptation. While these Lesson Plans are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous [http://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-set-free Folger Shakespeare Set Free teaching manuals], namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology.<br />
<br />
===[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama|''Verba et Res''/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 ======<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
[[File:Monreale, Christ the Creator.JPG|thumb|''Christo Pantocratore''. Monreale Cathedral, Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|667x667px]]<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_1:_Playing_around_with_medieval_language Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_2:_The_twenty_props_you_need_to_put_on_any_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_3:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history Lesson Plan 3: Typology, or medieval living history]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_4:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history_and_tableau_vivant Lesson Plan 4: Typology, or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'']''<nowiki/>''<br />
<br />
===[[Setting_the_Medieval_Stage |Setting the Medieval Stage]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 5 through 7 ======<br />
<br />
The spaces of medieval drama were various, labile, and indeed often mobile. The York Biblical cycle plays processed annually on pageant carts into and about the city to stop at York Minster and end on the market Pavement; small travelling companies acted other plays, performing in open spaces, inn yards, or great houses. Later, as plays retreated into manuscript, they might have been brought out for occasional declamation. Plays of such sharp moment and open engagement could, in theory, take place anywhere on this middle earth. As Peter Brook famously began his 1968 classic, ''The Empty Space'', “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and that is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged,” and modern revivals of medieval plays have utilized halls, cloisters, hillsides, city plazas and streetscapes, as well as more formal stages. These three Lesson Plans encourage you to find a suitable space for your play exercises, from a classroom with the desks pushed back to the more formal stage to the outdoor green space which might draw in community passers-by. Then we offer you a selection of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers |monologues]] for actors and especially powerful [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes |scenes]] to help develop the craft of your ensemble. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_5:_Stages_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 5: Stages for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_6:_Filling_the_space._Medieval_monologues_and_the_power_of_words Lesson Plan 6: Filling the space. Medieval monologues and the power of words]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_7:_Creating_and_inhabiting_the_space._Scenes_from_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 7: Creating and inhabiting the space. Scenes from medieval drama]<br />
<br />
=== [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]] ===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 8 through 10 ======<br />
<br />
Medieval drama engaged and hoped to transform its audiences with its biting and cathartic humor, its pointed social observation, its religiously inflected heights and depths, and its joy, and it forged community in its gatherings. <br />
[[File:Barbers' Baptism 147274.jpg|thumb|''The Baptism'' from the York Mystery Plays performed from a cart in the streets of York in front of St William's College.|400x400px]]<br />
These are goals to which we can aspire in our teaching, and we can do this with youngsters and oldsters as well as formal students and professionals, and in our street and cities as well as in our classrooms and regular theaters. Some of us are fortunate enough to be theatre professionals, and to do this as the core of our vocation. Others do it more occasionally, or aspire to do something like it in our communities. <br />
<br />
In these final three Lesson Plans we invite you to think hard about the audiences whom you hope to reach in your work, and we offer you the inspiring account of two younger academics from our group who have had the training, creativity, and institutional support to mount entire student productions, in one case for a large public university Honors College seminar filled with STEM students, and in another at a liberal arts college embedded in a large city. <br />
<br />
Finally, we encourage you to take the tradition of street performance of medieval drama and the example of some modern adaptations to think about its transformative potential for pressing modern needs such as increased civic engagement, social justice, and ecological awareness. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_8:_Determining_your_audience_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 8: Determining your audience for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_9:_Performance_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 9: Performance of medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_10:_Adaptations_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 10: Adaptations of medieval drama]<br />
<br />
== Medieval and early English drama, print and on-line editions ==<br />
One may wonder why we do not see more Medieval Theatre productions on the university stage nowadays. Part of the answer may be that for the non-medievalist, and in particular for the performer not versed in medieval drama, approaching this enterprise could be daunting, starting with the selection of the play, where to find it, whether to use Middle English or a modernized, and which edition of text to use. To help streamline this process, and because there is no such a resource readily available for pedagogical purposes, we decided to compile a short list of medieval plays both in print and online editions, as well as modernized and unmodernized, as you will find in this section . <br />
<br />
===Print editions===<br />
<br />
''The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama''. Christina M. Fitzgerald and John T. Sebastian. Broadview, 2012.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama: An Anthology''. Greg Walker. Wiley-Blackwell, 2000.<br />
<br />
''Three Late Medieval Morality Plays''. G.A. Lester. New Mermaids, 2002. <br />
<br />
''York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling''. Richard Beadle and Pamela King. Oxford University Press, 2009<br />
<br />
''Early English Drama: An Anthology''. John C. Coldewey. Routledge, 1993.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama''. David Bevington. Hackett, 1975. <br />
<br />
The ''Arden Early English Drama'' series of texts from the late fifteenth to the late seventeenth centuries currently includes ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
===On-line editions===<br />
<br />
Online editions vary considerably in quality. Below are some that we have found to be well edited for both scholarly and pedagogical purposes. <br><br />
[[File:V.a.354 98v-99r.jpg|thumb|522x522px|Medieval plays were first preserved in manuscripts like this unique copy of the morality play ''Wisdom'' (c. 1460-63), preserved in the Macro plays at the Folger Shakespeare Library.|left]]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
==== Modernized ====<br />
<br />
:[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html#tab The N-town Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag The York Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/the-towneley-cycle-of-plays/ The Towneley Plays]<br />
<br><br />
====Unmodernized====<br />
<br />
:The TEAMS Middle English Text Series: <br />
http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== <br>Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers ==<br />
[[File:019807.jpg|thumb|600x600px|An angel announces the birth of Christ in the 2015-2016 Folger''The Second'' ''Shepherdes' Play'']]<br />
<nowiki> </nowiki><br />
<br />
Choosing a great monologue is a task that afflicts actors who are always searching for the best new monologue for their next audition. Audition pieces need to be strong, original, and not overdone. <br />
<br />
Medieval drama provides an exceptional vehicle for exploration and it allows the actor to utilize a variety of acting techniques, genres, and styles while performing. Here are some suggestions for monologues. <br />
<br />
While the casting suggestions given here are gender- and age-normative, directors and actors may want to think about mixing up these conventions for special effect and/or to suit their needs.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br><br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Role<br />
!Gender <br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll (First Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This speech opens the play. Coll complains about the conditions that poor men like himself have to endure and the ways they are abused by rich men. The speech is important in its sympathy for the plight of the medieval working class, and also thematically: after Coll speaks, it is easy to understand why salvation in the form of the baby Jesus is needed to come into the world.<br />
|Lines 1-54<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology.'' Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Gib (Second Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This is the second speech of the play. Gib complains about the difficulties of being married, and how much he regrets it, but it’s too late. This speech is important for its insight into medieval humor (for better or worse, the ‘take my wife, please’ vein of jokes has been mined for a long time); thematically, it establishes that salvation is needed in the world because humans, in particular the sexes, are at odds.<br />
|Lines 55-108<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|The York ''Fall of the Angels''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only this individual pageant but the York cycle as a whole. It sets the scene for both pageant and play, laying out themes that will recur throughout: the nature of God, the nature of creation, the nature of faith, the nature of worship, the consequences of disobedience.<br />
|Lines 1-34<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English] <br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|The York ''Crucifixion''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|This is Jesus’ speech from the cross after the soldiers finally manage to get him stretched and nailed to it.<br />
|Lines 253-264<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens the final pageant of the cycle. It harkens back to the first pageant and reminds the audience of all that happened between then and now, explaining the need for an end to be made and judgement given.<br />
|Lines 1-64<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|In this speech, Jesus addresses the human characters but, of course, also the audience, explaining why the judgement is going down as it does.<br />
|Lines 231-300<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|Chester''The Fall of Lucifer''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only the pageant but the cycle as a whole, laying out its important themes.<br />
|Lines 1-51<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/index.html Modern English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|N-town ''Passion Play 1''<br />
|Satan<br />
|Super-natural<br />
|This speech opens the Passion Play in the N-town manuscript. It is an important example of the ‘boast’ type of speech, common in medieval and early modern drama, where a villain or tyrant tells the audience who he is and that he is up to no good. [Shakespeare’s Richard III’s opening speech is a grandchild of this genre].<br />
|Lines 1-124<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/sugano-the-n-town-plays Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|Digby ''Mary Magdalene''<br />
|Mary Magdalene<br />
|Female<br />
|In this speech, Mary Magdalene preaches about the creation of the world to a heathen king, hoping to persuade him to leave his pagan ways.<br />
|Lines 1481-1526<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes ==<br />
It’s time to get Theatre students excited about performing Medieval drama. <br />
<br />
The question for many is where to begin? How do I find a play Where do I find a good scene? What edition is the best for performance? We are aware that there is too much and too little out there. And we also noted the need for teachers and students alike to have access to an inventory of scenes and monologues and good editions of plays. So, we have compiled these resources to get you started.<br />
<br />
Also, keep in mind that while in many instances characters are all male, and probably youngish to middle-age, when they are representative/allegorical characters, gender and age may not matter much when casting the roles.<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Roles<br />
!Gender<br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of Scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|New Guise, Nowadays, Nought, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the vices New Guise, Nowadays, and Nought try to tempt Mankind into sin. They fail spectacularly. Instead of recruiting Mankind as a diabolic minion, the devils are beaten up by him. This scene is important for understanding medieval drama because it illustrates physical action as an indispensable component that must be carefully choreographed and rehearsed to avoid injuring any of the actors. It also shows the use of physical comedy in medieval drama.<br />
|Lines 345-401<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|Titivillus, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the devil Titivillus has been called in by the other devils or vices who have failed to tempt Mankind into sin. Titivillus is invisible and inaudible to Mankind; but the audience can see and hear him, and they know Mankind cannot. This last piece is crucial, because Titivillus repeatedly speaks to the audience as if they are on his side, telling them to keep quiet to further his goal of tempting Mankind into sin (when of course they really are quiet because of their role as audience). This scene is one of several in the play that uses the audience’s role as audience to incite them to do bad things, thereby demonstrating that the audience needs redemption as much as does the character Mankind.<br />
|Lines 526-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|''Fulgens and Lucres''<br />
|A<br />
B<br />
|Male<br />
|This scene opens the play. In it, A and B interact with the audience and with each other, all the while claiming that they are not part of the play, but there will be a play and they’re anxious to see it. B explains to A what the play will be about.<br />
The scene is important because it demonstrates the fluid, meta-theatrical relationship between audience and play in early English theatre.<br />
|Lines 1 - 201<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|''Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham'' (scene 1)<br />
|Sheriff,<br />
Knight, <br />
<br />
and Robin Hood<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the Knight offers to capture Robin Hood for the Sheriff, who agrees to pay the Knight if he is successful. The Knight finds Robin Hood and engages with him in a series of tests of strength and skill. At last they fight. Robin Hood wins, kills the Knight, and declares that he will dress himself in the Knight’s clothes and take his head to the Sheriff to claim the reward for ‘killing’ Robin Hood.<br />
This scene is useful in the classroom for several reasons. It is one of a very few surviving pieces of secular medieval English drama. It also provides an opportunity to demonstrate the challenges presented by the extant texts. There are few stage directions in early drama; but as this scene makes clear, it is crucial to puzzle out the action. Most of this scene is, in fact, action. How long would the scene run? That’s entirely dependent upon how a performance decides to handle the action. The contests could be quick, or they could be elaborate.<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/16EWuJ02hFOhUxADG1zF-nk-TdzPa-0q8/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S6PFlgKa_tQBL9lwX76GlXbuv6KKj5Fa/view?usp=sharing Regularized Spelling]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/robyn-hod-and-the-shryff-off-notyngham Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll,<br />
<br />
Gib,<br />
<br />
Daw,<br />
<br />
Mak,<br />
<br />
Gyll<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
Female<br />
|In this scene, the shepherds (Coll, Gib, and Daw) come to Mak and Gyll’s house, looking for their stolen sheep. Mak has indeed stolen the sheep and has persuaded his wife Gyll to help him hide it by putting it in their cradle and pretending it is their newborn baby.<br />
The scene importantly demonstrates how medieval drama employs humor for thematic goals. For example, Mak swears to the shepherds that if he stole the sheep, the ‘baby’ will be the first meal he eats that day. It’s a funny line, for the audience knows the ‘baby’ is actually a sheep that Mak has every intention of eating. But discussion of eating the sheep/baby also underscores the nativity theme of the play, which celebrates the birth of a baby, Jesus, who is also a “lamb” who will be eaten (in the form of communion) for the benefit of humans. The parodic profane nativity highlights the sacred nativity.<br />
|Lines 476-628<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|''The Castle of Perseverance''<br />
|Mercy,<br />
<br />
Justice,<br />
<br />
Truth,<br />
<br />
Peace,<br />
<br />
God<br />
<br />
|Eternal<br />
|Humanum Genus, the play’s Mankind figure, has behaved wickedly most of his life. But as he is dying, he realizes his wickedness. His very last word is “Mercy,” begging God to save him from hell. In this scene, Justice and Truth argue before God why Humanum Genus should be damned. Peace and Mercy give their reasons why he should be saved. The scene resembles a modern courtroom drama, with Truth and Justice as the prosecuting attorneys, Mercy and Peace acting for the defense, and God the Judge listening to all sides before giving his verdict.<br />
All characters are female except God, who is male. All are eternal figures.<br />
|Lines 3129-3544<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/cascomp.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/klausner-castle-of-perseverance Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|''Brome Abraham and Isaac''<br />
|Abraham,<br />
<br />
Isaac,<br />
<br />
the Angel<br />
|Male<br />
|Abraham is old. Isaac is a child. The Angel is ageless.<br />
Abraham has been ordered by God to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Naturally, Abraham is reluctant to kill his child, but he also wants to be obedient to God. In this scene, we see Abraham’s struggle. We also see medieval drama’s typological understanding of the sacrifice of Isaac as foreshadowing the sacrifice of Jesus.<br />
|Lines 290-332<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/noa/pdf/13BromePlay_1_12.pdf Modern (lightly) English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/AJD3529.0001.001/1:4.6?rgn=div2;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|''Johan Johan''<br />
|Tib the Wife,<br />
John the Husband, and Johan Johan the priest<br />
|Female<br />
<br />
Male<br />
|Tib is female and young adult. John the Husband is male and adult, perhaps a bit older than Tib, but theirs is not necessarily a May/December marriage. Johan Johan is male and adult.<br />
The priest has been carrying on with several women in the area, including Tib. Tib and the priest laugh at the husband’s thickheadness in not realizing their liaison.. But John the Husband begins to get suspicious. This scene is particularly rich in physical comedy, as the husband is chafing wax from a candle to mend a leaky pail, with obvious masturbatory overtones--i.e,, the priest is getting real sex, the husband has to make do on his own.<br />
|Lines 439-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?id=h0U4AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA67#v=onepage&q&f=false Text]<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|''Wisdom''<br />
|Lucifer,<br />
<br />
Mind,<br />
<br />
Will,<br />
<br />
Understanding<br />
|Allegorical<br />
|Lucifer explains to the audience that he is going to tempt the good guys, does so, and then brags about it.<br />
|Lines 325-55<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Some Productions of Medieval Plays, Online ==<br />
You can access an extensive [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5cWcydg0JFis9914C0KX7iz59jwg6-xV# YouTube playlist of medieval drama] online. Additionally, here is a resource list for some titles:<br />
<br />
=== ''Everyman'' ===<br />
You can find digital versions of various productions online, including a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkM8v0m3URg# 2012 ''Everyman''] production at the Portland Community College Performing Arts Center which utilized large-scale puppets and a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvZFBZB10LA# 2016 ''Everyman''] production by the Laurier Historical Society at Wilfrid Laurier University. The play has been adapted as a commercial film twice in recent years in modernized (2002) and period (2007) productions.<br />
<br />
=== ''Mankind'' ===<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4acAjs2TGa8# 1999 ''Mankind''] staging by Duquesne University Medieval and Renaissance Players. <br />
<br />
University students staged an improvisatory modernized production of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsTyvD8E9Mk# ''Mankind''] as a final course project in 2016.<br />
<br />
=== Biblical cycle plays and passion plays ===<br />
The Blackhills Passion plays were performed in Spearfish, South Dakota from 1939 to 2008, and at their winter home in Lake Wales, Florida from 1953 to 1999.<br />
<br />
The Mormon Hill Cumorah biblical pageant in Palmyra, New York has been performed since 1935: http://www.hillcumorah.org/ <br />
<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn0pcYONuxc# 2013 Chester Noah] play performed by the Liverpool University Players.<br />
<br />
The Chester Mystery plays were performed in a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRthPA2nJyw# 2008 modernized musical version].<br />
<br />
The Oberammergau Passion Play has been performed continuously in that Bavarian village since 1634. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KeVtnndSsc# The trailer for the 2020 production]. <br />
<br />
The Towneley Second Shepherds’ Play has long been a favorite Christmas holiday production, and was recently revived at the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RomR1sxDlus# Folger Theater] in 2016. <br />
<br />
[https://muse.jhu.edu/article/34991# Yiimimangaliso: The Mysteries], a version of the Chester mysteries, was staged in South Africa and London in 2001 and has been revived since. <br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, England: Videos from recent York mystery plays are available on-line at several sites. See, for example, [http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/york-mystery-plays-1973# York Mystery Plays 1973], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nyFLOlEupM# York Mystery Plays 2010], and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_IE4izf_6c# York Mystery Plays 2016].<br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, Toronto: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIImNnV1Ty0# 2010 “Crucifixion”].<br />
<br />
The [http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/front-page/# Poculi Ludique Societas], or PLS in Toronto, has for over 50 years now sponsored productions of early plays, from the beginnings of medieval drama to as late as the middle of the seventeenth century.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Selected Bibliography ==<br />
Albin, Andrew. “Sonorous Presence, and the Performance of Christian Community in the Chester Shepherds Play.” ''Early Theatre'' 16.2 (2013): 33-57.<br />
<br />
Aronson-Lehavi, Sharon. ''Street Scenes: Late Medieval Acting and Performance''. Palgrave MacmIllan, 2011.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. “The Present of Past Things: The York Corpus Christi Cycle as a Contemporary Theatre of Memory.” ''Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies'' 26.2 (1996): 35-79.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. ''Signifying God: Social Relations and Symbolic Act in the York Corpus Christi Plays''. University of Chicago Press, 2001.<br />
<br />
Bevington, David. ''From “Mankind” to Marlowe: Growth of Structure in the Popular Drama of Tudor England''. Harvard University Press, 1962.<br />
<br />
Butler, Judith. ''Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative''. Routledge, 1997.<br />
<br />
Carlson, Marvin. “Medieval Street Performers Speak.” ''TDR:The Drama Review'', 57.4 (2013): 86-94.<br />
<br />
Chaganti, Seeta. “The Platea: Pre- and Postmodern: A Landscape of Medieval Performance Studies.” ''Exemplaria'' 25.3 (2013): 252-64.<br />
<br />
Clopper, Lawrence. ''Drama, Play, and Game: English Festive Culture in the Medieval and Early Modern Period''. Chicago, 2001.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “The Chester Cycle in Sixteenth-Century Religious Culture," ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 37.3 (2007): 532-47.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. ''Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints: Theater, Gender, and Religion in Late Medieval England''. University of Pennsylvania, 2004.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Biblical Drama in Post-Apartheid South Africa: The Chester Plays in Afterlife.” ''Transformations in Biblical Literary Traditions: Incarnation, Narrative,'' ''and Ethics''. Eds. D.H. Williams and Philip Donnelly, Notre Dame University Press, 2014. 268-88.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Drama: 1191-1952.” ''Exemplaria'' 28.3 (2016): 264-76.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Reading REED: History and the Records of Early English Drama.” ''Literary Practice and Social Change in Britain, 1380-1530''. Ed. Lee Patterson, University of California Press, 1990. 248-84.<br />
<br />
Davidson, Clifford, ed. ''Gesture in Medieval Drama and Art''. Medieval Institute, 2001.<br />
<br />
Elliott, John R., Jr. ''Playing God: Medieval Mysteries on the Modern Stage''. University of Toronto Press, 1989.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard. “Dramatic History: On the Diachronic and Synchronic in the Study of Early English Drama.” ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 35:1 (2005): 39-66.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard K. “’Nowe Ys Common This Daye’: Enoch and Elias, Antichrist, and the Structure of the Chester Cycle.” ''Homo, Memento Finis: The Iconography of Just'' ''Judgment in Medieval Art and Drama''. Ed. David Bevington, et. al. Medieval Institute, 1985. 221-57.<br />
<br />
Enders, Jody. ''The Medieval Theater of Cruelty: Rhetoric, Memory, Violence.'' Cornell University Press, 2002.<br />
<br />
Gardiner, Harold. ''Mysteries’ End: An Investigation of the Last Days of the Medieval Religious Stage.'' Yale University Press, 1946.<br />
<br />
Hardison, O.B., Jr. ''Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages: Essays in the Origin and Early History of Modern Drama''. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965.<br />
<br />
Holsinger, Bruce. “Analytical Survey 6: Medieval Literature and Cultures of Performance.” ''New Medieval Literatures'' 6 (2003): 271-311.<br />
<br />
James, Mervyn. “Ritual, Drama, and Social Body in the Late Medieval Town.” ''Past & Present'' 98 (1983):3-29.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela, ed. ''The Routledge Research Companion to Early Drama and Performance.'' Routledge, 2017.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela. ''The York Mystery Cycle and the Worship of the City''. D.S. Breer, 2006.<br />
<br />
Kolve, V.A. ''The Play Called Corpus Christi.'' Stanford University Press, 1966.<br />
<br />
Lerud, Theodore. ''Memory, Images, and the English Corpus Christi Drama''. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Gender and Medieval Drama.'' D.S. Brewer, 2004.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Modern Mysteries: Contemporary Productions of Medieval English Dramas.'' D.S. Brewer, 2007. <br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Medieval English Drama: Performance and Spectatorship.'' Polity Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Parker, Andrew, and Eve Kosofsky Sedwick, eds. ''Performativity and Performance.'' Routledge,1995.<br />
<br />
Ong, Walter. ''Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word.'' Methuen, 1982.<br />
<br />
Overlie, Mary. ''Standing in Space: The Six Viewpoints Theory and Practice''. Fallon Press, 2016.<br />
<br />
Rogerson, Margaret. ''Playing a Part in History: The York Mysteries, 1951-2006''. University of Toronto Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Sergi, Matthew. Work-in-progress on ''Play Texts and Public Practice in the Chester Cycle,'' c.1421-1607.<br />
<br />
Schreyer, Kurt. ''Shakespeare’s Medieval Craft: Memories of the Mysteries on the London Stage.'' Cornell University Press, 2014.<br />
<br />
Soleo-Shanks, Jenna. “Resurrecting Callimachus: Pop Music Puppets, and the Necessity of Performance in Teaching Medieval Drama." ''Teaching Medieval and Early Modern'' ''Cross-Cultural Encounters''. Eds. Karina F. Attar and Lynn Shutters, Palgrave Macmillan 2014. 199-213.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. “The Culture of the Spectator.” ''Theater Journal'' 34 (1992): 15-29.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. ''Ritual Imports: Performing Medieval Drama in America'', Cornell University Press, 2005.<br />
<br />
Stevens, Martin. ''Four Middle English Mystery Cycles.'' Princeton University Press, 1987.<br />
<br />
Stevenson, Jill. ''Performance, Cognitive Theory, and Devotional Culture: Sensual Piety in Late Medieval York.'' Palgrave MacMillan, 2010.<br />
<br />
Travis, Peter W. ''Dramatic Design in the Chester Cycle''. University of Chicago Press, 1982.<br />
<br />
Turner, Victor. ''From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play''. PAJ Books, 1982<br />
<br />
Westfall, Suzanne R. ''Patrons and Performance: Early Tudor Household Revels''. Clarendon Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
Continue on to ''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|Verba et Res]]''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]: Lesson Plans 1 through 4.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
'''Page written by'''<br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler | Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy&diff=28412Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy2018-03-24T22:07:14Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>''This article is under construction''<br />
<br />
This article - conceived and written by Barbara J. Bono, Maria S. Horne, and Michelle Markley Butler - is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance.<br />
<br />
==Introduction==<br />
<br />
===Medieval drama truly comes alive in performance.=== <br />
This is, of course, a statement true of all works in the dramatic genre. However, it is especially true of medieval drama, which frequently addressed in embodied form large and ultimate questions about humanity's place in creation and the scheme of history, and did so in direct and explicit relation to its audiences, with extraordinary emotive and affective range from the obscene to the exalted. <br />
[[File:028728.jpg|thumb|left|Miss Edith Wynne Matthison in the role of Everyman (c. 1902)|504x504px]]<br />
<br />
Medieval drama is integrated into the curriculum for theatre majors at most universities in the United States. However, there, rather than being part of acting technique or performance-based courses, or of staged productions, the subject is most often studied only very briefly in lecture courses like Theatre History. Meanwhile, in departments of literature, medieval drama is sometimes included as a topic in a broader medieval or British literature class or as a minor prequel to the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, but it is seldom given much time or attention, and its performative nature is largely neglected.<br />
<br />
But we would argue that medieval drama is accessible, exciting, adaptable, and inspirational to interested communities of all ages and abilities - from lower grade levels to highly-trained practitioners - for drama itself is the ideal synesthetic and interdisciplinary vehicle for community formation and differential learning. There is also contemporaneity in medieval drama: humor, music, and fun, as well as metaphor, allegories, and subtexts which speak to who we are today. And while the task of accessing this excitement may seem daunting, in this article we have put together a set of resources - combining language, action, and spectacle - to get you started.<br />
<br />
The first step in bridging the gap between performance and literary study is alerting students and teachers to the new wealth of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Medieval_and_early_English_drama.2C_print_and_on-line_editions|readily-available textual and general scholarly resources]] for these plays, which reach far beyond the frequently anthologized ''Everyman'' or the de-contextualized bit of a biblical cycle play.<br />
<br />
==Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre==<br />
<br />
The second step is to make at least a beginning at "putting the plays up on their feet." To that end we have supplied a series of ten performance-based Lesson Plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing, to considering the symbolic shape of an action, to preliminary training toward full performance and modern adaptation. While these Lesson Plans are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous [http://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-set-free Folger Shakespeare Set Free teaching manuals], namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology.<br />
<br />
===[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama|''Verba et Res''/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 ======<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
[[File:Monreale, Christ the Creator.JPG|thumb|''Christo Pantocratore''. Monreale Cathedral, Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|667x667px]]<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_1:_Playing_around_with_medieval_language Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_2:_The_twenty_props_you_need_to_put_on_any_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_3:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history Lesson Plan 3: Typology, or medieval living history]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_4:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history_and_tableau_vivant Lesson Plan 4: Typology, or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'']''<nowiki/>''<br />
<br />
===[[Setting_the_Medieval_Stage |Setting the Medieval Stage]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 5 through 7 ======<br />
<br />
The spaces of medieval drama were various, labile, and indeed often mobile. The York Biblical cycle plays processed annually on pageant carts into and about the city to stop at York Minster and end on the market Pavement; small travelling companies acted other plays, performing in open spaces, inn yards, or great houses. Later, as plays retreated into manuscript, they might have been brought out for occasional declamation. Plays of such sharp moment and open engagement could, in theory, take place anywhere on this middle earth. As Peter Brook famously began his 1968 classic, ''The Empty Space'', “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and that is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged,” and modern revivals of medieval plays have utilized halls, cloisters, hillsides, city plazas and streetscapes, as well as more formal stages. These three Lesson Plans encourage you to find a suitable space for your play exercises, from a classroom with the desks pushed back to the more formal stage to the outdoor green space which might draw in community passers-by. Then we offer you a selection of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers |monologues]] for actors and especially powerful [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes |scenes]] to help develop the craft of your ensemble. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_5:_Stages_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 5: Stages for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_6:_Filling_the_space._Medieval_monologues_and_the_power_of_words Lesson Plan 6: Filling the space. Medieval monologues and the power of words]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_7:_Creating_and_inhabiting_the_space._Scenes_from_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 7: Creating and inhabiting the space. Scenes from medieval drama]<br />
<br />
=== [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]] ===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 8 through 10 ======<br />
<br />
Medieval drama engaged and hoped to transform its audiences with its biting and cathartic humor, its pointed social observation, its religiously inflected heights and depths, and its joy, and it forged community in its gatherings. <br />
[[File:Barbers' Baptism 147274.jpg|thumb|''The Baptism'' from the York Mystery Plays performed from a cart in the streets of York in front of St William's College.|400x400px]]<br />
These are goals to which we can aspire in our teaching, and we can do this with youngsters and oldsters as well as formal students and professionals, and in our street and cities as well as in our classrooms and regular theaters. Some of us are fortunate enough to be theatre professionals, and to do this as the core of our vocation. Others do it more occasionally, or aspire to do something like it in our communities. <br />
<br />
In these final three Lesson Plans we invite you to think hard about the audiences whom you hope to reach in your work, and we offer you the inspiring account of two younger academics from our group who have had the training, creativity, and institutional support to mount entire student productions, in one case for a large public university Honors College seminar filled with STEM students, and in another at a liberal arts college embedded in a large city. <br />
<br />
Finally, we encourage you to take the tradition of street performance of medieval drama and the example of some modern adaptations to think about its transformative potential for pressing modern needs such as increased civic engagement, social justice, and ecological awareness. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_8:_Determining_your_audience_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 8: Determining your audience for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_9:_Performance_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 9: Performance of medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_10:_Adaptations_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 10: Adaptations of medieval drama]<br />
<br />
== Medieval and early English drama, print and on-line editions ==<br />
One may wonder why we do not see more Medieval Theatre productions on the university stage nowadays. Part of the answer may be that for the non-medievalist, and in particular for the performer not versed in medieval drama, approaching this enterprise could be daunting, starting with the selection of the play, where to find it, whether to use Middle English or a modernized, and which edition of text to use. To help streamline this process, and because there is no such a resource readily available for pedagogical purposes, we decided to compile a short list of medieval plays both in print and online editions, as well as modernized and unmodernized, as you will find in this section . <br />
<br />
===Print editions===<br />
<br />
''The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama''. Christina M. Fitzgerald and John T. Sebastian. Broadview, 2012.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama: An Anthology''. Greg Walker. Wiley-Blackwell, 2000.<br />
<br />
''Three Late Medieval Morality Plays''. G.A. Lester. New Mermaids, 2002. <br />
<br />
''York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling''. Richard Beadle and Pamela King. Oxford University Press, 2009<br />
<br />
''Early English Drama: An Anthology''. John C. Coldewey. Routledge, 1993.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama''. David Bevington. Hackett, 1975. <br />
<br />
The ''Arden Early English Drama'' series of texts from the late fifteenth to the late seventeenth centuries currently includes ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
===On-line editions===<br />
<br />
Online editions vary considerably in quality. Below are some that we have found to be well edited for both scholarly and pedagogical purposes. <br><br />
[[File:V.a.354 98v-99r.jpg|thumb|550x550px|Medieval plays were first preserved in manuscripts like this unique copy of the morality play ''Wisdom'' (c. 1460-63), preserved in the Macro plays at the Folger Shakespeare Library.|left]]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
==== Modernized ====<br />
<br />
:[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html#tab The N-town Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag The York Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/the-towneley-cycle-of-plays/ The Towneley Plays]<br />
<br><br />
====Unmodernized====<br />
<br />
:The TEAMS Middle English Text Series: <br />
http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== <br>Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers ==<br />
[[File:019807.jpg|thumb|600x600px|An angel announces the birth of Christ in the 2015-2016 Folger''The Second'' ''Shepherdes' Play'']]<br />
<nowiki> </nowiki><br />
<br />
Choosing a great monologue is a task that afflicts actors who are always searching for the best new monologue for their next audition. Audition pieces need to be strong, original, and not overdone. <br />
<br />
Medieval drama provides an exceptional vehicle for exploration and it allows the actor to utilize a variety of acting techniques, genres, and styles while performing. Here are some suggestions for monologues. <br />
<br />
While the casting suggestions given here are gender- and age-normative, directors and actors may want to think about mixing up these conventions for special effect and/or to suit their needs.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br><br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Role<br />
!Gender <br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll (First Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This speech opens the play. Coll complains about the conditions that poor men like himself have to endure and the ways they are abused by rich men. The speech is important in its sympathy for the plight of the medieval working class, and also thematically: after Coll speaks, it is easy to understand why salvation in the form of the baby Jesus is needed to come into the world.<br />
|Lines 1-54<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology.'' Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Gib (Second Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This is the second speech of the play. Gib complains about the difficulties of being married, and how much he regrets it, but it’s too late. This speech is important for its insight into medieval humor (for better or worse, the ‘take my wife, please’ vein of jokes has been mined for a long time); thematically, it establishes that salvation is needed in the world because humans, in particular the sexes, are at odds.<br />
|Lines 55-108<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|The York ''Fall of the Angels''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only this individual pageant but the York cycle as a whole. It sets the scene for both pageant and play, laying out themes that will recur throughout: the nature of God, the nature of creation, the nature of faith, the nature of worship, the consequences of disobedience.<br />
|Lines 1-34<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English] <br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|The York ''Crucifixion''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|This is Jesus’ speech from the cross after the soldiers finally manage to get him stretched and nailed to it.<br />
|Lines 253-264<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens the final pageant of the cycle. It harkens back to the first pageant and reminds the audience of all that happened between then and now, explaining the need for an end to be made and judgement given.<br />
|Lines 1-64<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|In this speech, Jesus addresses the human characters but, of course, also the audience, explaining why the judgement is going down as it does.<br />
|Lines 231-300<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|Chester''The Fall of Lucifer''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only the pageant but the cycle as a whole, laying out its important themes.<br />
|Lines 1-51<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/index.html Modern English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|N-town ''Passion Play 1''<br />
|Satan<br />
|Super-natural<br />
|This speech opens the Passion Play in the N-town manuscript. It is an important example of the ‘boast’ type of speech, common in medieval and early modern drama, where a villain or tyrant tells the audience who he is and that he is up to no good. [Shakespeare’s Richard III’s opening speech is a grandchild of this genre].<br />
|Lines 1-124<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/sugano-the-n-town-plays Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|Digby ''Mary Magdalene''<br />
|Mary Magdalene<br />
|Female<br />
|In this speech, Mary Magdalene preaches about the creation of the world to a heathen king, hoping to persuade him to leave his pagan ways.<br />
|Lines 1481-1526<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes ==<br />
It’s time to get Theatre students excited about performing Medieval drama. <br />
<br />
The question for many is where to begin? How do I find a play Where do I find a good scene? What edition is the best for performance? We are aware that there is too much and too little out there. And we also noted the need for teachers and students alike to have access to an inventory of scenes and monologues and good editions of plays. So, we have compiled these resources to get you started.<br />
<br />
Also, keep in mind that while in many instances characters are all male, and probably youngish to middle-age, when they are representative/allegorical characters, gender and age may not matter much when casting the roles.<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Roles<br />
!Gender<br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of Scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|New Guise, Nowadays, Nought, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the vices New Guise, Nowadays, and Nought try to tempt Mankind into sin. They fail spectacularly. Instead of recruiting Mankind as a diabolic minion, the devils are beaten up by him. This scene is important for understanding medieval drama because it illustrates physical action as an indispensable component that must be carefully choreographed and rehearsed to avoid injuring any of the actors. It also shows the use of physical comedy in medieval drama.<br />
|Lines 345-401<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|Titivillus, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the devil Titivillus has been called in by the other devils or vices who have failed to tempt Mankind into sin. Titivillus is invisible and inaudible to Mankind; but the audience can see and hear him, and they know Mankind cannot. This last piece is crucial, because Titivillus repeatedly speaks to the audience as if they are on his side, telling them to keep quiet to further his goal of tempting Mankind into sin (when of course they really are quiet because of their role as audience). This scene is one of several in the play that uses the audience’s role as audience to incite them to do bad things, thereby demonstrating that the audience needs redemption as much as does the character Mankind.<br />
|Lines 526-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|''Fulgens and Lucres''<br />
|A<br />
B<br />
|Male<br />
|This scene opens the play. In it, A and B interact with the audience and with each other, all the while claiming that they are not part of the play, but there will be a play and they’re anxious to see it. B explains to A what the play will be about.<br />
The scene is important because it demonstrates the fluid, meta-theatrical relationship between audience and play in early English theatre.<br />
|Lines 1 - 201<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|''Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham'' (scene 1)<br />
|Sheriff,<br />
Knight, <br />
<br />
and Robin Hood<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the Knight offers to capture Robin Hood for the Sheriff, who agrees to pay the Knight if he is successful. The Knight finds Robin Hood and engages with him in a series of tests of strength and skill. At last they fight. Robin Hood wins, kills the Knight, and declares that he will dress himself in the Knight’s clothes and take his head to the Sheriff to claim the reward for ‘killing’ Robin Hood.<br />
This scene is useful in the classroom for several reasons. It is one of a very few surviving pieces of secular medieval English drama. It also provides an opportunity to demonstrate the challenges presented by the extant texts. There are few stage directions in early drama; but as this scene makes clear, it is crucial to puzzle out the action. Most of this scene is, in fact, action. How long would the scene run? That’s entirely dependent upon how a performance decides to handle the action. The contests could be quick, or they could be elaborate.<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/16EWuJ02hFOhUxADG1zF-nk-TdzPa-0q8/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S6PFlgKa_tQBL9lwX76GlXbuv6KKj5Fa/view?usp=sharing Regularized Spelling]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/robyn-hod-and-the-shryff-off-notyngham Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll,<br />
<br />
Gib,<br />
<br />
Daw,<br />
<br />
Mak,<br />
<br />
Gyll<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
Female<br />
|In this scene, the shepherds (Coll, Gib, and Daw) come to Mak and Gyll’s house, looking for their stolen sheep. Mak has indeed stolen the sheep and has persuaded his wife Gyll to help him hide it by putting it in their cradle and pretending it is their newborn baby.<br />
The scene importantly demonstrates how medieval drama employs humor for thematic goals. For example, Mak swears to the shepherds that if he stole the sheep, the ‘baby’ will be the first meal he eats that day. It’s a funny line, for the audience knows the ‘baby’ is actually a sheep that Mak has every intention of eating. But discussion of eating the sheep/baby also underscores the nativity theme of the play, which celebrates the birth of a baby, Jesus, who is also a “lamb” who will be eaten (in the form of communion) for the benefit of humans. The parodic profane nativity highlights the sacred nativity.<br />
|Lines 476-628<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|''The Castle of Perseverance''<br />
|Mercy,<br />
<br />
Justice,<br />
<br />
Truth,<br />
<br />
Peace,<br />
<br />
God<br />
<br />
|Eternal<br />
|Humanum Genus, the play’s Mankind figure, has behaved wickedly most of his life. But as he is dying, he realizes his wickedness. His very last word is “Mercy,” begging God to save him from hell. In this scene, Justice and Truth argue before God why Humanum Genus should be damned. Peace and Mercy give their reasons why he should be saved. The scene resembles a modern courtroom drama, with Truth and Justice as the prosecuting attorneys, Mercy and Peace acting for the defense, and God the Judge listening to all sides before giving his verdict.<br />
All characters are female except God, who is male. All are eternal figures.<br />
|Lines 3129-3544<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/cascomp.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/klausner-castle-of-perseverance Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|''Brome Abraham and Isaac''<br />
|Abraham,<br />
<br />
Isaac,<br />
<br />
the Angel<br />
|Male<br />
|Abraham is old. Isaac is a child. The Angel is ageless.<br />
Abraham has been ordered by God to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Naturally, Abraham is reluctant to kill his child, but he also wants to be obedient to God. In this scene, we see Abraham’s struggle. We also see medieval drama’s typological understanding of the sacrifice of Isaac as foreshadowing the sacrifice of Jesus.<br />
|Lines 290-332<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/noa/pdf/13BromePlay_1_12.pdf Modern (lightly) English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/AJD3529.0001.001/1:4.6?rgn=div2;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|''Johan Johan''<br />
|Tib the Wife,<br />
John the Husband, and Johan Johan the priest<br />
|Female<br />
<br />
Male<br />
|Tib is female and young adult. John the Husband is male and adult, perhaps a bit older than Tib, but theirs is not necessarily a May/December marriage. Johan Johan is male and adult.<br />
The priest has been carrying on with several women in the area, including Tib. Tib and the priest laugh at the husband’s thickheadness in not realizing their liaison.. But John the Husband begins to get suspicious. This scene is particularly rich in physical comedy, as the husband is chafing wax from a candle to mend a leaky pail, with obvious masturbatory overtones--i.e,, the priest is getting real sex, the husband has to make do on his own.<br />
|Lines 439-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?id=h0U4AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA67#v=onepage&q&f=false Text]<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|''Wisdom''<br />
|Lucifer,<br />
<br />
Mind,<br />
<br />
Will,<br />
<br />
Understanding<br />
|Allegorical<br />
|Lucifer explains to the audience that he is going to tempt the good guys, does so, and then brags about it.<br />
|Lines 325-55<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Some Productions of Medieval Plays, Online ==<br />
You can access an extensive [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5cWcydg0JFis9914C0KX7iz59jwg6-xV# YouTube playlist of medieval drama] online. Additionally, here is a resource list for some titles:<br />
<br />
=== ''Everyman'' ===<br />
You can find digital versions of various productions online, including a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkM8v0m3URg# 2012 ''Everyman''] production at the Portland Community College Performing Arts Center which utilized large-scale puppets and a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvZFBZB10LA# 2016 ''Everyman''] production by the Laurier Historical Society at Wilfrid Laurier University. The play has been adapted as a commercial film twice in recent years in modernized (2002) and period (2007) productions.<br />
<br />
=== ''Mankind'' ===<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4acAjs2TGa8# 1999 ''Mankind''] staging by Duquesne University Medieval and Renaissance Players. <br />
<br />
University students staged an improvisatory modernized production of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsTyvD8E9Mk# ''Mankind''] as a final course project in 2016.<br />
<br />
=== Biblical cycle plays and passion plays ===<br />
The Blackhills Passion plays were performed in Spearfish, South Dakota from 1939 to 2008, and at their winter home in Lake Wales, Florida from 1953 to 1999.<br />
<br />
The Mormon Hill Cumorah biblical pageant in Palmyra, New York has been performed since 1935: http://www.hillcumorah.org/ <br />
<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn0pcYONuxc# 2013 Chester Noah] play performed by the Liverpool University Players.<br />
<br />
The Chester Mystery plays were performed in a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRthPA2nJyw# 2008 modernized musical version].<br />
<br />
The Oberammergau Passion Play has been performed continuously in that Bavarian village since 1634. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KeVtnndSsc# The trailer for the 2020 production]. <br />
<br />
The Towneley Second Shepherds’ Play has long been a favorite Christmas holiday production, and was recently revived at the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RomR1sxDlus# Folger Theater] in 2016. <br />
<br />
[https://muse.jhu.edu/article/34991# Yiimimangaliso: The Mysteries], a version of the Chester mysteries, was staged in South Africa and London in 2001 and has been revived since. <br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, England: Videos from recent York mystery plays are available on-line at several sites. See, for example, [http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/york-mystery-plays-1973# York Mystery Plays 1973], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nyFLOlEupM# York Mystery Plays 2010], and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_IE4izf_6c# York Mystery Plays 2016].<br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, Toronto: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIImNnV1Ty0# 2010 “Crucifixion”].<br />
<br />
The [http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/front-page/# Poculi Ludique Societas], or PLS in Toronto, has for over 50 years now sponsored productions of early plays, from the beginnings of medieval drama to as late as the middle of the seventeenth century.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Selected Bibliography ==<br />
Albin, Andrew. “Sonorous Presence, and the Performance of Christian Community in the Chester Shepherds Play.” ''Early Theatre'' 16.2 (2013): 33-57.<br />
<br />
Aronson-Lehavi, Sharon. ''Street Scenes: Late Medieval Acting and Performance''. Palgrave MacmIllan, 2011.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. “The Present of Past Things: The York Corpus Christi Cycle as a Contemporary Theatre of Memory.” ''Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies'' 26.2 (1996): 35-79.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. ''Signifying God: Social Relations and Symbolic Act in the York Corpus Christi Plays''. University of Chicago Press, 2001.<br />
<br />
Bevington, David. ''From “Mankind” to Marlowe: Growth of Structure in the Popular Drama of Tudor England''. Harvard University Press, 1962.<br />
<br />
Butler, Judith. ''Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative''. Routledge, 1997.<br />
<br />
Carlson, Marvin. “Medieval Street Performers Speak.” ''TDR:The Drama Review'', 57.4 (2013): 86-94.<br />
<br />
Chaganti, Seeta. “The Platea: Pre- and Postmodern: A Landscape of Medieval Performance Studies.” ''Exemplaria'' 25.3 (2013): 252-64.<br />
<br />
Clopper, Lawrence. ''Drama, Play, and Game: English Festive Culture in the Medieval and Early Modern Period''. Chicago, 2001.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “The Chester Cycle in Sixteenth-Century Religious Culture," ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 37.3 (2007): 532-47.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. ''Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints: Theater, Gender, and Religion in Late Medieval England''. University of Pennsylvania, 2004.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Biblical Drama in Post-Apartheid South Africa: The Chester Plays in Afterlife.” ''Transformations in Biblical Literary Traditions: Incarnation, Narrative,'' ''and Ethics''. Eds. D.H. Williams and Philip Donnelly, Notre Dame University Press, 2014. 268-88.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Drama: 1191-1952.” ''Exemplaria'' 28.3 (2016): 264-76.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Reading REED: History and the Records of Early English Drama.” ''Literary Practice and Social Change in Britain, 1380-1530''. Ed. Lee Patterson, University of California Press, 1990. 248-84.<br />
<br />
Davidson, Clifford, ed. ''Gesture in Medieval Drama and Art''. Medieval Institute, 2001.<br />
<br />
Elliott, John R., Jr. ''Playing God: Medieval Mysteries on the Modern Stage''. University of Toronto Press, 1989.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard. “Dramatic History: On the Diachronic and Synchronic in the Study of Early English Drama.” ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 35:1 (2005): 39-66.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard K. “’Nowe Ys Common This Daye’: Enoch and Elias, Antichrist, and the Structure of the Chester Cycle.” ''Homo, Memento Finis: The Iconography of Just'' ''Judgment in Medieval Art and Drama''. Ed. David Bevington, et. al. Medieval Institute, 1985. 221-57.<br />
<br />
Enders, Jody. ''The Medieval Theater of Cruelty: Rhetoric, Memory, Violence.'' Cornell University Press, 2002.<br />
<br />
Gardiner, Harold. ''Mysteries’ End: An Investigation of the Last Days of the Medieval Religious Stage.'' Yale University Press, 1946.<br />
<br />
Hardison, O.B., Jr. ''Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages: Essays in the Origin and Early History of Modern Drama''. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965.<br />
<br />
Holsinger, Bruce. “Analytical Survey 6: Medieval Literature and Cultures of Performance.” ''New Medieval Literatures'' 6 (2003): 271-311.<br />
<br />
James, Mervyn. “Ritual, Drama, and Social Body in the Late Medieval Town.” ''Past & Present'' 98 (1983):3-29.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela, ed. ''The Routledge Research Companion to Early Drama and Performance.'' Routledge, 2017.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela. ''The York Mystery Cycle and the Worship of the City''. D.S. Breer, 2006.<br />
<br />
Kolve, V.A. ''The Play Called Corpus Christi.'' Stanford University Press, 1966.<br />
<br />
Lerud, Theodore. ''Memory, Images, and the English Corpus Christi Drama''. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Gender and Medieval Drama.'' D.S. Brewer, 2004.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Modern Mysteries: Contemporary Productions of Medieval English Dramas.'' D.S. Brewer, 2007. <br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Medieval English Drama: Performance and Spectatorship.'' Polity Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Parker, Andrew, and Eve Kosofsky Sedwick, eds. ''Performativity and Performance.'' Routledge,1995.<br />
<br />
Ong, Walter. ''Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word.'' Methuen, 1982.<br />
<br />
Overlie, Mary. ''Standing in Space: The Six Viewpoints Theory and Practice''. Fallon Press, 2016.<br />
<br />
Rogerson, Margaret. ''Playing a Part in History: The York Mysteries, 1951-2006''. University of Toronto Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Sergi, Matthew. Work-in-progress on ''Play Texts and Public Practice in the Chester Cycle,'' c.1421-1607.<br />
<br />
Schreyer, Kurt. ''Shakespeare’s Medieval Craft: Memories of the Mysteries on the London Stage.'' Cornell University Press, 2014.<br />
<br />
Soleo-Shanks, Jenna. “Resurrecting Callimachus: Pop Music Puppets, and the Necessity of Performance in Teaching Medieval Drama." ''Teaching Medieval and Early Modern'' ''Cross-Cultural Encounters''. Eds. Karina F. Attar and Lynn Shutters, Palgrave Macmillan 2014. 199-213.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. “The Culture of the Spectator.” ''Theater Journal'' 34 (1992): 15-29.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. ''Ritual Imports: Performing Medieval Drama in America'', Cornell University Press, 2005.<br />
<br />
Stevens, Martin. ''Four Middle English Mystery Cycles.'' Princeton University Press, 1987.<br />
<br />
Stevenson, Jill. ''Performance, Cognitive Theory, and Devotional Culture: Sensual Piety in Late Medieval York.'' Palgrave MacMillan, 2010.<br />
<br />
Travis, Peter W. ''Dramatic Design in the Chester Cycle''. University of Chicago Press, 1982.<br />
<br />
Turner, Victor. ''From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play''. PAJ Books, 1982<br />
<br />
Westfall, Suzanne R. ''Patrons and Performance: Early Tudor Household Revels''. Clarendon Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
Continue on to ''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|Verba et Res]]''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]: Lesson Plans 1 through 4.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
'''Page written by'''<br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler | Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy&diff=28411Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy2018-03-24T22:06:20Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>''This article is under construction''<br />
<br />
This article - conceived and written by Barbara J. Bono, Maria S. Horne, and Michelle Markley Butler - is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance.<br />
<br />
==Introduction==<br />
<br />
===Medieval drama truly comes alive in performance.=== <br />
This is, of course, a statement true of all works in the dramatic genre. However, it is especially true of medieval drama, which frequently addressed in embodied form large and ultimate questions about humanity's place in creation and the scheme of history, and did so in direct and explicit relation to its audiences, with extraordinary emotive and affective range from the obscene to the exalted. <br />
[[File:028728.jpg|thumb|left|Miss Edith Wynne Matthison in the role of Everyman (c. 1902)|504x504px]]<br />
<br />
Medieval drama is integrated into the curriculum for theatre majors at most universities in the United States. However, there, rather than being part of acting technique or performance-based courses, or of staged productions, the subject is most often studied only very briefly in lecture courses like Theatre History. Meanwhile, in departments of literature, medieval drama is sometimes included as a topic in a broader medieval or British literature class or as a minor prequel to the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, but it is seldom given much time or attention, and its performative nature is largely neglected.<br />
<br />
But we would argue that medieval drama is accessible, exciting, adaptable, and inspirational to interested communities of all ages and abilities - from lower grade levels to highly-trained practitioners - for drama itself is the ideal synesthetic and interdisciplinary vehicle for community formation and differential learning. There is also contemporaneity in medieval drama: humor, music, and fun, as well as metaphor, allegories, and subtexts which speak to who we are today. And while the task of accessing this excitement may seem daunting, in this article we have put together a set of resources - combining language, action, and spectacle - to get you started.<br />
<br />
The first step in bridging the gap between performance and literary study is alerting students and teachers to the new wealth of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Medieval_and_early_English_drama.2C_print_and_on-line_editions|readily-available textual and general scholarly resources]] for these plays, which reach far beyond the frequently anthologized ''Everyman'' or the de-contextualized bit of a biblical cycle play.<br />
<br />
==Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre==<br />
<br />
The second step is to make at least a beginning at "putting the plays up on their feet." To that end we have supplied a series of ten performance-based Lesson Plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing, to considering the symbolic shape of an action, to preliminary training toward full performance and modern adaptation. While these Lesson Plans are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous [http://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-set-free Folger Shakespeare Set Free teaching manuals], namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology.<br />
<br />
===[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama|''Verba et Res''/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 ======<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
[[File:Monreale, Christ the Creator.JPG|thumb|''Christo Pantocratore''. Monreale Cathedral, Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|667x667px]]<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_1:_Playing_around_with_medieval_language Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_2:_The_twenty_props_you_need_to_put_on_any_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_3:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history Lesson Plan 3: Typology, or medieval living history]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_4:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history_and_tableau_vivant Lesson Plan 4: Typology, or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'']''<nowiki/>''<br />
<br />
===[[Setting_the_Medieval_Stage |Setting the Medieval Stage]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 5 through 7 ======<br />
<br />
The spaces of medieval drama were various, labile, and indeed often mobile. The York Biblical cycle plays processed annually on pageant carts into and about the city to stop at York Minster and end on the market Pavement; small travelling companies acted other plays, performing in open spaces, inn yards, or great houses. Later, as plays retreated into manuscript, they might have been brought out for occasional declamation. Plays of such sharp moment and open engagement could, in theory, take place anywhere on this middle earth. As Peter Brook famously began his 1968 classic, ''The Empty Space'', “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and that is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged,” and modern revivals of medieval plays have utilized halls, cloisters, hillsides, city plazas and streetscapes, as well as more formal stages. These three Lesson Plans encourage you to find a suitable space for your play exercises, from a classroom with the desks pushed back to the more formal stage to the outdoor green space which might draw in community passers-by. Then we offer you a selection of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers |monologues]] for actors and especially powerful [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes |scenes]] to help develop the craft of your ensemble. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_5:_Stages_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 5: Stages for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_6:_Filling_the_space._Medieval_monologues_and_the_power_of_words Lesson Plan 6: Filling the space. Medieval monologues and the power of words]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_7:_Creating_and_inhabiting_the_space._Scenes_from_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 7: Creating and inhabiting the space. Scenes from medieval drama]<br />
<br />
=== [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]] ===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 8 through 10 ======<br />
<br />
Medieval drama engaged and hoped to transform its audiences with its biting and cathartic humor, its pointed social observation, its religiously inflected heights and depths, and its joy, and it forged community in its gatherings. <br />
[[File:Barbers' Baptism 147274.jpg|thumb|''The Baptism'' from the York Mystery Plays performed from a cart in the streets of York in front of St William's College.|400x400px]]<br />
These are goals to which we can aspire in our teaching, and we can do this with youngsters and oldsters as well as formal students and professionals, and in our street and cities as well as in our classrooms and regular theaters. Some of us are fortunate enough to be theatre professionals, and to do this as the core of our vocation. Others do it more occasionally, or aspire to do something like it in our communities. <br />
<br />
In these final three Lesson Plans we invite you to think hard about the audiences whom you hope to reach in your work, and we offer you the inspiring account of two younger academics from our group who have had the training, creativity, and institutional support to mount entire student productions, in one case for a large public university Honors College seminar filled with STEM students, and in another at a liberal arts college embedded in a large city. <br />
<br />
Finally, we encourage you to take the tradition of street performance of medieval drama and the example of some modern adaptations to think about its transformative potential for pressing modern needs such as increased civic engagement, social justice, and ecological awareness. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_8:_Determining_your_audience_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 8: Determining your audience for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_9:_Performance_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 9: Performance of medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_10:_Adaptations_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 10: Adaptations of medieval drama]<br />
<br />
== Medieval and early English drama, print and on-line editions ==<br />
One may wonder why we do not see more Medieval Theatre productions on the university stage nowadays. Part of the answer may be that for the non-medievalist, and in particular for the performer not versed in medieval drama, approaching this enterprise could be daunting, starting with the selection of the play, where to find it, whether to use Middle English or a modernized, and which edition of text to use. To help streamline this process, and because there is no such a resource readily available for pedagogical purposes, we decided to compile a short list of medieval plays both in print and online editions, as well as modernized and unmodernized, as you will find in this section . <br />
<br />
===Print editions===<br />
<br />
''The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama''. Christina M. Fitzgerald and John T. Sebastian. Broadview, 2012.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama: An Anthology''. Greg Walker. Wiley-Blackwell, 2000.<br />
<br />
''Three Late Medieval Morality Plays''. G.A. Lester. New Mermaids, 2002. <br />
<br />
''York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling''. Richard Beadle and Pamela King. Oxford University Press, 2009<br />
<br />
''Early English Drama: An Anthology''. John C. Coldewey. Routledge, 1993.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama''. David Bevington. Hackett, 1975. <br />
<br />
The ''Arden Early English Drama'' series of texts from the late fifteenth to the late seventeenth centuries currently includes ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
===On-line editions===<br />
<br />
Online editions vary considerably in quality. Below are some that we have found to be well edited for both scholarly and pedagogical purposes. <br><br />
[[File:V.a.354 98v-99r.jpg|thumb|600x600px|Medieval plays were first preserved in manuscripts like this unique copy of the morality play ''Wisdom'' (c. 1460-63), preserved in the Macro plays at the Folger Shakespeare Library.|left]]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
==== Modernized ====<br />
<br />
:[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html#tab The N-town Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag The York Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/the-towneley-cycle-of-plays/ The Towneley Plays]<br />
<br><br />
====Unmodernized====<br />
<br />
:The TEAMS Middle English Text Series: <br />
http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== <br>Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers ==<br />
[[File:019807.jpg|thumb|600x600px|An angel announces the birth of Christ in the 2015-2016 Folger''The Second'' ''Shepherdes' Play'']]<br />
<nowiki> </nowiki><br />
<br />
Choosing a great monologue is a task that afflicts actors who are always searching for the best new monologue for their next audition. Audition pieces need to be strong, original, and not overdone. <br />
<br />
Medieval drama provides an exceptional vehicle for exploration and it allows the actor to utilize a variety of acting techniques, genres, and styles while performing. Here are some suggestions for monologues. <br />
<br />
While the casting suggestions given here are gender- and age-normative, directors and actors may want to think about mixing up these conventions for special effect and/or to suit their needs.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br><br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Role<br />
!Gender <br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll (First Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This speech opens the play. Coll complains about the conditions that poor men like himself have to endure and the ways they are abused by rich men. The speech is important in its sympathy for the plight of the medieval working class, and also thematically: after Coll speaks, it is easy to understand why salvation in the form of the baby Jesus is needed to come into the world.<br />
|Lines 1-54<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology.'' Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Gib (Second Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This is the second speech of the play. Gib complains about the difficulties of being married, and how much he regrets it, but it’s too late. This speech is important for its insight into medieval humor (for better or worse, the ‘take my wife, please’ vein of jokes has been mined for a long time); thematically, it establishes that salvation is needed in the world because humans, in particular the sexes, are at odds.<br />
|Lines 55-108<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|The York ''Fall of the Angels''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only this individual pageant but the York cycle as a whole. It sets the scene for both pageant and play, laying out themes that will recur throughout: the nature of God, the nature of creation, the nature of faith, the nature of worship, the consequences of disobedience.<br />
|Lines 1-34<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English] <br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|The York ''Crucifixion''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|This is Jesus’ speech from the cross after the soldiers finally manage to get him stretched and nailed to it.<br />
|Lines 253-264<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens the final pageant of the cycle. It harkens back to the first pageant and reminds the audience of all that happened between then and now, explaining the need for an end to be made and judgement given.<br />
|Lines 1-64<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|In this speech, Jesus addresses the human characters but, of course, also the audience, explaining why the judgement is going down as it does.<br />
|Lines 231-300<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|Chester''The Fall of Lucifer''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only the pageant but the cycle as a whole, laying out its important themes.<br />
|Lines 1-51<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/index.html Modern English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|N-town ''Passion Play 1''<br />
|Satan<br />
|Super-natural<br />
|This speech opens the Passion Play in the N-town manuscript. It is an important example of the ‘boast’ type of speech, common in medieval and early modern drama, where a villain or tyrant tells the audience who he is and that he is up to no good. [Shakespeare’s Richard III’s opening speech is a grandchild of this genre].<br />
|Lines 1-124<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/sugano-the-n-town-plays Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|Digby ''Mary Magdalene''<br />
|Mary Magdalene<br />
|Female<br />
|In this speech, Mary Magdalene preaches about the creation of the world to a heathen king, hoping to persuade him to leave his pagan ways.<br />
|Lines 1481-1526<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes ==<br />
It’s time to get Theatre students excited about performing Medieval drama. <br />
<br />
The question for many is where to begin? How do I find a play Where do I find a good scene? What edition is the best for performance? We are aware that there is too much and too little out there. And we also noted the need for teachers and students alike to have access to an inventory of scenes and monologues and good editions of plays. So, we have compiled these resources to get you started.<br />
<br />
Also, keep in mind that while in many instances characters are all male, and probably youngish to middle-age, when they are representative/allegorical characters, gender and age may not matter much when casting the roles.<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Roles<br />
!Gender<br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of Scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|New Guise, Nowadays, Nought, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the vices New Guise, Nowadays, and Nought try to tempt Mankind into sin. They fail spectacularly. Instead of recruiting Mankind as a diabolic minion, the devils are beaten up by him. This scene is important for understanding medieval drama because it illustrates physical action as an indispensable component that must be carefully choreographed and rehearsed to avoid injuring any of the actors. It also shows the use of physical comedy in medieval drama.<br />
|Lines 345-401<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|Titivillus, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the devil Titivillus has been called in by the other devils or vices who have failed to tempt Mankind into sin. Titivillus is invisible and inaudible to Mankind; but the audience can see and hear him, and they know Mankind cannot. This last piece is crucial, because Titivillus repeatedly speaks to the audience as if they are on his side, telling them to keep quiet to further his goal of tempting Mankind into sin (when of course they really are quiet because of their role as audience). This scene is one of several in the play that uses the audience’s role as audience to incite them to do bad things, thereby demonstrating that the audience needs redemption as much as does the character Mankind.<br />
|Lines 526-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|''Fulgens and Lucres''<br />
|A<br />
B<br />
|Male<br />
|This scene opens the play. In it, A and B interact with the audience and with each other, all the while claiming that they are not part of the play, but there will be a play and they’re anxious to see it. B explains to A what the play will be about.<br />
The scene is important because it demonstrates the fluid, meta-theatrical relationship between audience and play in early English theatre.<br />
|Lines 1 - 201<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|''Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham'' (scene 1)<br />
|Sheriff,<br />
Knight, <br />
<br />
and Robin Hood<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the Knight offers to capture Robin Hood for the Sheriff, who agrees to pay the Knight if he is successful. The Knight finds Robin Hood and engages with him in a series of tests of strength and skill. At last they fight. Robin Hood wins, kills the Knight, and declares that he will dress himself in the Knight’s clothes and take his head to the Sheriff to claim the reward for ‘killing’ Robin Hood.<br />
This scene is useful in the classroom for several reasons. It is one of a very few surviving pieces of secular medieval English drama. It also provides an opportunity to demonstrate the challenges presented by the extant texts. There are few stage directions in early drama; but as this scene makes clear, it is crucial to puzzle out the action. Most of this scene is, in fact, action. How long would the scene run? That’s entirely dependent upon how a performance decides to handle the action. The contests could be quick, or they could be elaborate.<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/16EWuJ02hFOhUxADG1zF-nk-TdzPa-0q8/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S6PFlgKa_tQBL9lwX76GlXbuv6KKj5Fa/view?usp=sharing Regularized Spelling]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/robyn-hod-and-the-shryff-off-notyngham Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll,<br />
<br />
Gib,<br />
<br />
Daw,<br />
<br />
Mak,<br />
<br />
Gyll<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
Female<br />
|In this scene, the shepherds (Coll, Gib, and Daw) come to Mak and Gyll’s house, looking for their stolen sheep. Mak has indeed stolen the sheep and has persuaded his wife Gyll to help him hide it by putting it in their cradle and pretending it is their newborn baby.<br />
The scene importantly demonstrates how medieval drama employs humor for thematic goals. For example, Mak swears to the shepherds that if he stole the sheep, the ‘baby’ will be the first meal he eats that day. It’s a funny line, for the audience knows the ‘baby’ is actually a sheep that Mak has every intention of eating. But discussion of eating the sheep/baby also underscores the nativity theme of the play, which celebrates the birth of a baby, Jesus, who is also a “lamb” who will be eaten (in the form of communion) for the benefit of humans. The parodic profane nativity highlights the sacred nativity.<br />
|Lines 476-628<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|''The Castle of Perseverance''<br />
|Mercy,<br />
<br />
Justice,<br />
<br />
Truth,<br />
<br />
Peace,<br />
<br />
God<br />
<br />
|Eternal<br />
|Humanum Genus, the play’s Mankind figure, has behaved wickedly most of his life. But as he is dying, he realizes his wickedness. His very last word is “Mercy,” begging God to save him from hell. In this scene, Justice and Truth argue before God why Humanum Genus should be damned. Peace and Mercy give their reasons why he should be saved. The scene resembles a modern courtroom drama, with Truth and Justice as the prosecuting attorneys, Mercy and Peace acting for the defense, and God the Judge listening to all sides before giving his verdict.<br />
All characters are female except God, who is male. All are eternal figures.<br />
|Lines 3129-3544<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/cascomp.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/klausner-castle-of-perseverance Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|''Brome Abraham and Isaac''<br />
|Abraham,<br />
<br />
Isaac,<br />
<br />
the Angel<br />
|Male<br />
|Abraham is old. Isaac is a child. The Angel is ageless.<br />
Abraham has been ordered by God to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Naturally, Abraham is reluctant to kill his child, but he also wants to be obedient to God. In this scene, we see Abraham’s struggle. We also see medieval drama’s typological understanding of the sacrifice of Isaac as foreshadowing the sacrifice of Jesus.<br />
|Lines 290-332<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/noa/pdf/13BromePlay_1_12.pdf Modern (lightly) English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/AJD3529.0001.001/1:4.6?rgn=div2;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|''Johan Johan''<br />
|Tib the Wife,<br />
John the Husband, and Johan Johan the priest<br />
|Female<br />
<br />
Male<br />
|Tib is female and young adult. John the Husband is male and adult, perhaps a bit older than Tib, but theirs is not necessarily a May/December marriage. Johan Johan is male and adult.<br />
The priest has been carrying on with several women in the area, including Tib. Tib and the priest laugh at the husband’s thickheadness in not realizing their liaison.. But John the Husband begins to get suspicious. This scene is particularly rich in physical comedy, as the husband is chafing wax from a candle to mend a leaky pail, with obvious masturbatory overtones--i.e,, the priest is getting real sex, the husband has to make do on his own.<br />
|Lines 439-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?id=h0U4AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA67#v=onepage&q&f=false Text]<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|''Wisdom''<br />
|Lucifer,<br />
<br />
Mind,<br />
<br />
Will,<br />
<br />
Understanding<br />
|Allegorical<br />
|Lucifer explains to the audience that he is going to tempt the good guys, does so, and then brags about it.<br />
|Lines 325-55<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Some Productions of Medieval Plays, Online ==<br />
You can access an extensive [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5cWcydg0JFis9914C0KX7iz59jwg6-xV# YouTube playlist of medieval drama] online. Additionally, here is a resource list for some titles:<br />
<br />
=== ''Everyman'' ===<br />
You can find digital versions of various productions online, including a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkM8v0m3URg# 2012 ''Everyman''] production at the Portland Community College Performing Arts Center which utilized large-scale puppets and a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvZFBZB10LA# 2016 ''Everyman''] production by the Laurier Historical Society at Wilfrid Laurier University. The play has been adapted as a commercial film twice in recent years in modernized (2002) and period (2007) productions.<br />
<br />
=== ''Mankind'' ===<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4acAjs2TGa8# 1999 ''Mankind''] staging by Duquesne University Medieval and Renaissance Players. <br />
<br />
University students staged an improvisatory modernized production of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsTyvD8E9Mk# ''Mankind''] as a final course project in 2016.<br />
<br />
=== Biblical cycle plays and passion plays ===<br />
The Blackhills Passion plays were performed in Spearfish, South Dakota from 1939 to 2008, and at their winter home in Lake Wales, Florida from 1953 to 1999.<br />
<br />
The Mormon Hill Cumorah biblical pageant in Palmyra, New York has been performed since 1935: http://www.hillcumorah.org/ <br />
<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn0pcYONuxc# 2013 Chester Noah] play performed by the Liverpool University Players.<br />
<br />
The Chester Mystery plays were performed in a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRthPA2nJyw# 2008 modernized musical version].<br />
<br />
The Oberammergau Passion Play has been performed continuously in that Bavarian village since 1634. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KeVtnndSsc# The trailer for the 2020 production]. <br />
<br />
The Towneley Second Shepherds’ Play has long been a favorite Christmas holiday production, and was recently revived at the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RomR1sxDlus# Folger Theater] in 2016. <br />
<br />
[https://muse.jhu.edu/article/34991# Yiimimangaliso: The Mysteries], a version of the Chester mysteries, was staged in South Africa and London in 2001 and has been revived since. <br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, England: Videos from recent York mystery plays are available on-line at several sites. See, for example, [http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/york-mystery-plays-1973# York Mystery Plays 1973], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nyFLOlEupM# York Mystery Plays 2010], and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_IE4izf_6c# York Mystery Plays 2016].<br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, Toronto: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIImNnV1Ty0# 2010 “Crucifixion”].<br />
<br />
The [http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/front-page/# Poculi Ludique Societas], or PLS in Toronto, has for over 50 years now sponsored productions of early plays, from the beginnings of medieval drama to as late as the middle of the seventeenth century.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Selected Bibliography ==<br />
Albin, Andrew. “Sonorous Presence, and the Performance of Christian Community in the Chester Shepherds Play.” ''Early Theatre'' 16.2 (2013): 33-57.<br />
<br />
Aronson-Lehavi, Sharon. ''Street Scenes: Late Medieval Acting and Performance''. Palgrave MacmIllan, 2011.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. “The Present of Past Things: The York Corpus Christi Cycle as a Contemporary Theatre of Memory.” ''Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies'' 26.2 (1996): 35-79.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. ''Signifying God: Social Relations and Symbolic Act in the York Corpus Christi Plays''. University of Chicago Press, 2001.<br />
<br />
Bevington, David. ''From “Mankind” to Marlowe: Growth of Structure in the Popular Drama of Tudor England''. Harvard University Press, 1962.<br />
<br />
Butler, Judith. ''Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative''. Routledge, 1997.<br />
<br />
Carlson, Marvin. “Medieval Street Performers Speak.” ''TDR:The Drama Review'', 57.4 (2013): 86-94.<br />
<br />
Chaganti, Seeta. “The Platea: Pre- and Postmodern: A Landscape of Medieval Performance Studies.” ''Exemplaria'' 25.3 (2013): 252-64.<br />
<br />
Clopper, Lawrence. ''Drama, Play, and Game: English Festive Culture in the Medieval and Early Modern Period''. Chicago, 2001.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “The Chester Cycle in Sixteenth-Century Religious Culture," ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 37.3 (2007): 532-47.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. ''Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints: Theater, Gender, and Religion in Late Medieval England''. University of Pennsylvania, 2004.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Biblical Drama in Post-Apartheid South Africa: The Chester Plays in Afterlife.” ''Transformations in Biblical Literary Traditions: Incarnation, Narrative,'' ''and Ethics''. Eds. D.H. Williams and Philip Donnelly, Notre Dame University Press, 2014. 268-88.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Drama: 1191-1952.” ''Exemplaria'' 28.3 (2016): 264-76.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Reading REED: History and the Records of Early English Drama.” ''Literary Practice and Social Change in Britain, 1380-1530''. Ed. Lee Patterson, University of California Press, 1990. 248-84.<br />
<br />
Davidson, Clifford, ed. ''Gesture in Medieval Drama and Art''. Medieval Institute, 2001.<br />
<br />
Elliott, John R., Jr. ''Playing God: Medieval Mysteries on the Modern Stage''. University of Toronto Press, 1989.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard. “Dramatic History: On the Diachronic and Synchronic in the Study of Early English Drama.” ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 35:1 (2005): 39-66.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard K. “’Nowe Ys Common This Daye’: Enoch and Elias, Antichrist, and the Structure of the Chester Cycle.” ''Homo, Memento Finis: The Iconography of Just'' ''Judgment in Medieval Art and Drama''. Ed. David Bevington, et. al. Medieval Institute, 1985. 221-57.<br />
<br />
Enders, Jody. ''The Medieval Theater of Cruelty: Rhetoric, Memory, Violence.'' Cornell University Press, 2002.<br />
<br />
Gardiner, Harold. ''Mysteries’ End: An Investigation of the Last Days of the Medieval Religious Stage.'' Yale University Press, 1946.<br />
<br />
Hardison, O.B., Jr. ''Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages: Essays in the Origin and Early History of Modern Drama''. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965.<br />
<br />
Holsinger, Bruce. “Analytical Survey 6: Medieval Literature and Cultures of Performance.” ''New Medieval Literatures'' 6 (2003): 271-311.<br />
<br />
James, Mervyn. “Ritual, Drama, and Social Body in the Late Medieval Town.” ''Past & Present'' 98 (1983):3-29.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela, ed. ''The Routledge Research Companion to Early Drama and Performance.'' Routledge, 2017.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela. ''The York Mystery Cycle and the Worship of the City''. D.S. Breer, 2006.<br />
<br />
Kolve, V.A. ''The Play Called Corpus Christi.'' Stanford University Press, 1966.<br />
<br />
Lerud, Theodore. ''Memory, Images, and the English Corpus Christi Drama''. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Gender and Medieval Drama.'' D.S. Brewer, 2004.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Modern Mysteries: Contemporary Productions of Medieval English Dramas.'' D.S. Brewer, 2007. <br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Medieval English Drama: Performance and Spectatorship.'' Polity Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Parker, Andrew, and Eve Kosofsky Sedwick, eds. ''Performativity and Performance.'' Routledge,1995.<br />
<br />
Ong, Walter. ''Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word.'' Methuen, 1982.<br />
<br />
Overlie, Mary. ''Standing in Space: The Six Viewpoints Theory and Practice''. Fallon Press, 2016.<br />
<br />
Rogerson, Margaret. ''Playing a Part in History: The York Mysteries, 1951-2006''. University of Toronto Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Sergi, Matthew. Work-in-progress on ''Play Texts and Public Practice in the Chester Cycle,'' c.1421-1607.<br />
<br />
Schreyer, Kurt. ''Shakespeare’s Medieval Craft: Memories of the Mysteries on the London Stage.'' Cornell University Press, 2014.<br />
<br />
Soleo-Shanks, Jenna. “Resurrecting Callimachus: Pop Music Puppets, and the Necessity of Performance in Teaching Medieval Drama." ''Teaching Medieval and Early Modern'' ''Cross-Cultural Encounters''. Eds. Karina F. Attar and Lynn Shutters, Palgrave Macmillan 2014. 199-213.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. “The Culture of the Spectator.” ''Theater Journal'' 34 (1992): 15-29.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. ''Ritual Imports: Performing Medieval Drama in America'', Cornell University Press, 2005.<br />
<br />
Stevens, Martin. ''Four Middle English Mystery Cycles.'' Princeton University Press, 1987.<br />
<br />
Stevenson, Jill. ''Performance, Cognitive Theory, and Devotional Culture: Sensual Piety in Late Medieval York.'' Palgrave MacMillan, 2010.<br />
<br />
Travis, Peter W. ''Dramatic Design in the Chester Cycle''. University of Chicago Press, 1982.<br />
<br />
Turner, Victor. ''From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play''. PAJ Books, 1982<br />
<br />
Westfall, Suzanne R. ''Patrons and Performance: Early Tudor Household Revels''. Clarendon Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
Continue on to ''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|Verba et Res]]''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]: Lesson Plans 1 through 4.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
'''Page written by'''<br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler | Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy&diff=28410Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy2018-03-24T22:05:03Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>''This article is under construction''<br />
<br />
This article - conceived and written by Barbara J. Bono, Maria S. Horne, and Michelle Markley Butler - is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance.<br />
<br />
==Introduction==<br />
<br />
===Medieval drama truly comes alive in performance.=== <br />
This is, of course, a statement true of all works in the dramatic genre. However, it is especially true of medieval drama, which frequently addressed in embodied form large and ultimate questions about humanity's place in creation and the scheme of history, and did so in direct and explicit relation to its audiences, with extraordinary emotive and affective range from the obscene to the exalted. <br />
[[File:028728.jpg|thumb|left|Miss Edith Wynne Matthison in the role of Everyman (c. 1902)|504x504px]]<br />
<br />
Medieval drama is integrated into the curriculum for theatre majors at most universities in the United States. However, there, rather than being part of acting technique or performance-based courses, or of staged productions, the subject is most often studied only very briefly in lecture courses like Theatre History. Meanwhile, in departments of literature, medieval drama is sometimes included as a topic in a broader medieval or British literature class or as a minor prequel to the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, but it is seldom given much time or attention, and its performative nature is largely neglected.<br />
<br />
But we would argue that medieval drama is accessible, exciting, adaptable, and inspirational to interested communities of all ages and abilities - from lower grade levels to highly-trained practitioners - for drama itself is the ideal synesthetic and interdisciplinary vehicle for community formation and differential learning. There is also contemporaneity in medieval drama: humor, music, and fun, as well as metaphor, allegories, and subtexts which speak to who we are today. And while the task of accessing this excitement may seem daunting, in this article we have put together a set of resources - combining language, action, and spectacle - to get you started.<br />
<br />
The first step in bridging the gap between performance and literary study is alerting students and teachers to the new wealth of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Medieval_and_early_English_drama.2C_print_and_on-line_editions|readily-available textual and general scholarly resources]] for these plays, which reach far beyond the frequently anthologized ''Everyman'' or the de-contextualized bit of a biblical cycle play.<br />
<br />
==Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre==<br />
<br />
The second step is to make at least a beginning at "putting the plays up on their feet." To that end we have supplied a series of ten performance-based Lesson Plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing, to considering the symbolic shape of an action, to preliminary training toward full performance and modern adaptation. While these Lesson Plans are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous [http://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-set-free Folger Shakespeare Set Free teaching manuals], namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology.<br />
<br />
===[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama|''Verba et Res''/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 ======<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
[[File:Monreale, Christ the Creator.JPG|thumb|''Christo Pantocratore''. Monreale Cathedral, Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|667x667px]]<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_1:_Playing_around_with_medieval_language Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_2:_The_twenty_props_you_need_to_put_on_any_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_3:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history Lesson Plan 3: Typology, or medieval living history]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_4:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history_and_tableau_vivant Lesson Plan 4: Typology, or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'']''<nowiki/>''<br />
<br />
===[[Setting_the_Medieval_Stage |Setting the Medieval Stage]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 5 through 7 ======<br />
<br />
The spaces of medieval drama were various, labile, and indeed often mobile. The York Biblical cycle plays processed annually on pageant carts into and about the city to stop at York Minster and end on the market Pavement; small travelling companies acted other plays, performing in open spaces, inn yards, or great houses. Later, as plays retreated into manuscript, they might have been brought out for occasional declamation. Plays of such sharp moment and open engagement could, in theory, take place anywhere on this middle earth. As Peter Brook famously began his 1968 classic, ''The Empty Space'', “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and that is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged,” and modern revivals of medieval plays have utilized halls, cloisters, hillsides, city plazas and streetscapes, as well as more formal stages. These three Lesson Plans encourage you to find a suitable space for your play exercises, from a classroom with the desks pushed back to the more formal stage to the outdoor green space which might draw in community passers-by. Then we offer you a selection of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers |monologues]] for actors and especially powerful [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes |scenes]] to help develop the craft of your ensemble. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_5:_Stages_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 5: Stages for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_6:_Filling_the_space._Medieval_monologues_and_the_power_of_words Lesson Plan 6: Filling the space. Medieval monologues and the power of words]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_7:_Creating_and_inhabiting_the_space._Scenes_from_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 7: Creating and inhabiting the space. Scenes from medieval drama]<br />
<br />
=== [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]] ===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 8 through 10 ======<br />
<br />
Medieval drama engaged and hoped to transform its audiences with its biting and cathartic humor, its pointed social observation, its religiously inflected heights and depths, and its joy, and it forged community in its gatherings. <br />
[[File:Barbers' Baptism 147274.jpg|thumb|''The Baptism'' from the York Mystery Plays performed from a cart in the streets of York in front of St William's College.|400x400px]]<br />
These are goals to which we can aspire in our teaching, and we can do this with youngsters and oldsters as well as formal students and professionals, and in our street and cities as well as in our classrooms and regular theaters. Some of us are fortunate enough to be theatre professionals, and to do this as the core of our vocation. Others do it more occasionally, or aspire to do something like it in our communities. <br />
<br />
In these final three Lesson Plans we invite you to think hard about the audiences whom you hope to reach in your work, and we offer you the inspiring account of two younger academics from our group who have had the training, creativity, and institutional support to mount entire student productions, in one case for a large public university Honors College seminar filled with STEM students, and in another at a liberal arts college embedded in a large city. <br />
<br />
Finally, we encourage you to take the tradition of street performance of medieval drama and the example of some modern adaptations to think about its transformative potential for pressing modern needs such as increased civic engagement, social justice, and ecological awareness. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_8:_Determining_your_audience_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 8: Determining your audience for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_9:_Performance_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 9: Performance of medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_10:_Adaptations_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 10: Adaptations of medieval drama]<br />
<br />
== Medieval and early English drama, print and on-line editions ==<br />
One may wonder why we do not see more Medieval Theatre productions on the university stage nowadays. Part of the answer may be that for the non-medievalist, and in particular for the performer not versed in medieval drama, approaching this enterprise could be daunting, starting with the selection of the play, where to find it, whether to use Middle English or a modernized, and which edition of text to use. To help streamline this process, and because there is no such a resource readily available for pedagogical purposes, we decided to compile a short list of medieval plays both in print and online editions, as well as modernized and unmodernized, as you will find in this section . <br />
<br />
===Print editions===<br />
<br />
''The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama''. Christina M. Fitzgerald and John T. Sebastian. Broadview, 2012.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama: An Anthology''. Greg Walker. Wiley-Blackwell, 2000.<br />
<br />
''Three Late Medieval Morality Plays''. G.A. Lester. New Mermaids, 2002. <br />
<br />
''York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling''. Richard Beadle and Pamela King. Oxford University Press, 2009<br />
<br />
''Early English Drama: An Anthology''. John C. Coldewey. Routledge, 1993.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama''. David Bevington. Hackett, 1975. <br />
<br />
The ''Arden Early English Drama'' series of texts from the late fifteenth to the late seventeenth centuries currently includes ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
===On-line editions===<br />
<br />
Online editions vary considerably in quality. Below are some that we have found to be well edited for both scholarly and pedagogical purposes. <br><br />
[[File:V.a.354 98v-99r.jpg|thumb|522x522px|Medieval plays were first preserved in manuscripts like this unique copy of the morality play ''Wisdom'' (c. 1460-63), preserved in the Macro plays at the Folger Shakespeare Library.|left]]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
==== Modernized ====<br />
<br />
:[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html#tab The N-town Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag The York Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/the-towneley-cycle-of-plays/ The Towneley Plays]<br />
<br><br />
====Unmodernized====<br />
<br />
:The TEAMS Middle English Text Series: <br />
http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== <br>Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers ==<br />
[[File:019807.jpg|thumb|600x600px|An angel announces the birth of Christ in the 2015-2016 Folger''The Second'' ''Shepherdes' Play'']]<br />
<nowiki> </nowiki><br />
<br />
Choosing a great monologue is a task that afflicts actors who are always searching for the best new monologue for their next audition. Audition pieces need to be strong, original, and not overdone. <br />
<br />
Medieval drama provides an exceptional vehicle for exploration and it allows the actor to utilize a variety of acting techniques, genres, and styles while performing. Here are some suggestions for monologues. <br />
<br />
While the casting suggestions given here are gender- and age-normative, directors and actors may want to think about mixing up these conventions for special effect and/or to suit their needs.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br><br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Role<br />
!Gender <br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll (First Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This speech opens the play. Coll complains about the conditions that poor men like himself have to endure and the ways they are abused by rich men. The speech is important in its sympathy for the plight of the medieval working class, and also thematically: after Coll speaks, it is easy to understand why salvation in the form of the baby Jesus is needed to come into the world.<br />
|Lines 1-54<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology.'' Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Gib (Second Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This is the second speech of the play. Gib complains about the difficulties of being married, and how much he regrets it, but it’s too late. This speech is important for its insight into medieval humor (for better or worse, the ‘take my wife, please’ vein of jokes has been mined for a long time); thematically, it establishes that salvation is needed in the world because humans, in particular the sexes, are at odds.<br />
|Lines 55-108<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|The York ''Fall of the Angels''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only this individual pageant but the York cycle as a whole. It sets the scene for both pageant and play, laying out themes that will recur throughout: the nature of God, the nature of creation, the nature of faith, the nature of worship, the consequences of disobedience.<br />
|Lines 1-34<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English] <br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|The York ''Crucifixion''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|This is Jesus’ speech from the cross after the soldiers finally manage to get him stretched and nailed to it.<br />
|Lines 253-264<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens the final pageant of the cycle. It harkens back to the first pageant and reminds the audience of all that happened between then and now, explaining the need for an end to be made and judgement given.<br />
|Lines 1-64<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|In this speech, Jesus addresses the human characters but, of course, also the audience, explaining why the judgement is going down as it does.<br />
|Lines 231-300<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|Chester''The Fall of Lucifer''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only the pageant but the cycle as a whole, laying out its important themes.<br />
|Lines 1-51<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/index.html Modern English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|N-town ''Passion Play 1''<br />
|Satan<br />
|Super-natural<br />
|This speech opens the Passion Play in the N-town manuscript. It is an important example of the ‘boast’ type of speech, common in medieval and early modern drama, where a villain or tyrant tells the audience who he is and that he is up to no good. [Shakespeare’s Richard III’s opening speech is a grandchild of this genre].<br />
|Lines 1-124<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/sugano-the-n-town-plays Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|Digby ''Mary Magdalene''<br />
|Mary Magdalene<br />
|Female<br />
|In this speech, Mary Magdalene preaches about the creation of the world to a heathen king, hoping to persuade him to leave his pagan ways.<br />
|Lines 1481-1526<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes ==<br />
It’s time to get Theatre students excited about performing Medieval drama. <br />
<br />
The question for many is where to begin? How do I find a play Where do I find a good scene? What edition is the best for performance? We are aware that there is too much and too little out there. And we also noted the need for teachers and students alike to have access to an inventory of scenes and monologues and good editions of plays. So, we have compiled these resources to get you started.<br />
<br />
Also, keep in mind that while in many instances characters are all male, and probably youngish to middle-age, when they are representative/allegorical characters, gender and age may not matter much when casting the roles.<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Roles<br />
!Gender<br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of Scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|New Guise, Nowadays, Nought, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the vices New Guise, Nowadays, and Nought try to tempt Mankind into sin. They fail spectacularly. Instead of recruiting Mankind as a diabolic minion, the devils are beaten up by him. This scene is important for understanding medieval drama because it illustrates physical action as an indispensable component that must be carefully choreographed and rehearsed to avoid injuring any of the actors. It also shows the use of physical comedy in medieval drama.<br />
|Lines 345-401<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|Titivillus, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the devil Titivillus has been called in by the other devils or vices who have failed to tempt Mankind into sin. Titivillus is invisible and inaudible to Mankind; but the audience can see and hear him, and they know Mankind cannot. This last piece is crucial, because Titivillus repeatedly speaks to the audience as if they are on his side, telling them to keep quiet to further his goal of tempting Mankind into sin (when of course they really are quiet because of their role as audience). This scene is one of several in the play that uses the audience’s role as audience to incite them to do bad things, thereby demonstrating that the audience needs redemption as much as does the character Mankind.<br />
|Lines 526-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|''Fulgens and Lucres''<br />
|A<br />
B<br />
|Male<br />
|This scene opens the play. In it, A and B interact with the audience and with each other, all the while claiming that they are not part of the play, but there will be a play and they’re anxious to see it. B explains to A what the play will be about.<br />
The scene is important because it demonstrates the fluid, meta-theatrical relationship between audience and play in early English theatre.<br />
|Lines 1 - 201<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|''Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham'' (scene 1)<br />
|Sheriff,<br />
Knight, <br />
<br />
and Robin Hood<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the Knight offers to capture Robin Hood for the Sheriff, who agrees to pay the Knight if he is successful. The Knight finds Robin Hood and engages with him in a series of tests of strength and skill. At last they fight. Robin Hood wins, kills the Knight, and declares that he will dress himself in the Knight’s clothes and take his head to the Sheriff to claim the reward for ‘killing’ Robin Hood.<br />
This scene is useful in the classroom for several reasons. It is one of a very few surviving pieces of secular medieval English drama. It also provides an opportunity to demonstrate the challenges presented by the extant texts. There are few stage directions in early drama; but as this scene makes clear, it is crucial to puzzle out the action. Most of this scene is, in fact, action. How long would the scene run? That’s entirely dependent upon how a performance decides to handle the action. The contests could be quick, or they could be elaborate.<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/16EWuJ02hFOhUxADG1zF-nk-TdzPa-0q8/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S6PFlgKa_tQBL9lwX76GlXbuv6KKj5Fa/view?usp=sharing Regularized Spelling]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/robyn-hod-and-the-shryff-off-notyngham Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll,<br />
<br />
Gib,<br />
<br />
Daw,<br />
<br />
Mak,<br />
<br />
Gyll<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
Female<br />
|In this scene, the shepherds (Coll, Gib, and Daw) come to Mak and Gyll’s house, looking for their stolen sheep. Mak has indeed stolen the sheep and has persuaded his wife Gyll to help him hide it by putting it in their cradle and pretending it is their newborn baby.<br />
The scene importantly demonstrates how medieval drama employs humor for thematic goals. For example, Mak swears to the shepherds that if he stole the sheep, the ‘baby’ will be the first meal he eats that day. It’s a funny line, for the audience knows the ‘baby’ is actually a sheep that Mak has every intention of eating. But discussion of eating the sheep/baby also underscores the nativity theme of the play, which celebrates the birth of a baby, Jesus, who is also a “lamb” who will be eaten (in the form of communion) for the benefit of humans. The parodic profane nativity highlights the sacred nativity.<br />
|Lines 476-628<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|''The Castle of Perseverance''<br />
|Mercy,<br />
<br />
Justice,<br />
<br />
Truth,<br />
<br />
Peace,<br />
<br />
God<br />
<br />
|Eternal<br />
|Humanum Genus, the play’s Mankind figure, has behaved wickedly most of his life. But as he is dying, he realizes his wickedness. His very last word is “Mercy,” begging God to save him from hell. In this scene, Justice and Truth argue before God why Humanum Genus should be damned. Peace and Mercy give their reasons why he should be saved. The scene resembles a modern courtroom drama, with Truth and Justice as the prosecuting attorneys, Mercy and Peace acting for the defense, and God the Judge listening to all sides before giving his verdict.<br />
All characters are female except God, who is male. All are eternal figures.<br />
|Lines 3129-3544<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/cascomp.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/klausner-castle-of-perseverance Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|''Brome Abraham and Isaac''<br />
|Abraham,<br />
<br />
Isaac,<br />
<br />
the Angel<br />
|Male<br />
|Abraham is old. Isaac is a child. The Angel is ageless.<br />
Abraham has been ordered by God to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Naturally, Abraham is reluctant to kill his child, but he also wants to be obedient to God. In this scene, we see Abraham’s struggle. We also see medieval drama’s typological understanding of the sacrifice of Isaac as foreshadowing the sacrifice of Jesus.<br />
|Lines 290-332<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/noa/pdf/13BromePlay_1_12.pdf Modern (lightly) English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/AJD3529.0001.001/1:4.6?rgn=div2;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|''Johan Johan''<br />
|Tib the Wife,<br />
John the Husband, and Johan Johan the priest<br />
|Female<br />
<br />
Male<br />
|Tib is female and young adult. John the Husband is male and adult, perhaps a bit older than Tib, but theirs is not necessarily a May/December marriage. Johan Johan is male and adult.<br />
The priest has been carrying on with several women in the area, including Tib. Tib and the priest laugh at the husband’s thickheadness in not realizing their liaison.. But John the Husband begins to get suspicious. This scene is particularly rich in physical comedy, as the husband is chafing wax from a candle to mend a leaky pail, with obvious masturbatory overtones--i.e,, the priest is getting real sex, the husband has to make do on his own.<br />
|Lines 439-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?id=h0U4AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA67#v=onepage&q&f=false Text]<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|''Wisdom''<br />
|Lucifer,<br />
<br />
Mind,<br />
<br />
Will,<br />
<br />
Understanding<br />
|Allegorical<br />
|Lucifer explains to the audience that he is going to tempt the good guys, does so, and then brags about it.<br />
|Lines 325-55<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Some Productions of Medieval Plays, Online ==<br />
You can access an extensive [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5cWcydg0JFis9914C0KX7iz59jwg6-xV# YouTube playlist of medieval drama] online. Additionally, here is a resource list for some titles:<br />
<br />
=== ''Everyman'' ===<br />
You can find digital versions of various productions online, including a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkM8v0m3URg# 2012 ''Everyman''] production at the Portland Community College Performing Arts Center which utilized large-scale puppets and a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvZFBZB10LA# 2016 ''Everyman''] production by the Laurier Historical Society at Wilfrid Laurier University. The play has been adapted as a commercial film twice in recent years in modernized (2002) and period (2007) productions.<br />
<br />
=== ''Mankind'' ===<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4acAjs2TGa8# 1999 ''Mankind''] staging by Duquesne University Medieval and Renaissance Players. <br />
<br />
University students staged an improvisatory modernized production of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsTyvD8E9Mk# ''Mankind''] as a final course project in 2016.<br />
<br />
=== Biblical cycle plays and passion plays ===<br />
The Blackhills Passion plays were performed in Spearfish, South Dakota from 1939 to 2008, and at their winter home in Lake Wales, Florida from 1953 to 1999.<br />
<br />
The Mormon Hill Cumorah biblical pageant in Palmyra, New York has been performed since 1935: http://www.hillcumorah.org/ <br />
<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn0pcYONuxc# 2013 Chester Noah] play performed by the Liverpool University Players.<br />
<br />
The Chester Mystery plays were performed in a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRthPA2nJyw# 2008 modernized musical version].<br />
<br />
The Oberammergau Passion Play has been performed continuously in that Bavarian village since 1634. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KeVtnndSsc# The trailer for the 2020 production]. <br />
<br />
The Towneley Second Shepherds’ Play has long been a favorite Christmas holiday production, and was recently revived at the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RomR1sxDlus# Folger Theater] in 2016. <br />
<br />
[https://muse.jhu.edu/article/34991# Yiimimangaliso: The Mysteries], a version of the Chester mysteries, was staged in South Africa and London in 2001 and has been revived since. <br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, England: Videos from recent York mystery plays are available on-line at several sites. See, for example, [http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/york-mystery-plays-1973# York Mystery Plays 1973], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nyFLOlEupM# York Mystery Plays 2010], and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_IE4izf_6c# York Mystery Plays 2016].<br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, Toronto: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIImNnV1Ty0# 2010 “Crucifixion”].<br />
<br />
The [http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/front-page/# Poculi Ludique Societas], or PLS in Toronto, has for over 50 years now sponsored productions of early plays, from the beginnings of medieval drama to as late as the middle of the seventeenth century.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Selected Bibliography ==<br />
Albin, Andrew. “Sonorous Presence, and the Performance of Christian Community in the Chester Shepherds Play.” ''Early Theatre'' 16.2 (2013): 33-57.<br />
<br />
Aronson-Lehavi, Sharon. ''Street Scenes: Late Medieval Acting and Performance''. Palgrave MacmIllan, 2011.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. “The Present of Past Things: The York Corpus Christi Cycle as a Contemporary Theatre of Memory.” ''Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies'' 26.2 (1996): 35-79.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. ''Signifying God: Social Relations and Symbolic Act in the York Corpus Christi Plays''. University of Chicago Press, 2001.<br />
<br />
Bevington, David. ''From “Mankind” to Marlowe: Growth of Structure in the Popular Drama of Tudor England''. Harvard University Press, 1962.<br />
<br />
Butler, Judith. ''Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative''. Routledge, 1997.<br />
<br />
Carlson, Marvin. “Medieval Street Performers Speak.” ''TDR:The Drama Review'', 57.4 (2013): 86-94.<br />
<br />
Chaganti, Seeta. “The Platea: Pre- and Postmodern: A Landscape of Medieval Performance Studies.” ''Exemplaria'' 25.3 (2013): 252-64.<br />
<br />
Clopper, Lawrence. ''Drama, Play, and Game: English Festive Culture in the Medieval and Early Modern Period''. Chicago, 2001.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “The Chester Cycle in Sixteenth-Century Religious Culture," ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 37.3 (2007): 532-47.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. ''Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints: Theater, Gender, and Religion in Late Medieval England''. University of Pennsylvania, 2004.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Biblical Drama in Post-Apartheid South Africa: The Chester Plays in Afterlife.” ''Transformations in Biblical Literary Traditions: Incarnation, Narrative,'' ''and Ethics''. Eds. D.H. Williams and Philip Donnelly, Notre Dame University Press, 2014. 268-88.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Drama: 1191-1952.” ''Exemplaria'' 28.3 (2016): 264-76.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Reading REED: History and the Records of Early English Drama.” ''Literary Practice and Social Change in Britain, 1380-1530''. Ed. Lee Patterson, University of California Press, 1990. 248-84.<br />
<br />
Davidson, Clifford, ed. ''Gesture in Medieval Drama and Art''. Medieval Institute, 2001.<br />
<br />
Elliott, John R., Jr. ''Playing God: Medieval Mysteries on the Modern Stage''. University of Toronto Press, 1989.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard. “Dramatic History: On the Diachronic and Synchronic in the Study of Early English Drama.” ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 35:1 (2005): 39-66.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard K. “’Nowe Ys Common This Daye’: Enoch and Elias, Antichrist, and the Structure of the Chester Cycle.” ''Homo, Memento Finis: The Iconography of Just'' ''Judgment in Medieval Art and Drama''. Ed. David Bevington, et. al. Medieval Institute, 1985. 221-57.<br />
<br />
Enders, Jody. ''The Medieval Theater of Cruelty: Rhetoric, Memory, Violence.'' Cornell University Press, 2002.<br />
<br />
Gardiner, Harold. ''Mysteries’ End: An Investigation of the Last Days of the Medieval Religious Stage.'' Yale University Press, 1946.<br />
<br />
Hardison, O.B., Jr. ''Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages: Essays in the Origin and Early History of Modern Drama''. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965.<br />
<br />
Holsinger, Bruce. “Analytical Survey 6: Medieval Literature and Cultures of Performance.” ''New Medieval Literatures'' 6 (2003): 271-311.<br />
<br />
James, Mervyn. “Ritual, Drama, and Social Body in the Late Medieval Town.” ''Past & Present'' 98 (1983):3-29.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela, ed. ''The Routledge Research Companion to Early Drama and Performance.'' Routledge, 2017.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela. ''The York Mystery Cycle and the Worship of the City''. D.S. Breer, 2006.<br />
<br />
Kolve, V.A. ''The Play Called Corpus Christi.'' Stanford University Press, 1966.<br />
<br />
Lerud, Theodore. ''Memory, Images, and the English Corpus Christi Drama''. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Gender and Medieval Drama.'' D.S. Brewer, 2004.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Modern Mysteries: Contemporary Productions of Medieval English Dramas.'' D.S. Brewer, 2007. <br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Medieval English Drama: Performance and Spectatorship.'' Polity Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Parker, Andrew, and Eve Kosofsky Sedwick, eds. ''Performativity and Performance.'' Routledge,1995.<br />
<br />
Ong, Walter. ''Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word.'' Methuen, 1982.<br />
<br />
Overlie, Mary. ''Standing in Space: The Six Viewpoints Theory and Practice''. Fallon Press, 2016.<br />
<br />
Rogerson, Margaret. ''Playing a Part in History: The York Mysteries, 1951-2006''. University of Toronto Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Sergi, Matthew. Work-in-progress on ''Play Texts and Public Practice in the Chester Cycle,'' c.1421-1607.<br />
<br />
Schreyer, Kurt. ''Shakespeare’s Medieval Craft: Memories of the Mysteries on the London Stage.'' Cornell University Press, 2014.<br />
<br />
Soleo-Shanks, Jenna. “Resurrecting Callimachus: Pop Music Puppets, and the Necessity of Performance in Teaching Medieval Drama." ''Teaching Medieval and Early Modern'' ''Cross-Cultural Encounters''. Eds. Karina F. Attar and Lynn Shutters, Palgrave Macmillan 2014. 199-213.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. “The Culture of the Spectator.” ''Theater Journal'' 34 (1992): 15-29.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. ''Ritual Imports: Performing Medieval Drama in America'', Cornell University Press, 2005.<br />
<br />
Stevens, Martin. ''Four Middle English Mystery Cycles.'' Princeton University Press, 1987.<br />
<br />
Stevenson, Jill. ''Performance, Cognitive Theory, and Devotional Culture: Sensual Piety in Late Medieval York.'' Palgrave MacMillan, 2010.<br />
<br />
Travis, Peter W. ''Dramatic Design in the Chester Cycle''. University of Chicago Press, 1982.<br />
<br />
Turner, Victor. ''From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play''. PAJ Books, 1982<br />
<br />
Westfall, Suzanne R. ''Patrons and Performance: Early Tudor Household Revels''. Clarendon Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
Continue on to ''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|Verba et Res]]''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]: Lesson Plans 1 through 4.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
'''Page written by'''<br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler | Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy&diff=28409Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy2018-03-24T22:03:55Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>''This article is under construction''<br />
<br />
This article - conceived and written by Barbara J. Bono, Maria S. Horne, and Michelle Markley Butler - is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance.<br />
<br />
==Introduction==<br />
<br />
===Medieval drama truly comes alive in performance.=== <br />
This is, of course, a statement true of all works in the dramatic genre. However, it is especially true of medieval drama, which frequently addressed in embodied form large and ultimate questions about humanity's place in creation and the scheme of history, and did so in direct and explicit relation to its audiences, with extraordinary emotive and affective range from the obscene to the exalted. <br />
[[File:028728.jpg|thumb|left|Miss Edith Wynne Matthison in the role of Everyman (c. 1902)|504x504px]]<br />
<br />
Medieval drama is integrated into the curriculum for theatre majors at most universities in the United States. However, there, rather than being part of acting technique or performance-based courses, or of staged productions, the subject is most often studied only very briefly in lecture courses like Theatre History. Meanwhile, in departments of literature, medieval drama is sometimes included as a topic in a broader medieval or British literature class or as a minor prequel to the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, but it is seldom given much time or attention, and its performative nature is largely neglected.<br />
<br />
But we would argue that medieval drama is accessible, exciting, adaptable, and inspirational to interested communities of all ages and abilities - from lower grade levels to highly-trained practitioners - for drama itself is the ideal synesthetic and interdisciplinary vehicle for community formation and differential learning. There is also contemporaneity in medieval drama: humor, music, and fun, as well as metaphor, allegories, and subtexts which speak to who we are today. And while the task of accessing this excitement may seem daunting, in this article we have put together a set of resources - combining language, action, and spectacle - to get you started.<br />
<br />
The first step in bridging the gap between performance and literary study is alerting students and teachers to the new wealth of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Medieval_and_early_English_drama.2C_print_and_on-line_editions|readily-available textual and general scholarly resources]] for these plays, which reach far beyond the frequently anthologized ''Everyman'' or the de-contextualized bit of a biblical cycle play.<br />
<br />
==Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre==<br />
<br />
The second step is to make at least a beginning at "putting the plays up on their feet." To that end we have supplied a series of ten performance-based Lesson Plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing, to considering the symbolic shape of an action, to preliminary training toward full performance and modern adaptation. While these Lesson Plans are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous [http://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-set-free Folger Shakespeare Set Free teaching manuals], namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology.<br />
<br />
===[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama|''Verba et Res''/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 ======<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
[[File:Monreale, Christ the Creator.JPG|thumb|''Christo Pantocratore''. Monreale Cathedral, Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|667x667px]]<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_1:_Playing_around_with_medieval_language Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_2:_The_twenty_props_you_need_to_put_on_any_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_3:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history Lesson Plan 3: Typology, or medieval living history]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_4:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history_and_tableau_vivant Lesson Plan 4: Typology, or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'']''<nowiki/>''<br />
<br />
===[[Setting_the_Medieval_Stage |Setting the Medieval Stage]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 5 through 7 ======<br />
<br />
The spaces of medieval drama were various, labile, and indeed often mobile. The York Biblical cycle plays processed annually on pageant carts into and about the city to stop at York Minster and end on the market Pavement; small travelling companies acted other plays, performing in open spaces, inn yards, or great houses. Later, as plays retreated into manuscript, they might have been brought out for occasional declamation. Plays of such sharp moment and open engagement could, in theory, take place anywhere on this middle earth. As Peter Brook famously began his 1968 classic, ''The Empty Space'', “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and that is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged,” and modern revivals of medieval plays have utilized halls, cloisters, hillsides, city plazas and streetscapes, as well as more formal stages. These three Lesson Plans encourage you to find a suitable space for your play exercises, from a classroom with the desks pushed back to the more formal stage to the outdoor green space which might draw in community passers-by. Then we offer you a selection of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers |monologues]] for actors and especially powerful [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes |scenes]] to help develop the craft of your ensemble. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_5:_Stages_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 5: Stages for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_6:_Filling_the_space._Medieval_monologues_and_the_power_of_words Lesson Plan 6: Filling the space. Medieval monologues and the power of words]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_7:_Creating_and_inhabiting_the_space._Scenes_from_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 7: Creating and inhabiting the space. Scenes from medieval drama]<br />
<br />
=== [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]] ===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 8 through 10 ======<br />
<br />
Medieval drama engaged and hoped to transform its audiences with its biting and cathartic humor, its pointed social observation, its religiously inflected heights and depths, and its joy, and it forged community in its gatherings. <br />
[[File:Barbers' Baptism 147274.jpg|thumb|''The Baptism'' from the York Mystery Plays performed from a cart in the streets of York in front of St William's College.]]<br />
These are goals to which we can aspire in our teaching, and we can do this with youngsters and oldsters as well as formal students and professionals, and in our street and cities as well as in our classrooms and regular theaters. Some of us are fortunate enough to be theatre professionals, and to do this as the core of our vocation. Others do it more occasionally, or aspire to do something like it in our communities. <br />
<br />
In these final three Lesson Plans we invite you to think hard about the audiences whom you hope to reach in your work, and we offer you the inspiring account of two younger academics from our group who have had the training, creativity, and institutional support to mount entire student productions, in one case for a large public university Honors College seminar filled with STEM students, and in another at a liberal arts college embedded in a large city. <br />
<br />
Finally, we encourage you to take the tradition of street performance of medieval drama and the example of some modern adaptations to think about its transformative potential for pressing modern needs such as increased civic engagement, social justice, and ecological awareness. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_8:_Determining_your_audience_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 8: Determining your audience for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_9:_Performance_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 9: Performance of medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_10:_Adaptations_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 10: Adaptations of medieval drama]<br />
<br />
== Medieval and early English drama, print and on-line editions ==<br />
One may wonder why we do not see more Medieval Theatre productions on the university stage nowadays. Part of the answer may be that for the non-medievalist, and in particular for the performer not versed in medieval drama, approaching this enterprise could be daunting, starting with the selection of the play, where to find it, whether to use Middle English or a modernized, and which edition of text to use. To help streamline this process, and because there is no such a resource readily available for pedagogical purposes, we decided to compile a short list of medieval plays both in print and online editions, as well as modernized and unmodernized, as you will find in this section . <br />
<br />
===Print editions===<br />
<br />
''The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama''. Christina M. Fitzgerald and John T. Sebastian. Broadview, 2012.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama: An Anthology''. Greg Walker. Wiley-Blackwell, 2000.<br />
<br />
''Three Late Medieval Morality Plays''. G.A. Lester. New Mermaids, 2002. <br />
<br />
''York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling''. Richard Beadle and Pamela King. Oxford University Press, 2009<br />
<br />
''Early English Drama: An Anthology''. John C. Coldewey. Routledge, 1993.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama''. David Bevington. Hackett, 1975. <br />
<br />
The ''Arden Early English Drama'' series of texts from the late fifteenth to the late seventeenth centuries currently includes ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
===On-line editions===<br />
<br />
Online editions vary considerably in quality. Below are some that we have found to be well edited for both scholarly and pedagogical purposes. <br><br />
[[File:V.a.354 98v-99r.jpg|thumb|522x522px|Medieval plays were first preserved in manuscripts like this unique copy of the morality play ''Wisdom'' (c. 1460-63), preserved in the Macro plays at the Folger Shakespeare Library.|left]]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
==== Modernized ====<br />
<br />
:[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html#tab The N-town Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag The York Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/the-towneley-cycle-of-plays/ The Towneley Plays]<br />
<br><br />
====Unmodernized====<br />
<br />
:The TEAMS Middle English Text Series: <br />
http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== <br>Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers ==<br />
[[File:019807.jpg|thumb|600x600px|An angel announces the birth of Christ in the 2015-2016 Folger''The Second'' ''Shepherdes' Play'']]<br />
<nowiki> </nowiki><br />
<br />
Choosing a great monologue is a task that afflicts actors who are always searching for the best new monologue for their next audition. Audition pieces need to be strong, original, and not overdone. <br />
<br />
Medieval drama provides an exceptional vehicle for exploration and it allows the actor to utilize a variety of acting techniques, genres, and styles while performing. Here are some suggestions for monologues. <br />
<br />
While the casting suggestions given here are gender- and age-normative, directors and actors may want to think about mixing up these conventions for special effect and/or to suit their needs.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br><br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Role<br />
!Gender <br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll (First Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This speech opens the play. Coll complains about the conditions that poor men like himself have to endure and the ways they are abused by rich men. The speech is important in its sympathy for the plight of the medieval working class, and also thematically: after Coll speaks, it is easy to understand why salvation in the form of the baby Jesus is needed to come into the world.<br />
|Lines 1-54<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology.'' Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Gib (Second Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This is the second speech of the play. Gib complains about the difficulties of being married, and how much he regrets it, but it’s too late. This speech is important for its insight into medieval humor (for better or worse, the ‘take my wife, please’ vein of jokes has been mined for a long time); thematically, it establishes that salvation is needed in the world because humans, in particular the sexes, are at odds.<br />
|Lines 55-108<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|The York ''Fall of the Angels''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only this individual pageant but the York cycle as a whole. It sets the scene for both pageant and play, laying out themes that will recur throughout: the nature of God, the nature of creation, the nature of faith, the nature of worship, the consequences of disobedience.<br />
|Lines 1-34<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English] <br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|The York ''Crucifixion''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|This is Jesus’ speech from the cross after the soldiers finally manage to get him stretched and nailed to it.<br />
|Lines 253-264<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens the final pageant of the cycle. It harkens back to the first pageant and reminds the audience of all that happened between then and now, explaining the need for an end to be made and judgement given.<br />
|Lines 1-64<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|In this speech, Jesus addresses the human characters but, of course, also the audience, explaining why the judgement is going down as it does.<br />
|Lines 231-300<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|Chester''The Fall of Lucifer''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only the pageant but the cycle as a whole, laying out its important themes.<br />
|Lines 1-51<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/index.html Modern English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|N-town ''Passion Play 1''<br />
|Satan<br />
|Super-natural<br />
|This speech opens the Passion Play in the N-town manuscript. It is an important example of the ‘boast’ type of speech, common in medieval and early modern drama, where a villain or tyrant tells the audience who he is and that he is up to no good. [Shakespeare’s Richard III’s opening speech is a grandchild of this genre].<br />
|Lines 1-124<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/sugano-the-n-town-plays Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|Digby ''Mary Magdalene''<br />
|Mary Magdalene<br />
|Female<br />
|In this speech, Mary Magdalene preaches about the creation of the world to a heathen king, hoping to persuade him to leave his pagan ways.<br />
|Lines 1481-1526<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes ==<br />
It’s time to get Theatre students excited about performing Medieval drama. <br />
<br />
The question for many is where to begin? How do I find a play Where do I find a good scene? What edition is the best for performance? We are aware that there is too much and too little out there. And we also noted the need for teachers and students alike to have access to an inventory of scenes and monologues and good editions of plays. So, we have compiled these resources to get you started.<br />
<br />
Also, keep in mind that while in many instances characters are all male, and probably youngish to middle-age, when they are representative/allegorical characters, gender and age may not matter much when casting the roles.<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Roles<br />
!Gender<br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of Scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|New Guise, Nowadays, Nought, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the vices New Guise, Nowadays, and Nought try to tempt Mankind into sin. They fail spectacularly. Instead of recruiting Mankind as a diabolic minion, the devils are beaten up by him. This scene is important for understanding medieval drama because it illustrates physical action as an indispensable component that must be carefully choreographed and rehearsed to avoid injuring any of the actors. It also shows the use of physical comedy in medieval drama.<br />
|Lines 345-401<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|Titivillus, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the devil Titivillus has been called in by the other devils or vices who have failed to tempt Mankind into sin. Titivillus is invisible and inaudible to Mankind; but the audience can see and hear him, and they know Mankind cannot. This last piece is crucial, because Titivillus repeatedly speaks to the audience as if they are on his side, telling them to keep quiet to further his goal of tempting Mankind into sin (when of course they really are quiet because of their role as audience). This scene is one of several in the play that uses the audience’s role as audience to incite them to do bad things, thereby demonstrating that the audience needs redemption as much as does the character Mankind.<br />
|Lines 526-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|''Fulgens and Lucres''<br />
|A<br />
B<br />
|Male<br />
|This scene opens the play. In it, A and B interact with the audience and with each other, all the while claiming that they are not part of the play, but there will be a play and they’re anxious to see it. B explains to A what the play will be about.<br />
The scene is important because it demonstrates the fluid, meta-theatrical relationship between audience and play in early English theatre.<br />
|Lines 1 - 201<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|''Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham'' (scene 1)<br />
|Sheriff,<br />
Knight, <br />
<br />
and Robin Hood<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the Knight offers to capture Robin Hood for the Sheriff, who agrees to pay the Knight if he is successful. The Knight finds Robin Hood and engages with him in a series of tests of strength and skill. At last they fight. Robin Hood wins, kills the Knight, and declares that he will dress himself in the Knight’s clothes and take his head to the Sheriff to claim the reward for ‘killing’ Robin Hood.<br />
This scene is useful in the classroom for several reasons. It is one of a very few surviving pieces of secular medieval English drama. It also provides an opportunity to demonstrate the challenges presented by the extant texts. There are few stage directions in early drama; but as this scene makes clear, it is crucial to puzzle out the action. Most of this scene is, in fact, action. How long would the scene run? That’s entirely dependent upon how a performance decides to handle the action. The contests could be quick, or they could be elaborate.<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/16EWuJ02hFOhUxADG1zF-nk-TdzPa-0q8/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S6PFlgKa_tQBL9lwX76GlXbuv6KKj5Fa/view?usp=sharing Regularized Spelling]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/robyn-hod-and-the-shryff-off-notyngham Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll,<br />
<br />
Gib,<br />
<br />
Daw,<br />
<br />
Mak,<br />
<br />
Gyll<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
Female<br />
|In this scene, the shepherds (Coll, Gib, and Daw) come to Mak and Gyll’s house, looking for their stolen sheep. Mak has indeed stolen the sheep and has persuaded his wife Gyll to help him hide it by putting it in their cradle and pretending it is their newborn baby.<br />
The scene importantly demonstrates how medieval drama employs humor for thematic goals. For example, Mak swears to the shepherds that if he stole the sheep, the ‘baby’ will be the first meal he eats that day. It’s a funny line, for the audience knows the ‘baby’ is actually a sheep that Mak has every intention of eating. But discussion of eating the sheep/baby also underscores the nativity theme of the play, which celebrates the birth of a baby, Jesus, who is also a “lamb” who will be eaten (in the form of communion) for the benefit of humans. The parodic profane nativity highlights the sacred nativity.<br />
|Lines 476-628<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|''The Castle of Perseverance''<br />
|Mercy,<br />
<br />
Justice,<br />
<br />
Truth,<br />
<br />
Peace,<br />
<br />
God<br />
<br />
|Eternal<br />
|Humanum Genus, the play’s Mankind figure, has behaved wickedly most of his life. But as he is dying, he realizes his wickedness. His very last word is “Mercy,” begging God to save him from hell. In this scene, Justice and Truth argue before God why Humanum Genus should be damned. Peace and Mercy give their reasons why he should be saved. The scene resembles a modern courtroom drama, with Truth and Justice as the prosecuting attorneys, Mercy and Peace acting for the defense, and God the Judge listening to all sides before giving his verdict.<br />
All characters are female except God, who is male. All are eternal figures.<br />
|Lines 3129-3544<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/cascomp.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/klausner-castle-of-perseverance Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|''Brome Abraham and Isaac''<br />
|Abraham,<br />
<br />
Isaac,<br />
<br />
the Angel<br />
|Male<br />
|Abraham is old. Isaac is a child. The Angel is ageless.<br />
Abraham has been ordered by God to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Naturally, Abraham is reluctant to kill his child, but he also wants to be obedient to God. In this scene, we see Abraham’s struggle. We also see medieval drama’s typological understanding of the sacrifice of Isaac as foreshadowing the sacrifice of Jesus.<br />
|Lines 290-332<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/noa/pdf/13BromePlay_1_12.pdf Modern (lightly) English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/AJD3529.0001.001/1:4.6?rgn=div2;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|''Johan Johan''<br />
|Tib the Wife,<br />
John the Husband, and Johan Johan the priest<br />
|Female<br />
<br />
Male<br />
|Tib is female and young adult. John the Husband is male and adult, perhaps a bit older than Tib, but theirs is not necessarily a May/December marriage. Johan Johan is male and adult.<br />
The priest has been carrying on with several women in the area, including Tib. Tib and the priest laugh at the husband’s thickheadness in not realizing their liaison.. But John the Husband begins to get suspicious. This scene is particularly rich in physical comedy, as the husband is chafing wax from a candle to mend a leaky pail, with obvious masturbatory overtones--i.e,, the priest is getting real sex, the husband has to make do on his own.<br />
|Lines 439-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?id=h0U4AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA67#v=onepage&q&f=false Text]<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|''Wisdom''<br />
|Lucifer,<br />
<br />
Mind,<br />
<br />
Will,<br />
<br />
Understanding<br />
|Allegorical<br />
|Lucifer explains to the audience that he is going to tempt the good guys, does so, and then brags about it.<br />
|Lines 325-55<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Some Productions of Medieval Plays, Online ==<br />
You can access an extensive [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5cWcydg0JFis9914C0KX7iz59jwg6-xV# YouTube playlist of medieval drama] online. Additionally, here is a resource list for some titles:<br />
<br />
=== ''Everyman'' ===<br />
You can find digital versions of various productions online, including a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkM8v0m3URg# 2012 ''Everyman''] production at the Portland Community College Performing Arts Center which utilized large-scale puppets and a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvZFBZB10LA# 2016 ''Everyman''] production by the Laurier Historical Society at Wilfrid Laurier University. The play has been adapted as a commercial film twice in recent years in modernized (2002) and period (2007) productions.<br />
<br />
=== ''Mankind'' ===<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4acAjs2TGa8# 1999 ''Mankind''] staging by Duquesne University Medieval and Renaissance Players. <br />
<br />
University students staged an improvisatory modernized production of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsTyvD8E9Mk# ''Mankind''] as a final course project in 2016.<br />
<br />
=== Biblical cycle plays and passion plays ===<br />
The Blackhills Passion plays were performed in Spearfish, South Dakota from 1939 to 2008, and at their winter home in Lake Wales, Florida from 1953 to 1999.<br />
<br />
The Mormon Hill Cumorah biblical pageant in Palmyra, New York has been performed since 1935: http://www.hillcumorah.org/ <br />
<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn0pcYONuxc# 2013 Chester Noah] play performed by the Liverpool University Players.<br />
<br />
The Chester Mystery plays were performed in a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRthPA2nJyw# 2008 modernized musical version].<br />
<br />
The Oberammergau Passion Play has been performed continuously in that Bavarian village since 1634. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KeVtnndSsc# The trailer for the 2020 production]. <br />
<br />
The Towneley Second Shepherds’ Play has long been a favorite Christmas holiday production, and was recently revived at the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RomR1sxDlus# Folger Theater] in 2016. <br />
<br />
[https://muse.jhu.edu/article/34991# Yiimimangaliso: The Mysteries], a version of the Chester mysteries, was staged in South Africa and London in 2001 and has been revived since. <br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, England: Videos from recent York mystery plays are available on-line at several sites. See, for example, [http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/york-mystery-plays-1973# York Mystery Plays 1973], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nyFLOlEupM# York Mystery Plays 2010], and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_IE4izf_6c# York Mystery Plays 2016].<br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, Toronto: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIImNnV1Ty0# 2010 “Crucifixion”].<br />
<br />
The [http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/front-page/# Poculi Ludique Societas], or PLS in Toronto, has for over 50 years now sponsored productions of early plays, from the beginnings of medieval drama to as late as the middle of the seventeenth century.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Selected Bibliography ==<br />
Albin, Andrew. “Sonorous Presence, and the Performance of Christian Community in the Chester Shepherds Play.” ''Early Theatre'' 16.2 (2013): 33-57.<br />
<br />
Aronson-Lehavi, Sharon. ''Street Scenes: Late Medieval Acting and Performance''. Palgrave MacmIllan, 2011.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. “The Present of Past Things: The York Corpus Christi Cycle as a Contemporary Theatre of Memory.” ''Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies'' 26.2 (1996): 35-79.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. ''Signifying God: Social Relations and Symbolic Act in the York Corpus Christi Plays''. University of Chicago Press, 2001.<br />
<br />
Bevington, David. ''From “Mankind” to Marlowe: Growth of Structure in the Popular Drama of Tudor England''. Harvard University Press, 1962.<br />
<br />
Butler, Judith. ''Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative''. Routledge, 1997.<br />
<br />
Carlson, Marvin. “Medieval Street Performers Speak.” ''TDR:The Drama Review'', 57.4 (2013): 86-94.<br />
<br />
Chaganti, Seeta. “The Platea: Pre- and Postmodern: A Landscape of Medieval Performance Studies.” ''Exemplaria'' 25.3 (2013): 252-64.<br />
<br />
Clopper, Lawrence. ''Drama, Play, and Game: English Festive Culture in the Medieval and Early Modern Period''. Chicago, 2001.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “The Chester Cycle in Sixteenth-Century Religious Culture," ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 37.3 (2007): 532-47.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. ''Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints: Theater, Gender, and Religion in Late Medieval England''. University of Pennsylvania, 2004.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Biblical Drama in Post-Apartheid South Africa: The Chester Plays in Afterlife.” ''Transformations in Biblical Literary Traditions: Incarnation, Narrative,'' ''and Ethics''. Eds. D.H. Williams and Philip Donnelly, Notre Dame University Press, 2014. 268-88.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Drama: 1191-1952.” ''Exemplaria'' 28.3 (2016): 264-76.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Reading REED: History and the Records of Early English Drama.” ''Literary Practice and Social Change in Britain, 1380-1530''. Ed. Lee Patterson, University of California Press, 1990. 248-84.<br />
<br />
Davidson, Clifford, ed. ''Gesture in Medieval Drama and Art''. Medieval Institute, 2001.<br />
<br />
Elliott, John R., Jr. ''Playing God: Medieval Mysteries on the Modern Stage''. University of Toronto Press, 1989.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard. “Dramatic History: On the Diachronic and Synchronic in the Study of Early English Drama.” ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 35:1 (2005): 39-66.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard K. “’Nowe Ys Common This Daye’: Enoch and Elias, Antichrist, and the Structure of the Chester Cycle.” ''Homo, Memento Finis: The Iconography of Just'' ''Judgment in Medieval Art and Drama''. Ed. David Bevington, et. al. Medieval Institute, 1985. 221-57.<br />
<br />
Enders, Jody. ''The Medieval Theater of Cruelty: Rhetoric, Memory, Violence.'' Cornell University Press, 2002.<br />
<br />
Gardiner, Harold. ''Mysteries’ End: An Investigation of the Last Days of the Medieval Religious Stage.'' Yale University Press, 1946.<br />
<br />
Hardison, O.B., Jr. ''Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages: Essays in the Origin and Early History of Modern Drama''. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965.<br />
<br />
Holsinger, Bruce. “Analytical Survey 6: Medieval Literature and Cultures of Performance.” ''New Medieval Literatures'' 6 (2003): 271-311.<br />
<br />
James, Mervyn. “Ritual, Drama, and Social Body in the Late Medieval Town.” ''Past & Present'' 98 (1983):3-29.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela, ed. ''The Routledge Research Companion to Early Drama and Performance.'' Routledge, 2017.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela. ''The York Mystery Cycle and the Worship of the City''. D.S. Breer, 2006.<br />
<br />
Kolve, V.A. ''The Play Called Corpus Christi.'' Stanford University Press, 1966.<br />
<br />
Lerud, Theodore. ''Memory, Images, and the English Corpus Christi Drama''. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Gender and Medieval Drama.'' D.S. Brewer, 2004.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Modern Mysteries: Contemporary Productions of Medieval English Dramas.'' D.S. Brewer, 2007. <br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Medieval English Drama: Performance and Spectatorship.'' Polity Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Parker, Andrew, and Eve Kosofsky Sedwick, eds. ''Performativity and Performance.'' Routledge,1995.<br />
<br />
Ong, Walter. ''Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word.'' Methuen, 1982.<br />
<br />
Overlie, Mary. ''Standing in Space: The Six Viewpoints Theory and Practice''. Fallon Press, 2016.<br />
<br />
Rogerson, Margaret. ''Playing a Part in History: The York Mysteries, 1951-2006''. University of Toronto Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Sergi, Matthew. Work-in-progress on ''Play Texts and Public Practice in the Chester Cycle,'' c.1421-1607.<br />
<br />
Schreyer, Kurt. ''Shakespeare’s Medieval Craft: Memories of the Mysteries on the London Stage.'' Cornell University Press, 2014.<br />
<br />
Soleo-Shanks, Jenna. “Resurrecting Callimachus: Pop Music Puppets, and the Necessity of Performance in Teaching Medieval Drama." ''Teaching Medieval and Early Modern'' ''Cross-Cultural Encounters''. Eds. Karina F. Attar and Lynn Shutters, Palgrave Macmillan 2014. 199-213.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. “The Culture of the Spectator.” ''Theater Journal'' 34 (1992): 15-29.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. ''Ritual Imports: Performing Medieval Drama in America'', Cornell University Press, 2005.<br />
<br />
Stevens, Martin. ''Four Middle English Mystery Cycles.'' Princeton University Press, 1987.<br />
<br />
Stevenson, Jill. ''Performance, Cognitive Theory, and Devotional Culture: Sensual Piety in Late Medieval York.'' Palgrave MacMillan, 2010.<br />
<br />
Travis, Peter W. ''Dramatic Design in the Chester Cycle''. University of Chicago Press, 1982.<br />
<br />
Turner, Victor. ''From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play''. PAJ Books, 1982<br />
<br />
Westfall, Suzanne R. ''Patrons and Performance: Early Tudor Household Revels''. Clarendon Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
Continue on to ''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|Verba et Res]]''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]: Lesson Plans 1 through 4.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
'''Page written by'''<br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler | Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy&diff=28408Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy2018-03-24T22:00:31Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>''This article is under construction''<br />
<br />
This article - conceived and written by Barbara J. Bono, Maria S. Horne, and Michelle Markley Butler - is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance.<br />
<br />
==Introduction==<br />
<br />
===Medieval drama truly comes alive in performance.=== <br />
This is, of course, a statement true of all works in the dramatic genre. However, it is especially true of medieval drama, which frequently addressed in embodied form large and ultimate questions about humanity's place in creation and the scheme of history, and did so in direct and explicit relation to its audiences, with extraordinary emotive and affective range from the obscene to the exalted. <br />
[[File:028728.jpg|thumb|left|Miss Edith Wynne Matthison in the role of Everyman (c. 1902)|504x504px]]<br />
<br />
Medieval drama is integrated into the curriculum for theatre majors at most universities in the United States. However, there, rather than being part of acting technique or performance-based courses, or of staged productions, the subject is most often studied only very briefly in lecture courses like Theatre History. Meanwhile, in departments of literature, medieval drama is sometimes included as a topic in a broader medieval or British literature class or as a minor prequel to the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, but it is seldom given much time or attention, and its performative nature is largely neglected.<br />
<br />
But we would argue that medieval drama is accessible, exciting, adaptable, and inspirational to interested communities of all ages and abilities - from lower grade levels to highly-trained practitioners - for drama itself is the ideal synesthetic and interdisciplinary vehicle for community formation and differential learning. There is also contemporaneity in medieval drama: humor, music, and fun, as well as metaphor, allegories, and subtexts which speak to who we are today. And while the task of accessing this excitement may seem daunting, in this article we have put together a set of resources - combining language, action, and spectacle - to get you started.<br />
<br />
The first step in bridging the gap between performance and literary study is alerting students and teachers to the new wealth of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Medieval_and_early_English_drama.2C_print_and_on-line_editions|readily-available textual and general scholarly resources]] for these plays, which reach far beyond the frequently anthologized ''Everyman'' or the de-contextualized bit of a biblical cycle play.<br />
<br />
==Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre==<br />
<br />
The second step is to make at least a beginning at "putting the plays up on their feet." To that end we have supplied a series of ten performance-based Lesson Plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing, to considering the symbolic shape of an action, to preliminary training toward full performance and modern adaptation. While these Lesson Plans are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous [http://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-set-free Folger Shakespeare Set Free teaching manuals], namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology.<br />
<br />
===[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama|''Verba et Res''/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 ======<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
[[File:Monreale, Christ the Creator.JPG|thumb|''Christo Pantocratore''. Monreale Cathedral, Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|400x400px]]<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_1:_Playing_around_with_medieval_language Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_2:_The_twenty_props_you_need_to_put_on_any_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_3:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history Lesson Plan 3: Typology, or medieval living history]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_4:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history_and_tableau_vivant Lesson Plan 4: Typology, or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'']''<nowiki/>''<br />
<br />
===[[Setting_the_Medieval_Stage |Setting the Medieval Stage]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 5 through 7 ======<br />
<br />
The spaces of medieval drama were various, labile, and indeed often mobile. The York Biblical cycle plays processed annually on pageant carts into and about the city to stop at York Minster and end on the market Pavement; small travelling companies acted other plays, performing in open spaces, inn yards, or great houses. Later, as plays retreated into manuscript, they might have been brought out for occasional declamation. Plays of such sharp moment and open engagement could, in theory, take place anywhere on this middle earth. As Peter Brook famously began his 1968 classic, ''The Empty Space'', “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and that is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged,” and modern revivals of medieval plays have utilized halls, cloisters, hillsides, city plazas and streetscapes, as well as more formal stages. These three Lesson Plans encourage you to find a suitable space for your play exercises, from a classroom with the desks pushed back to the more formal stage to the outdoor green space which might draw in community passers-by. Then we offer you a selection of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers |monologues]] for actors and especially powerful [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes |scenes]] to help develop the craft of your ensemble. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_5:_Stages_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 5: Stages for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_6:_Filling_the_space._Medieval_monologues_and_the_power_of_words Lesson Plan 6: Filling the space. Medieval monologues and the power of words]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_7:_Creating_and_inhabiting_the_space._Scenes_from_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 7: Creating and inhabiting the space. Scenes from medieval drama]<br />
<br />
=== [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]] ===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 8 through 10 ======<br />
<br />
Medieval drama engaged and hoped to transform its audiences with its biting and cathartic humor, its pointed social observation, its religiously inflected heights and depths, and its joy, and it forged community in its gatherings. <br />
[[File:Barbers' Baptism 147274.jpg|thumb|''The Baptism'' from the York Mystery Plays performed from a cart in the streets of York in front of St William's College.]]<br />
These are goals to which we can aspire in our teaching, and we can do this with youngsters and oldsters as well as formal students and professionals, and in our street and cities as well as in our classrooms and regular theaters. Some of us are fortunate enough to be theatre professionals, and to do this as the core of our vocation. Others do it more occasionally, or aspire to do something like it in our communities. <br />
<br />
In these final three Lesson Plans we invite you to think hard about the audiences whom you hope to reach in your work, and we offer you the inspiring account of two younger academics from our group who have had the training, creativity, and institutional support to mount entire student productions, in one case for a large public university Honors College seminar filled with STEM students, and in another at a liberal arts college embedded in a large city. <br />
<br />
Finally, we encourage you to take the tradition of street performance of medieval drama and the example of some modern adaptations to think about its transformative potential for pressing modern needs such as increased civic engagement, social justice, and ecological awareness. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_8:_Determining_your_audience_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 8: Determining your audience for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_9:_Performance_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 9: Performance of medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_10:_Adaptations_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 10: Adaptations of medieval drama]<br />
<br />
== Medieval and early English drama, print and on-line editions ==<br />
One may wonder why we do not see more Medieval Theatre productions on the university stage nowadays. Part of the answer may be that for the non-medievalist, and in particular for the performer not versed in medieval drama, approaching this enterprise could be daunting, starting with the selection of the play, where to find it, whether to use Middle English or a modernized, and which edition of text to use. To help streamline this process, and because there is no such a resource readily available for pedagogical purposes, we decided to compile a short list of medieval plays both in print and online editions, as well as modernized and unmodernized, as you will find in this section . <br />
<br />
===Print editions===<br />
<br />
''The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama''. Christina M. Fitzgerald and John T. Sebastian. Broadview, 2012.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama: An Anthology''. Greg Walker. Wiley-Blackwell, 2000.<br />
<br />
''Three Late Medieval Morality Plays''. G.A. Lester. New Mermaids, 2002. <br />
<br />
''York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling''. Richard Beadle and Pamela King. Oxford University Press, 2009<br />
<br />
''Early English Drama: An Anthology''. John C. Coldewey. Routledge, 1993.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama''. David Bevington. Hackett, 1975. <br />
<br />
The ''Arden Early English Drama'' series of texts from the late fifteenth to the late seventeenth centuries currently includes ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
===On-line editions===<br />
<br />
Online editions vary considerably in quality. Below are some that we have found to be well edited for both scholarly and pedagogical purposes. <br><br />
[[File:V.a.354 98v-99r.jpg|thumb|522x522px|Medieval plays were first preserved in manuscripts like this unique copy of the morality play ''Wisdom'' (c. 1460-63), preserved in the Macro plays at the Folger Shakespeare Library.|left]]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
==== Modernized ====<br />
<br />
:[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html#tab The N-town Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag The York Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/the-towneley-cycle-of-plays/ The Towneley Plays]<br />
<br><br />
====Unmodernized====<br />
<br />
:The TEAMS Middle English Text Series: <br />
http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== <br>Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers ==<br />
[[File:019807.jpg|thumb|600x600px|An angel announces the birth of Christ in the 2015-2016 Folger''The Second'' ''Shepherdes' Play'']]<br />
<nowiki> </nowiki><br />
<br />
Choosing a great monologue is a task that afflicts actors who are always searching for the best new monologue for their next audition. Audition pieces need to be strong, original, and not overdone. <br />
<br />
Medieval drama provides an exceptional vehicle for exploration and it allows the actor to utilize a variety of acting techniques, genres, and styles while performing. Here are some suggestions for monologues. <br />
<br />
While the casting suggestions given here are gender- and age-normative, directors and actors may want to think about mixing up these conventions for special effect and/or to suit their needs.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br><br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Role<br />
!Gender <br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll (First Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This speech opens the play. Coll complains about the conditions that poor men like himself have to endure and the ways they are abused by rich men. The speech is important in its sympathy for the plight of the medieval working class, and also thematically: after Coll speaks, it is easy to understand why salvation in the form of the baby Jesus is needed to come into the world.<br />
|Lines 1-54<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology.'' Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Gib (Second Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This is the second speech of the play. Gib complains about the difficulties of being married, and how much he regrets it, but it’s too late. This speech is important for its insight into medieval humor (for better or worse, the ‘take my wife, please’ vein of jokes has been mined for a long time); thematically, it establishes that salvation is needed in the world because humans, in particular the sexes, are at odds.<br />
|Lines 55-108<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|The York ''Fall of the Angels''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only this individual pageant but the York cycle as a whole. It sets the scene for both pageant and play, laying out themes that will recur throughout: the nature of God, the nature of creation, the nature of faith, the nature of worship, the consequences of disobedience.<br />
|Lines 1-34<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English] <br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|The York ''Crucifixion''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|This is Jesus’ speech from the cross after the soldiers finally manage to get him stretched and nailed to it.<br />
|Lines 253-264<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens the final pageant of the cycle. It harkens back to the first pageant and reminds the audience of all that happened between then and now, explaining the need for an end to be made and judgement given.<br />
|Lines 1-64<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|In this speech, Jesus addresses the human characters but, of course, also the audience, explaining why the judgement is going down as it does.<br />
|Lines 231-300<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|Chester''The Fall of Lucifer''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only the pageant but the cycle as a whole, laying out its important themes.<br />
|Lines 1-51<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/index.html Modern English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|N-town ''Passion Play 1''<br />
|Satan<br />
|Super-natural<br />
|This speech opens the Passion Play in the N-town manuscript. It is an important example of the ‘boast’ type of speech, common in medieval and early modern drama, where a villain or tyrant tells the audience who he is and that he is up to no good. [Shakespeare’s Richard III’s opening speech is a grandchild of this genre].<br />
|Lines 1-124<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/sugano-the-n-town-plays Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|Digby ''Mary Magdalene''<br />
|Mary Magdalene<br />
|Female<br />
|In this speech, Mary Magdalene preaches about the creation of the world to a heathen king, hoping to persuade him to leave his pagan ways.<br />
|Lines 1481-1526<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes ==<br />
It’s time to get Theatre students excited about performing Medieval drama. <br />
<br />
The question for many is where to begin? How do I find a play Where do I find a good scene? What edition is the best for performance? We are aware that there is too much and too little out there. And we also noted the need for teachers and students alike to have access to an inventory of scenes and monologues and good editions of plays. So, we have compiled these resources to get you started.<br />
<br />
Also, keep in mind that while in many instances characters are all male, and probably youngish to middle-age, when they are representative/allegorical characters, gender and age may not matter much when casting the roles.<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Roles<br />
!Gender<br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of Scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|New Guise, Nowadays, Nought, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the vices New Guise, Nowadays, and Nought try to tempt Mankind into sin. They fail spectacularly. Instead of recruiting Mankind as a diabolic minion, the devils are beaten up by him. This scene is important for understanding medieval drama because it illustrates physical action as an indispensable component that must be carefully choreographed and rehearsed to avoid injuring any of the actors. It also shows the use of physical comedy in medieval drama.<br />
|Lines 345-401<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|Titivillus, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the devil Titivillus has been called in by the other devils or vices who have failed to tempt Mankind into sin. Titivillus is invisible and inaudible to Mankind; but the audience can see and hear him, and they know Mankind cannot. This last piece is crucial, because Titivillus repeatedly speaks to the audience as if they are on his side, telling them to keep quiet to further his goal of tempting Mankind into sin (when of course they really are quiet because of their role as audience). This scene is one of several in the play that uses the audience’s role as audience to incite them to do bad things, thereby demonstrating that the audience needs redemption as much as does the character Mankind.<br />
|Lines 526-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|''Fulgens and Lucres''<br />
|A<br />
B<br />
|Male<br />
|This scene opens the play. In it, A and B interact with the audience and with each other, all the while claiming that they are not part of the play, but there will be a play and they’re anxious to see it. B explains to A what the play will be about.<br />
The scene is important because it demonstrates the fluid, meta-theatrical relationship between audience and play in early English theatre.<br />
|Lines 1 - 201<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|''Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham'' (scene 1)<br />
|Sheriff,<br />
Knight, <br />
<br />
and Robin Hood<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the Knight offers to capture Robin Hood for the Sheriff, who agrees to pay the Knight if he is successful. The Knight finds Robin Hood and engages with him in a series of tests of strength and skill. At last they fight. Robin Hood wins, kills the Knight, and declares that he will dress himself in the Knight’s clothes and take his head to the Sheriff to claim the reward for ‘killing’ Robin Hood.<br />
This scene is useful in the classroom for several reasons. It is one of a very few surviving pieces of secular medieval English drama. It also provides an opportunity to demonstrate the challenges presented by the extant texts. There are few stage directions in early drama; but as this scene makes clear, it is crucial to puzzle out the action. Most of this scene is, in fact, action. How long would the scene run? That’s entirely dependent upon how a performance decides to handle the action. The contests could be quick, or they could be elaborate.<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/16EWuJ02hFOhUxADG1zF-nk-TdzPa-0q8/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S6PFlgKa_tQBL9lwX76GlXbuv6KKj5Fa/view?usp=sharing Regularized Spelling]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/robyn-hod-and-the-shryff-off-notyngham Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll,<br />
<br />
Gib,<br />
<br />
Daw,<br />
<br />
Mak,<br />
<br />
Gyll<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
Female<br />
|In this scene, the shepherds (Coll, Gib, and Daw) come to Mak and Gyll’s house, looking for their stolen sheep. Mak has indeed stolen the sheep and has persuaded his wife Gyll to help him hide it by putting it in their cradle and pretending it is their newborn baby.<br />
The scene importantly demonstrates how medieval drama employs humor for thematic goals. For example, Mak swears to the shepherds that if he stole the sheep, the ‘baby’ will be the first meal he eats that day. It’s a funny line, for the audience knows the ‘baby’ is actually a sheep that Mak has every intention of eating. But discussion of eating the sheep/baby also underscores the nativity theme of the play, which celebrates the birth of a baby, Jesus, who is also a “lamb” who will be eaten (in the form of communion) for the benefit of humans. The parodic profane nativity highlights the sacred nativity.<br />
|Lines 476-628<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|''The Castle of Perseverance''<br />
|Mercy,<br />
<br />
Justice,<br />
<br />
Truth,<br />
<br />
Peace,<br />
<br />
God<br />
<br />
|Eternal<br />
|Humanum Genus, the play’s Mankind figure, has behaved wickedly most of his life. But as he is dying, he realizes his wickedness. His very last word is “Mercy,” begging God to save him from hell. In this scene, Justice and Truth argue before God why Humanum Genus should be damned. Peace and Mercy give their reasons why he should be saved. The scene resembles a modern courtroom drama, with Truth and Justice as the prosecuting attorneys, Mercy and Peace acting for the defense, and God the Judge listening to all sides before giving his verdict.<br />
All characters are female except God, who is male. All are eternal figures.<br />
|Lines 3129-3544<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/cascomp.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/klausner-castle-of-perseverance Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|''Brome Abraham and Isaac''<br />
|Abraham,<br />
<br />
Isaac,<br />
<br />
the Angel<br />
|Male<br />
|Abraham is old. Isaac is a child. The Angel is ageless.<br />
Abraham has been ordered by God to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Naturally, Abraham is reluctant to kill his child, but he also wants to be obedient to God. In this scene, we see Abraham’s struggle. We also see medieval drama’s typological understanding of the sacrifice of Isaac as foreshadowing the sacrifice of Jesus.<br />
|Lines 290-332<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/noa/pdf/13BromePlay_1_12.pdf Modern (lightly) English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/AJD3529.0001.001/1:4.6?rgn=div2;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|''Johan Johan''<br />
|Tib the Wife,<br />
John the Husband, and Johan Johan the priest<br />
|Female<br />
<br />
Male<br />
|Tib is female and young adult. John the Husband is male and adult, perhaps a bit older than Tib, but theirs is not necessarily a May/December marriage. Johan Johan is male and adult.<br />
The priest has been carrying on with several women in the area, including Tib. Tib and the priest laugh at the husband’s thickheadness in not realizing their liaison.. But John the Husband begins to get suspicious. This scene is particularly rich in physical comedy, as the husband is chafing wax from a candle to mend a leaky pail, with obvious masturbatory overtones--i.e,, the priest is getting real sex, the husband has to make do on his own.<br />
|Lines 439-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?id=h0U4AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA67#v=onepage&q&f=false Text]<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|''Wisdom''<br />
|Lucifer,<br />
<br />
Mind,<br />
<br />
Will,<br />
<br />
Understanding<br />
|Allegorical<br />
|Lucifer explains to the audience that he is going to tempt the good guys, does so, and then brags about it.<br />
|Lines 325-55<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Some Productions of Medieval Plays, Online ==<br />
You can access an extensive [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5cWcydg0JFis9914C0KX7iz59jwg6-xV# YouTube playlist of medieval drama] online. Additionally, here is a resource list for some titles:<br />
<br />
=== ''Everyman'' ===<br />
You can find digital versions of various productions online, including a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkM8v0m3URg# 2012 ''Everyman''] production at the Portland Community College Performing Arts Center which utilized large-scale puppets and a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvZFBZB10LA# 2016 ''Everyman''] production by the Laurier Historical Society at Wilfrid Laurier University. The play has been adapted as a commercial film twice in recent years in modernized (2002) and period (2007) productions.<br />
<br />
=== ''Mankind'' ===<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4acAjs2TGa8# 1999 ''Mankind''] staging by Duquesne University Medieval and Renaissance Players. <br />
<br />
University students staged an improvisatory modernized production of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsTyvD8E9Mk# ''Mankind''] as a final course project in 2016.<br />
<br />
=== Biblical cycle plays and passion plays ===<br />
The Blackhills Passion plays were performed in Spearfish, South Dakota from 1939 to 2008, and at their winter home in Lake Wales, Florida from 1953 to 1999.<br />
<br />
The Mormon Hill Cumorah biblical pageant in Palmyra, New York has been performed since 1935: http://www.hillcumorah.org/ <br />
<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn0pcYONuxc# 2013 Chester Noah] play performed by the Liverpool University Players.<br />
<br />
The Chester Mystery plays were performed in a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRthPA2nJyw# 2008 modernized musical version].<br />
<br />
The Oberammergau Passion Play has been performed continuously in that Bavarian village since 1634. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KeVtnndSsc# The trailer for the 2020 production]. <br />
<br />
The Towneley Second Shepherds’ Play has long been a favorite Christmas holiday production, and was recently revived at the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RomR1sxDlus# Folger Theater] in 2016. <br />
<br />
[https://muse.jhu.edu/article/34991# Yiimimangaliso: The Mysteries], a version of the Chester mysteries, was staged in South Africa and London in 2001 and has been revived since. <br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, England: Videos from recent York mystery plays are available on-line at several sites. See, for example, [http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/york-mystery-plays-1973# York Mystery Plays 1973], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nyFLOlEupM# York Mystery Plays 2010], and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_IE4izf_6c# York Mystery Plays 2016].<br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, Toronto: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIImNnV1Ty0# 2010 “Crucifixion”].<br />
<br />
The [http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/front-page/# Poculi Ludique Societas], or PLS in Toronto, has for over 50 years now sponsored productions of early plays, from the beginnings of medieval drama to as late as the middle of the seventeenth century.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Selected Bibliography ==<br />
Albin, Andrew. “Sonorous Presence, and the Performance of Christian Community in the Chester Shepherds Play.” ''Early Theatre'' 16.2 (2013): 33-57.<br />
<br />
Aronson-Lehavi, Sharon. ''Street Scenes: Late Medieval Acting and Performance''. Palgrave MacmIllan, 2011.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. “The Present of Past Things: The York Corpus Christi Cycle as a Contemporary Theatre of Memory.” ''Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies'' 26.2 (1996): 35-79.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. ''Signifying God: Social Relations and Symbolic Act in the York Corpus Christi Plays''. University of Chicago Press, 2001.<br />
<br />
Bevington, David. ''From “Mankind” to Marlowe: Growth of Structure in the Popular Drama of Tudor England''. Harvard University Press, 1962.<br />
<br />
Butler, Judith. ''Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative''. Routledge, 1997.<br />
<br />
Carlson, Marvin. “Medieval Street Performers Speak.” ''TDR:The Drama Review'', 57.4 (2013): 86-94.<br />
<br />
Chaganti, Seeta. “The Platea: Pre- and Postmodern: A Landscape of Medieval Performance Studies.” ''Exemplaria'' 25.3 (2013): 252-64.<br />
<br />
Clopper, Lawrence. ''Drama, Play, and Game: English Festive Culture in the Medieval and Early Modern Period''. Chicago, 2001.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “The Chester Cycle in Sixteenth-Century Religious Culture," ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 37.3 (2007): 532-47.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. ''Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints: Theater, Gender, and Religion in Late Medieval England''. University of Pennsylvania, 2004.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Biblical Drama in Post-Apartheid South Africa: The Chester Plays in Afterlife.” ''Transformations in Biblical Literary Traditions: Incarnation, Narrative,'' ''and Ethics''. Eds. D.H. Williams and Philip Donnelly, Notre Dame University Press, 2014. 268-88.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Drama: 1191-1952.” ''Exemplaria'' 28.3 (2016): 264-76.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Reading REED: History and the Records of Early English Drama.” ''Literary Practice and Social Change in Britain, 1380-1530''. Ed. Lee Patterson, University of California Press, 1990. 248-84.<br />
<br />
Davidson, Clifford, ed. ''Gesture in Medieval Drama and Art''. Medieval Institute, 2001.<br />
<br />
Elliott, John R., Jr. ''Playing God: Medieval Mysteries on the Modern Stage''. University of Toronto Press, 1989.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard. “Dramatic History: On the Diachronic and Synchronic in the Study of Early English Drama.” ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 35:1 (2005): 39-66.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard K. “’Nowe Ys Common This Daye’: Enoch and Elias, Antichrist, and the Structure of the Chester Cycle.” ''Homo, Memento Finis: The Iconography of Just'' ''Judgment in Medieval Art and Drama''. Ed. David Bevington, et. al. Medieval Institute, 1985. 221-57.<br />
<br />
Enders, Jody. ''The Medieval Theater of Cruelty: Rhetoric, Memory, Violence.'' Cornell University Press, 2002.<br />
<br />
Gardiner, Harold. ''Mysteries’ End: An Investigation of the Last Days of the Medieval Religious Stage.'' Yale University Press, 1946.<br />
<br />
Hardison, O.B., Jr. ''Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages: Essays in the Origin and Early History of Modern Drama''. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965.<br />
<br />
Holsinger, Bruce. “Analytical Survey 6: Medieval Literature and Cultures of Performance.” ''New Medieval Literatures'' 6 (2003): 271-311.<br />
<br />
James, Mervyn. “Ritual, Drama, and Social Body in the Late Medieval Town.” ''Past & Present'' 98 (1983):3-29.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela, ed. ''The Routledge Research Companion to Early Drama and Performance.'' Routledge, 2017.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela. ''The York Mystery Cycle and the Worship of the City''. D.S. Breer, 2006.<br />
<br />
Kolve, V.A. ''The Play Called Corpus Christi.'' Stanford University Press, 1966.<br />
<br />
Lerud, Theodore. ''Memory, Images, and the English Corpus Christi Drama''. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Gender and Medieval Drama.'' D.S. Brewer, 2004.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Modern Mysteries: Contemporary Productions of Medieval English Dramas.'' D.S. Brewer, 2007. <br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Medieval English Drama: Performance and Spectatorship.'' Polity Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Parker, Andrew, and Eve Kosofsky Sedwick, eds. ''Performativity and Performance.'' Routledge,1995.<br />
<br />
Ong, Walter. ''Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word.'' Methuen, 1982.<br />
<br />
Overlie, Mary. ''Standing in Space: The Six Viewpoints Theory and Practice''. Fallon Press, 2016.<br />
<br />
Rogerson, Margaret. ''Playing a Part in History: The York Mysteries, 1951-2006''. University of Toronto Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Sergi, Matthew. Work-in-progress on ''Play Texts and Public Practice in the Chester Cycle,'' c.1421-1607.<br />
<br />
Schreyer, Kurt. ''Shakespeare’s Medieval Craft: Memories of the Mysteries on the London Stage.'' Cornell University Press, 2014.<br />
<br />
Soleo-Shanks, Jenna. “Resurrecting Callimachus: Pop Music Puppets, and the Necessity of Performance in Teaching Medieval Drama." ''Teaching Medieval and Early Modern'' ''Cross-Cultural Encounters''. Eds. Karina F. Attar and Lynn Shutters, Palgrave Macmillan 2014. 199-213.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. “The Culture of the Spectator.” ''Theater Journal'' 34 (1992): 15-29.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. ''Ritual Imports: Performing Medieval Drama in America'', Cornell University Press, 2005.<br />
<br />
Stevens, Martin. ''Four Middle English Mystery Cycles.'' Princeton University Press, 1987.<br />
<br />
Stevenson, Jill. ''Performance, Cognitive Theory, and Devotional Culture: Sensual Piety in Late Medieval York.'' Palgrave MacMillan, 2010.<br />
<br />
Travis, Peter W. ''Dramatic Design in the Chester Cycle''. University of Chicago Press, 1982.<br />
<br />
Turner, Victor. ''From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play''. PAJ Books, 1982<br />
<br />
Westfall, Suzanne R. ''Patrons and Performance: Early Tudor Household Revels''. Clarendon Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
Continue on to ''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|Verba et Res]]''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]: Lesson Plans 1 through 4.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
'''Page written by'''<br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler | Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy&diff=28407Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy2018-03-24T21:58:47Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>''This article is under construction''<br />
<br />
This article - conceived and written by Barbara J. Bono, Maria S. Horne, and Michelle Markley Butler - is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance.<br />
<br />
==Introduction==<br />
<br />
===Medieval drama truly comes alive in performance.=== <br />
This is, of course, a statement true of all works in the dramatic genre. However, it is especially true of medieval drama, which frequently addressed in embodied form large and ultimate questions about humanity's place in creation and the scheme of history, and did so in direct and explicit relation to its audiences, with extraordinary emotive and affective range from the obscene to the exalted. <br />
[[File:028728.jpg|thumb|left|Miss Edith Wynne Matthison in the role of Everyman (c. 1902)|271x271px]]<br />
<br />
Medieval drama is integrated into the curriculum for theatre majors at most universities in the United States. However, there, rather than being part of acting technique or performance-based courses, or of staged productions, the subject is most often studied only very briefly in lecture courses like Theatre History. Meanwhile, in departments of literature, medieval drama is sometimes included as a topic in a broader medieval or British literature class or as a minor prequel to the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, but it is seldom given much time or attention, and its performative nature is largely neglected.<br />
<br />
But we would argue that medieval drama is accessible, exciting, adaptable, and inspirational to interested communities of all ages and abilities - from lower grade levels to highly-trained practitioners - for drama itself is the ideal synesthetic and interdisciplinary vehicle for community formation and differential learning. There is also contemporaneity in medieval drama: humor, music, and fun, as well as metaphor, allegories, and subtexts which speak to who we are today. And while the task of accessing this excitement may seem daunting, in this article we have put together a set of resources - combining language, action, and spectacle - to get you started.<br />
<br />
The first step in bridging the gap between performance and literary study is alerting students and teachers to the new wealth of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Medieval_and_early_English_drama.2C_print_and_on-line_editions|readily-available textual and general scholarly resources]] for these plays, which reach far beyond the frequently anthologized ''Everyman'' or the de-contextualized bit of a biblical cycle play.<br />
<br />
==Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre==<br />
<br />
The second step is to make at least a beginning at "putting the plays up on their feet." To that end we have supplied a series of ten performance-based Lesson Plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing, to considering the symbolic shape of an action, to preliminary training toward full performance and modern adaptation. While these Lesson Plans are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous [http://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-set-free Folger Shakespeare Set Free teaching manuals], namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology.<br />
<br />
===[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama|''Verba et Res''/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 ======<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
[[File:Monreale, Christ the Creator.JPG|thumb|''Christo Pantocratore''. Monreale Cathedral, Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|400x400px]]<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_1:_Playing_around_with_medieval_language Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_2:_The_twenty_props_you_need_to_put_on_any_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_3:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history Lesson Plan 3: Typology, or medieval living history]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_4:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history_and_tableau_vivant Lesson Plan 4: Typology, or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'']''<nowiki/>''<br />
<br />
===[[Setting_the_Medieval_Stage |Setting the Medieval Stage]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 5 through 7 ======<br />
<br />
The spaces of medieval drama were various, labile, and indeed often mobile. The York Biblical cycle plays processed annually on pageant carts into and about the city to stop at York Minster and end on the market Pavement; small travelling companies acted other plays, performing in open spaces, inn yards, or great houses. Later, as plays retreated into manuscript, they might have been brought out for occasional declamation. Plays of such sharp moment and open engagement could, in theory, take place anywhere on this middle earth. As Peter Brook famously began his 1968 classic, ''The Empty Space'', “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and that is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged,” and modern revivals of medieval plays have utilized halls, cloisters, hillsides, city plazas and streetscapes, as well as more formal stages. These three Lesson Plans encourage you to find a suitable space for your play exercises, from a classroom with the desks pushed back to the more formal stage to the outdoor green space which might draw in community passers-by. Then we offer you a selection of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers |monologues]] for actors and especially powerful [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes |scenes]] to help develop the craft of your ensemble. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_5:_Stages_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 5: Stages for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_6:_Filling_the_space._Medieval_monologues_and_the_power_of_words Lesson Plan 6: Filling the space. Medieval monologues and the power of words]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_7:_Creating_and_inhabiting_the_space._Scenes_from_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 7: Creating and inhabiting the space. Scenes from medieval drama]<br />
<br />
=== [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]] ===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 8 through 10 ======<br />
<br />
Medieval drama engaged and hoped to transform its audiences with its biting and cathartic humor, its pointed social observation, its religiously inflected heights and depths, and its joy, and it forged community in its gatherings. <br />
[[File:Barbers' Baptism 147274.jpg|thumb|''The Baptism'' from the York Mystery Plays performed from a cart in the streets of York in front of St William's College.]]<br />
These are goals to which we can aspire in our teaching, and we can do this with youngsters and oldsters as well as formal students and professionals, and in our street and cities as well as in our classrooms and regular theaters. Some of us are fortunate enough to be theatre professionals, and to do this as the core of our vocation. Others do it more occasionally, or aspire to do something like it in our communities. <br />
<br />
In these final three Lesson Plans we invite you to think hard about the audiences whom you hope to reach in your work, and we offer you the inspiring account of two younger academics from our group who have had the training, creativity, and institutional support to mount entire student productions, in one case for a large public university Honors College seminar filled with STEM students, and in another at a liberal arts college embedded in a large city. <br />
<br />
Finally, we encourage you to take the tradition of street performance of medieval drama and the example of some modern adaptations to think about its transformative potential for pressing modern needs such as increased civic engagement, social justice, and ecological awareness. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_8:_Determining_your_audience_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 8: Determining your audience for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_9:_Performance_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 9: Performance of medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_10:_Adaptations_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 10: Adaptations of medieval drama]<br />
<br />
== Medieval and early English drama, print and on-line editions ==<br />
One may wonder why we do not see more Medieval Theatre productions on the university stage nowadays. Part of the answer may be that for the non-medievalist, and in particular for the performer not versed in medieval drama, approaching this enterprise could be daunting, starting with the selection of the play, where to find it, whether to use Middle English or a modernized, and which edition of text to use. To help streamline this process, and because there is no such a resource readily available for pedagogical purposes, we decided to compile a short list of medieval plays both in print and online editions, as well as modernized and unmodernized, as you will find in this section . <br />
<br />
===Print editions===<br />
<br />
''The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama''. Christina M. Fitzgerald and John T. Sebastian. Broadview, 2012.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama: An Anthology''. Greg Walker. Wiley-Blackwell, 2000.<br />
<br />
''Three Late Medieval Morality Plays''. G.A. Lester. New Mermaids, 2002. <br />
<br />
''York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling''. Richard Beadle and Pamela King. Oxford University Press, 2009<br />
<br />
''Early English Drama: An Anthology''. John C. Coldewey. Routledge, 1993.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama''. David Bevington. Hackett, 1975. <br />
<br />
The ''Arden Early English Drama'' series of texts from the late fifteenth to the late seventeenth centuries currently includes ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
===On-line editions===<br />
<br />
Online editions vary considerably in quality. Below are some that we have found to be well edited for both scholarly and pedagogical purposes. <br><br />
[[File:V.a.354 98v-99r.jpg|thumb|522x522px|Medieval plays were first preserved in manuscripts like this unique copy of the morality play ''Wisdom'' (c. 1460-63), preserved in the Macro plays at the Folger Shakespeare Library.|left]]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
==== Modernized ====<br />
<br />
:[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html#tab The N-town Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag The York Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/the-towneley-cycle-of-plays/ The Towneley Plays]<br />
<br><br />
====Unmodernized====<br />
<br />
:The TEAMS Middle English Text Series: <br />
http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== <br>Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers ==<br />
[[File:019807.jpg|thumb|600x600px|An angel announces the birth of Christ in the 2015-2016 Folger''The Second'' ''Shepherdes' Play'']]<br />
<nowiki> </nowiki><br />
<br />
Choosing a great monologue is a task that afflicts actors who are always searching for the best new monologue for their next audition. Audition pieces need to be strong, original, and not overdone. <br />
<br />
Medieval drama provides an exceptional vehicle for exploration and it allows the actor to utilize a variety of acting techniques, genres, and styles while performing. Here are some suggestions for monologues. <br />
<br />
While the casting suggestions given here are gender- and age-normative, directors and actors may want to think about mixing up these conventions for special effect and/or to suit their needs.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br><br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Role<br />
!Gender <br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll (First Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This speech opens the play. Coll complains about the conditions that poor men like himself have to endure and the ways they are abused by rich men. The speech is important in its sympathy for the plight of the medieval working class, and also thematically: after Coll speaks, it is easy to understand why salvation in the form of the baby Jesus is needed to come into the world.<br />
|Lines 1-54<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology.'' Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Gib (Second Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This is the second speech of the play. Gib complains about the difficulties of being married, and how much he regrets it, but it’s too late. This speech is important for its insight into medieval humor (for better or worse, the ‘take my wife, please’ vein of jokes has been mined for a long time); thematically, it establishes that salvation is needed in the world because humans, in particular the sexes, are at odds.<br />
|Lines 55-108<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|The York ''Fall of the Angels''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only this individual pageant but the York cycle as a whole. It sets the scene for both pageant and play, laying out themes that will recur throughout: the nature of God, the nature of creation, the nature of faith, the nature of worship, the consequences of disobedience.<br />
|Lines 1-34<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English] <br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|The York ''Crucifixion''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|This is Jesus’ speech from the cross after the soldiers finally manage to get him stretched and nailed to it.<br />
|Lines 253-264<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens the final pageant of the cycle. It harkens back to the first pageant and reminds the audience of all that happened between then and now, explaining the need for an end to be made and judgement given.<br />
|Lines 1-64<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|In this speech, Jesus addresses the human characters but, of course, also the audience, explaining why the judgement is going down as it does.<br />
|Lines 231-300<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|Chester''The Fall of Lucifer''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only the pageant but the cycle as a whole, laying out its important themes.<br />
|Lines 1-51<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/index.html Modern English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|N-town ''Passion Play 1''<br />
|Satan<br />
|Super-natural<br />
|This speech opens the Passion Play in the N-town manuscript. It is an important example of the ‘boast’ type of speech, common in medieval and early modern drama, where a villain or tyrant tells the audience who he is and that he is up to no good. [Shakespeare’s Richard III’s opening speech is a grandchild of this genre].<br />
|Lines 1-124<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/sugano-the-n-town-plays Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|Digby ''Mary Magdalene''<br />
|Mary Magdalene<br />
|Female<br />
|In this speech, Mary Magdalene preaches about the creation of the world to a heathen king, hoping to persuade him to leave his pagan ways.<br />
|Lines 1481-1526<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes ==<br />
It’s time to get Theatre students excited about performing Medieval drama. <br />
<br />
The question for many is where to begin? How do I find a play Where do I find a good scene? What edition is the best for performance? We are aware that there is too much and too little out there. And we also noted the need for teachers and students alike to have access to an inventory of scenes and monologues and good editions of plays. So, we have compiled these resources to get you started.<br />
<br />
Also, keep in mind that while in many instances characters are all male, and probably youngish to middle-age, when they are representative/allegorical characters, gender and age may not matter much when casting the roles.<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Roles<br />
!Gender<br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of Scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|New Guise, Nowadays, Nought, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the vices New Guise, Nowadays, and Nought try to tempt Mankind into sin. They fail spectacularly. Instead of recruiting Mankind as a diabolic minion, the devils are beaten up by him. This scene is important for understanding medieval drama because it illustrates physical action as an indispensable component that must be carefully choreographed and rehearsed to avoid injuring any of the actors. It also shows the use of physical comedy in medieval drama.<br />
|Lines 345-401<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|Titivillus, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the devil Titivillus has been called in by the other devils or vices who have failed to tempt Mankind into sin. Titivillus is invisible and inaudible to Mankind; but the audience can see and hear him, and they know Mankind cannot. This last piece is crucial, because Titivillus repeatedly speaks to the audience as if they are on his side, telling them to keep quiet to further his goal of tempting Mankind into sin (when of course they really are quiet because of their role as audience). This scene is one of several in the play that uses the audience’s role as audience to incite them to do bad things, thereby demonstrating that the audience needs redemption as much as does the character Mankind.<br />
|Lines 526-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|''Fulgens and Lucres''<br />
|A<br />
B<br />
|Male<br />
|This scene opens the play. In it, A and B interact with the audience and with each other, all the while claiming that they are not part of the play, but there will be a play and they’re anxious to see it. B explains to A what the play will be about.<br />
The scene is important because it demonstrates the fluid, meta-theatrical relationship between audience and play in early English theatre.<br />
|Lines 1 - 201<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|''Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham'' (scene 1)<br />
|Sheriff,<br />
Knight, <br />
<br />
and Robin Hood<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the Knight offers to capture Robin Hood for the Sheriff, who agrees to pay the Knight if he is successful. The Knight finds Robin Hood and engages with him in a series of tests of strength and skill. At last they fight. Robin Hood wins, kills the Knight, and declares that he will dress himself in the Knight’s clothes and take his head to the Sheriff to claim the reward for ‘killing’ Robin Hood.<br />
This scene is useful in the classroom for several reasons. It is one of a very few surviving pieces of secular medieval English drama. It also provides an opportunity to demonstrate the challenges presented by the extant texts. There are few stage directions in early drama; but as this scene makes clear, it is crucial to puzzle out the action. Most of this scene is, in fact, action. How long would the scene run? That’s entirely dependent upon how a performance decides to handle the action. The contests could be quick, or they could be elaborate.<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/16EWuJ02hFOhUxADG1zF-nk-TdzPa-0q8/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S6PFlgKa_tQBL9lwX76GlXbuv6KKj5Fa/view?usp=sharing Regularized Spelling]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/robyn-hod-and-the-shryff-off-notyngham Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll,<br />
<br />
Gib,<br />
<br />
Daw,<br />
<br />
Mak,<br />
<br />
Gyll<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
Female<br />
|In this scene, the shepherds (Coll, Gib, and Daw) come to Mak and Gyll’s house, looking for their stolen sheep. Mak has indeed stolen the sheep and has persuaded his wife Gyll to help him hide it by putting it in their cradle and pretending it is their newborn baby.<br />
The scene importantly demonstrates how medieval drama employs humor for thematic goals. For example, Mak swears to the shepherds that if he stole the sheep, the ‘baby’ will be the first meal he eats that day. It’s a funny line, for the audience knows the ‘baby’ is actually a sheep that Mak has every intention of eating. But discussion of eating the sheep/baby also underscores the nativity theme of the play, which celebrates the birth of a baby, Jesus, who is also a “lamb” who will be eaten (in the form of communion) for the benefit of humans. The parodic profane nativity highlights the sacred nativity.<br />
|Lines 476-628<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|''The Castle of Perseverance''<br />
|Mercy,<br />
<br />
Justice,<br />
<br />
Truth,<br />
<br />
Peace,<br />
<br />
God<br />
<br />
|Eternal<br />
|Humanum Genus, the play’s Mankind figure, has behaved wickedly most of his life. But as he is dying, he realizes his wickedness. His very last word is “Mercy,” begging God to save him from hell. In this scene, Justice and Truth argue before God why Humanum Genus should be damned. Peace and Mercy give their reasons why he should be saved. The scene resembles a modern courtroom drama, with Truth and Justice as the prosecuting attorneys, Mercy and Peace acting for the defense, and God the Judge listening to all sides before giving his verdict.<br />
All characters are female except God, who is male. All are eternal figures.<br />
|Lines 3129-3544<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/cascomp.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/klausner-castle-of-perseverance Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|''Brome Abraham and Isaac''<br />
|Abraham,<br />
<br />
Isaac,<br />
<br />
the Angel<br />
|Male<br />
|Abraham is old. Isaac is a child. The Angel is ageless.<br />
Abraham has been ordered by God to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Naturally, Abraham is reluctant to kill his child, but he also wants to be obedient to God. In this scene, we see Abraham’s struggle. We also see medieval drama’s typological understanding of the sacrifice of Isaac as foreshadowing the sacrifice of Jesus.<br />
|Lines 290-332<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/noa/pdf/13BromePlay_1_12.pdf Modern (lightly) English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/AJD3529.0001.001/1:4.6?rgn=div2;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|''Johan Johan''<br />
|Tib the Wife,<br />
John the Husband, and Johan Johan the priest<br />
|Female<br />
<br />
Male<br />
|Tib is female and young adult. John the Husband is male and adult, perhaps a bit older than Tib, but theirs is not necessarily a May/December marriage. Johan Johan is male and adult.<br />
The priest has been carrying on with several women in the area, including Tib. Tib and the priest laugh at the husband’s thickheadness in not realizing their liaison.. But John the Husband begins to get suspicious. This scene is particularly rich in physical comedy, as the husband is chafing wax from a candle to mend a leaky pail, with obvious masturbatory overtones--i.e,, the priest is getting real sex, the husband has to make do on his own.<br />
|Lines 439-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?id=h0U4AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA67#v=onepage&q&f=false Text]<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|''Wisdom''<br />
|Lucifer,<br />
<br />
Mind,<br />
<br />
Will,<br />
<br />
Understanding<br />
|Allegorical<br />
|Lucifer explains to the audience that he is going to tempt the good guys, does so, and then brags about it.<br />
|Lines 325-55<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Some Productions of Medieval Plays, Online ==<br />
You can access an extensive [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5cWcydg0JFis9914C0KX7iz59jwg6-xV# YouTube playlist of medieval drama] online. Additionally, here is a resource list for some titles:<br />
<br />
=== ''Everyman'' ===<br />
You can find digital versions of various productions online, including a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkM8v0m3URg# 2012 ''Everyman''] production at the Portland Community College Performing Arts Center which utilized large-scale puppets and a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvZFBZB10LA# 2016 ''Everyman''] production by the Laurier Historical Society at Wilfrid Laurier University. The play has been adapted as a commercial film twice in recent years in modernized (2002) and period (2007) productions.<br />
<br />
=== ''Mankind'' ===<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4acAjs2TGa8# 1999 ''Mankind''] staging by Duquesne University Medieval and Renaissance Players. <br />
<br />
University students staged an improvisatory modernized production of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsTyvD8E9Mk# ''Mankind''] as a final course project in 2016.<br />
<br />
=== Biblical cycle plays and passion plays ===<br />
The Blackhills Passion plays were performed in Spearfish, South Dakota from 1939 to 2008, and at their winter home in Lake Wales, Florida from 1953 to 1999.<br />
<br />
The Mormon Hill Cumorah biblical pageant in Palmyra, New York has been performed since 1935: http://www.hillcumorah.org/ <br />
<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn0pcYONuxc# 2013 Chester Noah] play performed by the Liverpool University Players.<br />
<br />
The Chester Mystery plays were performed in a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRthPA2nJyw# 2008 modernized musical version].<br />
<br />
The Oberammergau Passion Play has been performed continuously in that Bavarian village since 1634. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KeVtnndSsc# The trailer for the 2020 production]. <br />
<br />
The Towneley Second Shepherds’ Play has long been a favorite Christmas holiday production, and was recently revived at the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RomR1sxDlus# Folger Theater] in 2016. <br />
<br />
[https://muse.jhu.edu/article/34991# Yiimimangaliso: The Mysteries], a version of the Chester mysteries, was staged in South Africa and London in 2001 and has been revived since. <br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, England: Videos from recent York mystery plays are available on-line at several sites. See, for example, [http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/york-mystery-plays-1973# York Mystery Plays 1973], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nyFLOlEupM# York Mystery Plays 2010], and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_IE4izf_6c# York Mystery Plays 2016].<br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, Toronto: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIImNnV1Ty0# 2010 “Crucifixion”].<br />
<br />
The [http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/front-page/# Poculi Ludique Societas], or PLS in Toronto, has for over 50 years now sponsored productions of early plays, from the beginnings of medieval drama to as late as the middle of the seventeenth century.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Selected Bibliography ==<br />
Albin, Andrew. “Sonorous Presence, and the Performance of Christian Community in the Chester Shepherds Play.” ''Early Theatre'' 16.2 (2013): 33-57.<br />
<br />
Aronson-Lehavi, Sharon. ''Street Scenes: Late Medieval Acting and Performance''. Palgrave MacmIllan, 2011.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. “The Present of Past Things: The York Corpus Christi Cycle as a Contemporary Theatre of Memory.” ''Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies'' 26.2 (1996): 35-79.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. ''Signifying God: Social Relations and Symbolic Act in the York Corpus Christi Plays''. University of Chicago Press, 2001.<br />
<br />
Bevington, David. ''From “Mankind” to Marlowe: Growth of Structure in the Popular Drama of Tudor England''. Harvard University Press, 1962.<br />
<br />
Butler, Judith. ''Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative''. Routledge, 1997.<br />
<br />
Carlson, Marvin. “Medieval Street Performers Speak.” ''TDR:The Drama Review'', 57.4 (2013): 86-94.<br />
<br />
Chaganti, Seeta. “The Platea: Pre- and Postmodern: A Landscape of Medieval Performance Studies.” ''Exemplaria'' 25.3 (2013): 252-64.<br />
<br />
Clopper, Lawrence. ''Drama, Play, and Game: English Festive Culture in the Medieval and Early Modern Period''. Chicago, 2001.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “The Chester Cycle in Sixteenth-Century Religious Culture," ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 37.3 (2007): 532-47.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. ''Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints: Theater, Gender, and Religion in Late Medieval England''. University of Pennsylvania, 2004.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Biblical Drama in Post-Apartheid South Africa: The Chester Plays in Afterlife.” ''Transformations in Biblical Literary Traditions: Incarnation, Narrative,'' ''and Ethics''. Eds. D.H. Williams and Philip Donnelly, Notre Dame University Press, 2014. 268-88.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Drama: 1191-1952.” ''Exemplaria'' 28.3 (2016): 264-76.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Reading REED: History and the Records of Early English Drama.” ''Literary Practice and Social Change in Britain, 1380-1530''. Ed. Lee Patterson, University of California Press, 1990. 248-84.<br />
<br />
Davidson, Clifford, ed. ''Gesture in Medieval Drama and Art''. Medieval Institute, 2001.<br />
<br />
Elliott, John R., Jr. ''Playing God: Medieval Mysteries on the Modern Stage''. University of Toronto Press, 1989.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard. “Dramatic History: On the Diachronic and Synchronic in the Study of Early English Drama.” ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 35:1 (2005): 39-66.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard K. “’Nowe Ys Common This Daye’: Enoch and Elias, Antichrist, and the Structure of the Chester Cycle.” ''Homo, Memento Finis: The Iconography of Just'' ''Judgment in Medieval Art and Drama''. Ed. David Bevington, et. al. Medieval Institute, 1985. 221-57.<br />
<br />
Enders, Jody. ''The Medieval Theater of Cruelty: Rhetoric, Memory, Violence.'' Cornell University Press, 2002.<br />
<br />
Gardiner, Harold. ''Mysteries’ End: An Investigation of the Last Days of the Medieval Religious Stage.'' Yale University Press, 1946.<br />
<br />
Hardison, O.B., Jr. ''Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages: Essays in the Origin and Early History of Modern Drama''. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965.<br />
<br />
Holsinger, Bruce. “Analytical Survey 6: Medieval Literature and Cultures of Performance.” ''New Medieval Literatures'' 6 (2003): 271-311.<br />
<br />
James, Mervyn. “Ritual, Drama, and Social Body in the Late Medieval Town.” ''Past & Present'' 98 (1983):3-29.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela, ed. ''The Routledge Research Companion to Early Drama and Performance.'' Routledge, 2017.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela. ''The York Mystery Cycle and the Worship of the City''. D.S. Breer, 2006.<br />
<br />
Kolve, V.A. ''The Play Called Corpus Christi.'' Stanford University Press, 1966.<br />
<br />
Lerud, Theodore. ''Memory, Images, and the English Corpus Christi Drama''. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Gender and Medieval Drama.'' D.S. Brewer, 2004.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Modern Mysteries: Contemporary Productions of Medieval English Dramas.'' D.S. Brewer, 2007. <br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Medieval English Drama: Performance and Spectatorship.'' Polity Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Parker, Andrew, and Eve Kosofsky Sedwick, eds. ''Performativity and Performance.'' Routledge,1995.<br />
<br />
Ong, Walter. ''Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word.'' Methuen, 1982.<br />
<br />
Overlie, Mary. ''Standing in Space: The Six Viewpoints Theory and Practice''. Fallon Press, 2016.<br />
<br />
Rogerson, Margaret. ''Playing a Part in History: The York Mysteries, 1951-2006''. University of Toronto Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Sergi, Matthew. Work-in-progress on ''Play Texts and Public Practice in the Chester Cycle,'' c.1421-1607.<br />
<br />
Schreyer, Kurt. ''Shakespeare’s Medieval Craft: Memories of the Mysteries on the London Stage.'' Cornell University Press, 2014.<br />
<br />
Soleo-Shanks, Jenna. “Resurrecting Callimachus: Pop Music Puppets, and the Necessity of Performance in Teaching Medieval Drama." ''Teaching Medieval and Early Modern'' ''Cross-Cultural Encounters''. Eds. Karina F. Attar and Lynn Shutters, Palgrave Macmillan 2014. 199-213.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. “The Culture of the Spectator.” ''Theater Journal'' 34 (1992): 15-29.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. ''Ritual Imports: Performing Medieval Drama in America'', Cornell University Press, 2005.<br />
<br />
Stevens, Martin. ''Four Middle English Mystery Cycles.'' Princeton University Press, 1987.<br />
<br />
Stevenson, Jill. ''Performance, Cognitive Theory, and Devotional Culture: Sensual Piety in Late Medieval York.'' Palgrave MacMillan, 2010.<br />
<br />
Travis, Peter W. ''Dramatic Design in the Chester Cycle''. University of Chicago Press, 1982.<br />
<br />
Turner, Victor. ''From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play''. PAJ Books, 1982<br />
<br />
Westfall, Suzanne R. ''Patrons and Performance: Early Tudor Household Revels''. Clarendon Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
Continue on to ''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|Verba et Res]]''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]: Lesson Plans 1 through 4.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
'''Page written by'''<br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler | Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy&diff=28406Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy2018-03-24T21:56:14Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>''This article is under construction''<br />
<br />
This article - conceived and written by Barbara J. Bono, Maria S. Horne, and Michelle Markley Butler - is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance.<br />
<br />
==Introduction==<br />
<br />
===Medieval drama truly comes alive in performance.=== <br />
This is, of course, a statement true of all works in the dramatic genre. However, it is especially true of medieval drama, which frequently addressed in embodied form large and ultimate questions about humanity's place in creation and the scheme of history, and did so in direct and explicit relation to its audiences, with extraordinary emotive and affective range from the obscene to the exalted. <br />
[[File:028728.jpg|thumb|left|Miss Edith Wynne Matthison in the role of Everyman (c. 1902)|271x271px]]<br />
<br />
Medieval drama is integrated into the curriculum for theatre majors at most universities in the United States. However, there, rather than being part of acting technique or performance-based courses, or of staged productions, the subject is most often studied only very briefly in lecture courses like Theatre History. Meanwhile, in departments of literature, medieval drama is sometimes included as a topic in a broader medieval or British literature class or as a minor prequel to the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, but it is seldom given much time or attention, and its performative nature is largely neglected.<br />
<br />
But we would argue that medieval drama is accessible, exciting, adaptable, and inspirational to interested communities of all ages and abilities - from lower grade levels to highly-trained practitioners - for drama itself is the ideal synesthetic and interdisciplinary vehicle for community formation and differential learning. There is also contemporaneity in medieval drama: humor, music, and fun, as well as metaphor, allegories, and subtexts which speak to who we are today. And while the task of accessing this excitement may seem daunting, in this article we have put together a set of resources - combining language, action, and spectacle - to get you started.<br />
<br />
The first step in bridging the gap between performance and literary study is alerting students and teachers to the new wealth of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Medieval_and_early_English_drama.2C_print_and_on-line_editions|readily-available textual and general scholarly resources]] for these plays, which reach far beyond the frequently anthologized ''Everyman'' or the de-contextualized bit of a biblical cycle play.<br />
<br />
==Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre==<br />
<br />
The second step is to make at least a beginning at "putting the plays up on their feet." To that end we have supplied a series of ten performance-based Lesson Plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing, to considering the symbolic shape of an action, to preliminary training toward full performance and modern adaptation. While these Lesson Plans are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous [http://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-set-free Folger Shakespeare Set Free teaching manuals], namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology.<br />
<br />
===[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama|''Verba et Res''/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 ======<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
[[File:Monreale, Christ the Creator.JPG|thumb|''Christo Pantocratore''. Monreale Cathedral, Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|250x250px]]<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_1:_Playing_around_with_medieval_language Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_2:_The_twenty_props_you_need_to_put_on_any_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_3:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history Lesson Plan 3: Typology, or medieval living history]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Lesson_Plan_4:_Typology_or_medieval_living_history_and_tableau_vivant Lesson Plan 4: Typology, or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'']''<nowiki/>''<br />
<br />
===[[Setting_the_Medieval_Stage |Setting the Medieval Stage]]===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 5 through 7 ======<br />
<br />
The spaces of medieval drama were various, labile, and indeed often mobile. The York Biblical cycle plays processed annually on pageant carts into and about the city to stop at York Minster and end on the market Pavement; small travelling companies acted other plays, performing in open spaces, inn yards, or great houses. Later, as plays retreated into manuscript, they might have been brought out for occasional declamation. Plays of such sharp moment and open engagement could, in theory, take place anywhere on this middle earth. As Peter Brook famously began his 1968 classic, ''The Empty Space'', “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and that is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged,” and modern revivals of medieval plays have utilized halls, cloisters, hillsides, city plazas and streetscapes, as well as more formal stages. These three Lesson Plans encourage you to find a suitable space for your play exercises, from a classroom with the desks pushed back to the more formal stage to the outdoor green space which might draw in community passers-by. Then we offer you a selection of [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers |monologues]] for actors and especially powerful [[Medieval_Drama_and_Performance-Based_Pedagogy#Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes |scenes]] to help develop the craft of your ensemble. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_5:_Stages_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 5: Stages for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_6:_Filling_the_space._Medieval_monologues_and_the_power_of_words Lesson Plan 6: Filling the space. Medieval monologues and the power of words]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Setting_the_Medieval_Stage#Lesson_Plan_7:_Creating_and_inhabiting_the_space._Scenes_from_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 7: Creating and inhabiting the space. Scenes from medieval drama]<br />
<br />
=== [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]] ===<br />
<br />
====== Lesson Plans 8 through 10 ======<br />
<br />
Medieval drama engaged and hoped to transform its audiences with its biting and cathartic humor, its pointed social observation, its religiously inflected heights and depths, and its joy, and it forged community in its gatherings. <br />
[[File:Barbers' Baptism 147274.jpg|thumb|''The Baptism'' from the York Mystery Plays performed from a cart in the streets of York in front of St William's College.]]<br />
These are goals to which we can aspire in our teaching, and we can do this with youngsters and oldsters as well as formal students and professionals, and in our street and cities as well as in our classrooms and regular theaters. Some of us are fortunate enough to be theatre professionals, and to do this as the core of our vocation. Others do it more occasionally, or aspire to do something like it in our communities. <br />
<br />
In these final three Lesson Plans we invite you to think hard about the audiences whom you hope to reach in your work, and we offer you the inspiring account of two younger academics from our group who have had the training, creativity, and institutional support to mount entire student productions, in one case for a large public university Honors College seminar filled with STEM students, and in another at a liberal arts college embedded in a large city. <br />
<br />
Finally, we encourage you to take the tradition of street performance of medieval drama and the example of some modern adaptations to think about its transformative potential for pressing modern needs such as increased civic engagement, social justice, and ecological awareness. <br />
<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_8:_Determining_your_audience_for_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 8: Determining your audience for medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_9:_Performance_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 9: Performance of medieval drama]<br />
:[https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Performing_Medieval_Drama:_Audiences,_Communities,_and_Adaptations#Lesson_Plan_10:_Adaptations_of_medieval_drama Lesson Plan 10: Adaptations of medieval drama]<br />
<br />
== Medieval and early English drama, print and on-line editions ==<br />
One may wonder why we do not see more Medieval Theatre productions on the university stage nowadays. Part of the answer may be that for the non-medievalist, and in particular for the performer not versed in medieval drama, approaching this enterprise could be daunting, starting with the selection of the play, where to find it, whether to use Middle English or a modernized, and which edition of text to use. To help streamline this process, and because there is no such a resource readily available for pedagogical purposes, we decided to compile a short list of medieval plays both in print and online editions, as well as modernized and unmodernized, as you will find in this section . <br />
<br />
===Print editions===<br />
<br />
''The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama''. Christina M. Fitzgerald and John T. Sebastian. Broadview, 2012.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama: An Anthology''. Greg Walker. Wiley-Blackwell, 2000.<br />
<br />
''Three Late Medieval Morality Plays''. G.A. Lester. New Mermaids, 2002. <br />
<br />
''York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling''. Richard Beadle and Pamela King. Oxford University Press, 2009<br />
<br />
''Early English Drama: An Anthology''. John C. Coldewey. Routledge, 1993.<br />
<br />
''Medieval Drama''. David Bevington. Hackett, 1975. <br />
<br />
The ''Arden Early English Drama'' series of texts from the late fifteenth to the late seventeenth centuries currently includes ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
===On-line editions===<br />
<br />
Online editions vary considerably in quality. Below are some that we have found to be well edited for both scholarly and pedagogical purposes. <br><br />
[[File:V.a.354 98v-99r.jpg|thumb|522x522px|Medieval plays were first preserved in manuscripts like this unique copy of the morality play ''Wisdom'' (c. 1460-63), preserved in the Macro plays at the Folger Shakespeare Library.|left]]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
==== Modernized ====<br />
<br />
:[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html#tab The N-town Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag The York Plays]<br />
<br />
:[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/the-towneley-cycle-of-plays/ The Towneley Plays]<br />
<br><br />
====Unmodernized====<br />
<br />
:The TEAMS Middle English Text Series: <br />
http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br />
== <br>Striking Monologues from Medieval Plays, for Performers ==<br />
[[File:019807.jpg|thumb|600x600px|An angel announces the birth of Christ in the 2015-2016 Folger''The Second'' ''Shepherdes' Play'']]<br />
<nowiki> </nowiki><br />
<br />
Choosing a great monologue is a task that afflicts actors who are always searching for the best new monologue for their next audition. Audition pieces need to be strong, original, and not overdone. <br />
<br />
Medieval drama provides an exceptional vehicle for exploration and it allows the actor to utilize a variety of acting techniques, genres, and styles while performing. Here are some suggestions for monologues. <br />
<br />
While the casting suggestions given here are gender- and age-normative, directors and actors may want to think about mixing up these conventions for special effect and/or to suit their needs.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br><br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Role<br />
!Gender <br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll (First Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This speech opens the play. Coll complains about the conditions that poor men like himself have to endure and the ways they are abused by rich men. The speech is important in its sympathy for the plight of the medieval working class, and also thematically: after Coll speaks, it is easy to understand why salvation in the form of the baby Jesus is needed to come into the world.<br />
|Lines 1-54<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology.'' Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Gib (Second Shepherd)<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
|This is the second speech of the play. Gib complains about the difficulties of being married, and how much he regrets it, but it’s too late. This speech is important for its insight into medieval humor (for better or worse, the ‘take my wife, please’ vein of jokes has been mined for a long time); thematically, it establishes that salvation is needed in the world because humans, in particular the sexes, are at odds.<br />
|Lines 55-108<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|The York ''Fall of the Angels''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only this individual pageant but the York cycle as a whole. It sets the scene for both pageant and play, laying out themes that will recur throughout: the nature of God, the nature of creation, the nature of faith, the nature of worship, the consequences of disobedience.<br />
|Lines 1-34<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English] <br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|The York ''Crucifixion''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|This is Jesus’ speech from the cross after the soldiers finally manage to get him stretched and nailed to it.<br />
|Lines 253-264<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens the final pageant of the cycle. It harkens back to the first pageant and reminds the audience of all that happened between then and now, explaining the need for an end to be made and judgement given.<br />
|Lines 1-64<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|The York ''Last Judgement''<br />
|Jesus<br />
|Male<br />
|In this speech, Jesus addresses the human characters but, of course, also the audience, explaining why the judgement is going down as it does.<br />
|Lines 231-300<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://posp.org.uk/alt/REED/york.html#pag Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/davidson-the-york-corpus-christi-plays Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|Chester''The Fall of Lucifer''<br />
|God<br />
|Eternal<br />
|This speech opens not only the pageant but the cycle as a whole, laying out its important themes.<br />
|Lines 1-51<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/index.html Modern English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|N-town ''Passion Play 1''<br />
|Satan<br />
|Super-natural<br />
|This speech opens the Passion Play in the N-town manuscript. It is an important example of the ‘boast’ type of speech, common in medieval and early modern drama, where a villain or tyrant tells the audience who he is and that he is up to no good. [Shakespeare’s Richard III’s opening speech is a grandchild of this genre].<br />
|Lines 1-124<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/frntmt.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/sugano-the-n-town-plays Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|Digby ''Mary Magdalene''<br />
|Mary Magdalene<br />
|Female<br />
|In this speech, Mary Magdalene preaches about the creation of the world to a heathen king, hoping to persuade him to leave his pagan ways.<br />
|Lines 1481-1526<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Challenging Scenes from Medieval Plays, for Acting Classes ==<br />
It’s time to get Theatre students excited about performing Medieval drama. <br />
<br />
The question for many is where to begin? How do I find a play Where do I find a good scene? What edition is the best for performance? We are aware that there is too much and too little out there. And we also noted the need for teachers and students alike to have access to an inventory of scenes and monologues and good editions of plays. So, we have compiled these resources to get you started.<br />
<br />
Also, keep in mind that while in many instances characters are all male, and probably youngish to middle-age, when they are representative/allegorical characters, gender and age may not matter much when casting the roles.<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Play Title<br />
!Roles<br />
!Gender<br />
!Context/Action<br />
!Text of Scene<br />
!Print Edition<br />
!Online Editions<br />
|-<br />
|1<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|New Guise, Nowadays, Nought, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the vices New Guise, Nowadays, and Nought try to tempt Mankind into sin. They fail spectacularly. Instead of recruiting Mankind as a diabolic minion, the devils are beaten up by him. This scene is important for understanding medieval drama because it illustrates physical action as an indispensable component that must be carefully choreographed and rehearsed to avoid injuring any of the actors. It also shows the use of physical comedy in medieval drama.<br />
|Lines 345-401<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|2<br />
|''Mankind''<br />
|Titivillus, Mankind<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the devil Titivillus has been called in by the other devils or vices who have failed to tempt Mankind into sin. Titivillus is invisible and inaudible to Mankind; but the audience can see and hear him, and they know Mankind cannot. This last piece is crucial, because Titivillus repeatedly speaks to the audience as if they are on his side, telling them to keep quiet to further his goal of tempting Mankind into sin (when of course they really are quiet because of their role as audience). This scene is one of several in the play that uses the audience’s role as audience to incite them to do bad things, thereby demonstrating that the audience needs redemption as much as does the character Mankind.<br />
|Lines 526-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ORqpTNnylPt7JXXVA7f5N3HI26Z1DZ3p/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/ashley-and-necastro-mankind Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|3<br />
|''Fulgens and Lucres''<br />
|A<br />
B<br />
|Male<br />
|This scene opens the play. In it, A and B interact with the audience and with each other, all the while claiming that they are not part of the play, but there will be a play and they’re anxious to see it. B explains to A what the play will be about.<br />
The scene is important because it demonstrates the fluid, meta-theatrical relationship between audience and play in early English theatre.<br />
|Lines 1 - 201<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|4<br />
|''Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham'' (scene 1)<br />
|Sheriff,<br />
Knight, <br />
<br />
and Robin Hood<br />
|Male<br />
|In this scene, the Knight offers to capture Robin Hood for the Sheriff, who agrees to pay the Knight if he is successful. The Knight finds Robin Hood and engages with him in a series of tests of strength and skill. At last they fight. Robin Hood wins, kills the Knight, and declares that he will dress himself in the Knight’s clothes and take his head to the Sheriff to claim the reward for ‘killing’ Robin Hood.<br />
This scene is useful in the classroom for several reasons. It is one of a very few surviving pieces of secular medieval English drama. It also provides an opportunity to demonstrate the challenges presented by the extant texts. There are few stage directions in early drama; but as this scene makes clear, it is crucial to puzzle out the action. Most of this scene is, in fact, action. How long would the scene run? That’s entirely dependent upon how a performance decides to handle the action. The contests could be quick, or they could be elaborate.<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|[https://drive.google.com/file/d/16EWuJ02hFOhUxADG1zF-nk-TdzPa-0q8/view?usp=sharing Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S6PFlgKa_tQBL9lwX76GlXbuv6KKj5Fa/view?usp=sharing Regularized Spelling]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/robyn-hod-and-the-shryff-off-notyngham Middle English]<br />
<br />
|-<br />
|5<br />
|Towneley ''Second Shepherds’ Play''<br />
|Coll,<br />
<br />
Gib,<br />
<br />
Daw,<br />
<br />
Mak,<br />
<br />
Gyll<br />
|Male<br />
<br />
Female<br />
|In this scene, the shepherds (Coll, Gib, and Daw) come to Mak and Gyll’s house, looking for their stolen sheep. Mak has indeed stolen the sheep and has persuaded his wife Gyll to help him hide it by putting it in their cradle and pretending it is their newborn baby.<br />
The scene importantly demonstrates how medieval drama employs humor for thematic goals. For example, Mak swears to the shepherds that if he stole the sheep, the ‘baby’ will be the first meal he eats that day. It’s a funny line, for the audience knows the ‘baby’ is actually a sheep that Mak has every intention of eating. But discussion of eating the sheep/baby also underscores the nativity theme of the play, which celebrates the birth of a baby, Jesus, who is also a “lamb” who will be eaten (in the form of communion) for the benefit of humans. The parodic profane nativity highlights the sacred nativity.<br />
|Lines 476-628<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://coldreads.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-second-shepherds-play.pdf Modern English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Towneley/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|6<br />
|''The Castle of Perseverance''<br />
|Mercy,<br />
<br />
Justice,<br />
<br />
Truth,<br />
<br />
Peace,<br />
<br />
God<br />
<br />
|Eternal<br />
|Humanum Genus, the play’s Mankind figure, has behaved wickedly most of his life. But as he is dying, he realizes his wickedness. His very last word is “Mercy,” begging God to save him from hell. In this scene, Justice and Truth argue before God why Humanum Genus should be damned. Peace and Mercy give their reasons why he should be saved. The scene resembles a modern courtroom drama, with Truth and Justice as the prosecuting attorneys, Mercy and Peace acting for the defense, and God the Judge listening to all sides before giving his verdict.<br />
All characters are female except God, who is male. All are eternal figures.<br />
|Lines 3129-3544<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/cascomp.html Modern English]<br />
<br />
[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/klausner-castle-of-perseverance Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|7<br />
|''Brome Abraham and Isaac''<br />
|Abraham,<br />
<br />
Isaac,<br />
<br />
the Angel<br />
|Male<br />
|Abraham is old. Isaac is a child. The Angel is ageless.<br />
Abraham has been ordered by God to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Naturally, Abraham is reluctant to kill his child, but he also wants to be obedient to God. In this scene, we see Abraham’s struggle. We also see medieval drama’s typological understanding of the sacrifice of Isaac as foreshadowing the sacrifice of Jesus.<br />
|Lines 290-332<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/noa/pdf/13BromePlay_1_12.pdf Modern (lightly) English]<br />
<br />
[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/AJD3529.0001.001/1:4.6?rgn=div2;view=fulltext Middle English]<br />
|-<br />
|8<br />
|''Johan Johan''<br />
|Tib the Wife,<br />
John the Husband, and Johan Johan the priest<br />
|Female<br />
<br />
Male<br />
|Tib is female and young adult. John the Husband is male and adult, perhaps a bit older than Tib, but theirs is not necessarily a May/December marriage. Johan Johan is male and adult.<br />
The priest has been carrying on with several women in the area, including Tib. Tib and the priest laugh at the husband’s thickheadness in not realizing their liaison.. But John the Husband begins to get suspicious. This scene is particularly rich in physical comedy, as the husband is chafing wax from a candle to mend a leaky pail, with obvious masturbatory overtones--i.e,, the priest is getting real sex, the husband has to make do on his own.<br />
|Lines 439-607<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''David Bevington. 1975.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?id=h0U4AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA67#v=onepage&q&f=false Text]<br />
|-<br />
|9<br />
|''Wisdom''<br />
|Lucifer,<br />
<br />
Mind,<br />
<br />
Will,<br />
<br />
Understanding<br />
|Allegorical<br />
|Lucifer explains to the audience that he is going to tempt the good guys, does so, and then brags about it.<br />
|Lines 325-55<br />
|''Medieval Drama: An Anthology. ''Ed. Greg Walker. Blackwell, 2000.<br />
|[https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05314708&id=HFCzaX6BlUkC&printsec=titlepage&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Middle English]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Some Productions of Medieval Plays, Online ==<br />
You can access an extensive [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5cWcydg0JFis9914C0KX7iz59jwg6-xV# YouTube playlist of medieval drama] online. Additionally, here is a resource list for some titles:<br />
<br />
=== ''Everyman'' ===<br />
You can find digital versions of various productions online, including a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkM8v0m3URg# 2012 ''Everyman''] production at the Portland Community College Performing Arts Center which utilized large-scale puppets and a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvZFBZB10LA# 2016 ''Everyman''] production by the Laurier Historical Society at Wilfrid Laurier University. The play has been adapted as a commercial film twice in recent years in modernized (2002) and period (2007) productions.<br />
<br />
=== ''Mankind'' ===<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4acAjs2TGa8# 1999 ''Mankind''] staging by Duquesne University Medieval and Renaissance Players. <br />
<br />
University students staged an improvisatory modernized production of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsTyvD8E9Mk# ''Mankind''] as a final course project in 2016.<br />
<br />
=== Biblical cycle plays and passion plays ===<br />
The Blackhills Passion plays were performed in Spearfish, South Dakota from 1939 to 2008, and at their winter home in Lake Wales, Florida from 1953 to 1999.<br />
<br />
The Mormon Hill Cumorah biblical pageant in Palmyra, New York has been performed since 1935: http://www.hillcumorah.org/ <br />
<br />
The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn0pcYONuxc# 2013 Chester Noah] play performed by the Liverpool University Players.<br />
<br />
The Chester Mystery plays were performed in a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRthPA2nJyw# 2008 modernized musical version].<br />
<br />
The Oberammergau Passion Play has been performed continuously in that Bavarian village since 1634. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KeVtnndSsc# The trailer for the 2020 production]. <br />
<br />
The Towneley Second Shepherds’ Play has long been a favorite Christmas holiday production, and was recently revived at the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RomR1sxDlus# Folger Theater] in 2016. <br />
<br />
[https://muse.jhu.edu/article/34991# Yiimimangaliso: The Mysteries], a version of the Chester mysteries, was staged in South Africa and London in 2001 and has been revived since. <br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, England: Videos from recent York mystery plays are available on-line at several sites. See, for example, [http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/york-mystery-plays-1973# York Mystery Plays 1973], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nyFLOlEupM# York Mystery Plays 2010], and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_IE4izf_6c# York Mystery Plays 2016].<br />
<br />
The York cycle plays, Toronto: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIImNnV1Ty0# 2010 “Crucifixion”].<br />
<br />
The [http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/plspls/front-page/# Poculi Ludique Societas], or PLS in Toronto, has for over 50 years now sponsored productions of early plays, from the beginnings of medieval drama to as late as the middle of the seventeenth century.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
== Selected Bibliography ==<br />
Albin, Andrew. “Sonorous Presence, and the Performance of Christian Community in the Chester Shepherds Play.” ''Early Theatre'' 16.2 (2013): 33-57.<br />
<br />
Aronson-Lehavi, Sharon. ''Street Scenes: Late Medieval Acting and Performance''. Palgrave MacmIllan, 2011.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. “The Present of Past Things: The York Corpus Christi Cycle as a Contemporary Theatre of Memory.” ''Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies'' 26.2 (1996): 35-79.<br />
<br />
Beckwith, Sarah. ''Signifying God: Social Relations and Symbolic Act in the York Corpus Christi Plays''. University of Chicago Press, 2001.<br />
<br />
Bevington, David. ''From “Mankind” to Marlowe: Growth of Structure in the Popular Drama of Tudor England''. Harvard University Press, 1962.<br />
<br />
Butler, Judith. ''Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative''. Routledge, 1997.<br />
<br />
Carlson, Marvin. “Medieval Street Performers Speak.” ''TDR:The Drama Review'', 57.4 (2013): 86-94.<br />
<br />
Chaganti, Seeta. “The Platea: Pre- and Postmodern: A Landscape of Medieval Performance Studies.” ''Exemplaria'' 25.3 (2013): 252-64.<br />
<br />
Clopper, Lawrence. ''Drama, Play, and Game: English Festive Culture in the Medieval and Early Modern Period''. Chicago, 2001.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “The Chester Cycle in Sixteenth-Century Religious Culture," ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 37.3 (2007): 532-47.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. ''Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints: Theater, Gender, and Religion in Late Medieval England''. University of Pennsylvania, 2004.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Biblical Drama in Post-Apartheid South Africa: The Chester Plays in Afterlife.” ''Transformations in Biblical Literary Traditions: Incarnation, Narrative,'' ''and Ethics''. Eds. D.H. Williams and Philip Donnelly, Notre Dame University Press, 2014. 268-88.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Medieval Drama: 1191-1952.” ''Exemplaria'' 28.3 (2016): 264-76.<br />
<br />
Coletti, Theresa. “Reading REED: History and the Records of Early English Drama.” ''Literary Practice and Social Change in Britain, 1380-1530''. Ed. Lee Patterson, University of California Press, 1990. 248-84.<br />
<br />
Davidson, Clifford, ed. ''Gesture in Medieval Drama and Art''. Medieval Institute, 2001.<br />
<br />
Elliott, John R., Jr. ''Playing God: Medieval Mysteries on the Modern Stage''. University of Toronto Press, 1989.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard. “Dramatic History: On the Diachronic and Synchronic in the Study of Early English Drama.” ''Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' 35:1 (2005): 39-66.<br />
<br />
Emmerson, Richard K. “’Nowe Ys Common This Daye’: Enoch and Elias, Antichrist, and the Structure of the Chester Cycle.” ''Homo, Memento Finis: The Iconography of Just'' ''Judgment in Medieval Art and Drama''. Ed. David Bevington, et. al. Medieval Institute, 1985. 221-57.<br />
<br />
Enders, Jody. ''The Medieval Theater of Cruelty: Rhetoric, Memory, Violence.'' Cornell University Press, 2002.<br />
<br />
Gardiner, Harold. ''Mysteries’ End: An Investigation of the Last Days of the Medieval Religious Stage.'' Yale University Press, 1946.<br />
<br />
Hardison, O.B., Jr. ''Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages: Essays in the Origin and Early History of Modern Drama''. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965.<br />
<br />
Holsinger, Bruce. “Analytical Survey 6: Medieval Literature and Cultures of Performance.” ''New Medieval Literatures'' 6 (2003): 271-311.<br />
<br />
James, Mervyn. “Ritual, Drama, and Social Body in the Late Medieval Town.” ''Past & Present'' 98 (1983):3-29.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela, ed. ''The Routledge Research Companion to Early Drama and Performance.'' Routledge, 2017.<br />
<br />
King, Pamela. ''The York Mystery Cycle and the Worship of the City''. D.S. Breer, 2006.<br />
<br />
Kolve, V.A. ''The Play Called Corpus Christi.'' Stanford University Press, 1966.<br />
<br />
Lerud, Theodore. ''Memory, Images, and the English Corpus Christi Drama''. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Gender and Medieval Drama.'' D.S. Brewer, 2004.<br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Modern Mysteries: Contemporary Productions of Medieval English Dramas.'' D.S. Brewer, 2007. <br />
<br />
Normington, Katie. ''Medieval English Drama: Performance and Spectatorship.'' Polity Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Parker, Andrew, and Eve Kosofsky Sedwick, eds. ''Performativity and Performance.'' Routledge,1995.<br />
<br />
Ong, Walter. ''Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word.'' Methuen, 1982.<br />
<br />
Overlie, Mary. ''Standing in Space: The Six Viewpoints Theory and Practice''. Fallon Press, 2016.<br />
<br />
Rogerson, Margaret. ''Playing a Part in History: The York Mysteries, 1951-2006''. University of Toronto Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Sergi, Matthew. Work-in-progress on ''Play Texts and Public Practice in the Chester Cycle,'' c.1421-1607.<br />
<br />
Schreyer, Kurt. ''Shakespeare’s Medieval Craft: Memories of the Mysteries on the London Stage.'' Cornell University Press, 2014.<br />
<br />
Soleo-Shanks, Jenna. “Resurrecting Callimachus: Pop Music Puppets, and the Necessity of Performance in Teaching Medieval Drama." ''Teaching Medieval and Early Modern'' ''Cross-Cultural Encounters''. Eds. Karina F. Attar and Lynn Shutters, Palgrave Macmillan 2014. 199-213.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. “The Culture of the Spectator.” ''Theater Journal'' 34 (1992): 15-29.<br />
<br />
Sponsler, Claire. ''Ritual Imports: Performing Medieval Drama in America'', Cornell University Press, 2005.<br />
<br />
Stevens, Martin. ''Four Middle English Mystery Cycles.'' Princeton University Press, 1987.<br />
<br />
Stevenson, Jill. ''Performance, Cognitive Theory, and Devotional Culture: Sensual Piety in Late Medieval York.'' Palgrave MacMillan, 2010.<br />
<br />
Travis, Peter W. ''Dramatic Design in the Chester Cycle''. University of Chicago Press, 1982.<br />
<br />
Turner, Victor. ''From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play''. PAJ Books, 1982<br />
<br />
Westfall, Suzanne R. ''Patrons and Performance: Early Tudor Household Revels''. Clarendon Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
Continue on to ''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|Verba et Res]]''[[Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama|/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama]]: Lesson Plans 1 through 4.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Go to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
'''Page written by'''<br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler | Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28405Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-24T21:48:53Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|467x467px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|599x599px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|260x260px]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|left|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page of the ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary).]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
:<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
<br><br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|434x434px|right]]<br />
<br />
#A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools[<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.|left]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
<br><br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1.<br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century)<br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|614x614px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1)<br />
<br />
3. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|485x485px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380|left]]<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28389Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-24T15:39:15Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|467x467px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|599x599px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|400x400px]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|left|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page of the ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary).]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
:<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
# A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael|500x500px]]<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|332x332px|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1.<br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century)<br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|614x614px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1)<br />
<br />
3. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|485x485px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380|left]]<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBonohttps://folgerpedia.folger.edu/_mw/index.php?title=Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama&diff=28388Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama2018-03-24T15:31:53Z<p>BarbaraBono: </p>
<hr />
<div>This article is under construction. <br />
<br />
This article is the first of three installments of the Ten Performance-Based Lesson Plans for Medieval Theatre, as noted in the article [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy]], and is associated with the Folger Institute's 2016-2017 year-long colloquium on [[Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance (colloquium)|Teaching Medieval Drama and Performance]], which welcomed advanced scholars whose research and pedagogical practice explore historical, literary, and theoretical dimensions of medieval drama from the perspective of performance. <br />
<br />
As the title ''Verba et Res/Words and Things: The Speaking Picture of Medieval Drama'' suggests, this article focuses on a series of four performance-based lesson plans which build up from the rich relationship of word and thing in medieval drama. <br />
<br />
While these Lesson Plans for Medieval Drama are designed as a sequence to support extended work, they may also be sampled and adapted strategically for shorter teaching units. Suitable for all kinds of students from the novice to the budding professional, they follow the format of the famous Folger [[Shakespeare Set Free|''Shakespeare Set Free'']] teaching manuals, namely "What's On for Today and Why?," "What to Do?," and How'd It Go?" They offer some suggestions for how to capture the vitality of medieval drama in short time and limited space, and build on some of the best continuing scholarship in the field. They imply, as well, an on-going engagement in the developing interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies, which combines interest in the performing arts and literary theory with the fields of anthropology and sociology. <br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7. <br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plans 1 through 4 for Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy ==<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, the nave with its typological mosaics.JPG|thumb|Monreale Cathedral: the nave with its typological mosaics. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|467x467px]] <br />
<br />
In the Biblical account that underwrites medieval drama, God gave man the power of naming, and thus united words and things. But in the world we inhabit today, words are frequently separated from actions, and we are shy or disempowered, and read privately or do not know how to connect our words with what we do. <br />
<br />
In order to move toward a fully embodied understanding and performance of the speaking picture that is medieval drama it can be helpful initially to separate its forceful but often seemingly unfamiliar language from its physical embodiment as images and things, to detach these words and things at first from their plots so as to familiarize them through defamiliarization before reintegrating them as performance. <br />
<br />
Put simply, novice actors can speak, enjoy, and come to understand some words and phrases, or appreciate a concrete and symbolically-laden prop or a freeze-frame moment, as a preparation for integrating these words and things into a lively action. <br />
<br />
Try some of these exercises with your students, and see how they will begin to become comfortable with some of the key words and things informing medieval drama, and begin as well to bond together into a company of players. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 1: Playing around with medieval language ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Middle English is fun to speak, fuller-throated and not all that much different from our own language, once you recognize a few different alphabetic and spelling variations and simply decide that you’re going to deliver it as though it were being acted or declaimed. <br />
<br />
Here are some exercises which, when taken in conjunction with the excellent guidelines supplied in [[Medieval Drama and Language]], can get your students started on voicing some key medieval words and phrases, initially as a game—the medieval ''ludens''—apart from narrative or cultural context, but increasingly, through practice and discussion, ramifying into action and fuller meaning.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise A: Building and using the Medieval Insult and/or Compliment Game ===<br />
Everyone knows the “Shakespeare Insult Sheet,” which has a long and vibrant history both in print and online and has been successfully commercialized as a book, the Shakespeare Insult Generator, and even as an app! In its classic form, you choose one insulting noun from Column C, combine it with two insulting adjectives from Columns A and B, hurl amiably at a classmate, and then tolerate the return: e.g. “Thou fawning, dirt-rotten codpiece” is returned as “Thou unhandsome, sheep-biting pig-nut.” A Compliment Sheet is similar, but not nearly as much fun.<br />
<br />
But Shakespeare is hardly alone in plumbing the rich verbal traditions of invective and flattery, and you and your students can easily create a lexicon of insult or compliment for any medieval work or cluster of medieval works you plan to work on together. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, doing so together, in conjunction with the historical/lexical resources of the [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/# Middle English Dictionary], can help you understand issues of meaning and action which will blossom as you continue to read and perform.<br />
<br />
Below you will find two examples of such lists—[[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play Mankind |one of insult and one of compliment]]—culled from the broad and outrageous morality play ''Mankind'', where the genre’s personification and dramatization of virtuous and vicious behaviors creates a particularly rich lexical field for such a search. <br />
<br />
Create such an insult and/or compliment sheet from the text(s) you are considering, either by yourself as teacher or as a classroom/homework assignment. In class, get your students up on their feet and in a circle, and practice putting together and hurling these insults at each other from side-to-side, and—tossing a ball or a stuffed animal as a prompt—across and around the circle. <br />
<br />
After you’ve voiced the words for a while, discuss—if necessary looking them up—what they actually mean. Do we still use them today? Do they mean the same things then and now? Why would you speculate they have lived, changed, or died?<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can simply send your students on a word search for unusual or interesting words throughout the text that you are reading, compile those words into a list, and play the word-toss game, looking the words up and discussing their meaning as necessary.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
[[File:Medieval wall painting, St Michael and St Mary, Melbourne, Derbyshire.jpg|thumb|Medieval wall painting of the demon Titivillus, who introduces error into the work of scribes and features prominently in the morality play ''Mankind,'' St. Mary’s Church, Melbourne, Derbyshire|599x599px]]<br />
In both versions of the word-toss game the goal is simply to get students curious about unfamiliar or unusual language, for now quite apart from context or meaning, and to get them to enjoy voicing these words to each other. <br />
<br />
Students should get into the simple pleasure and power of directing the energy of sound and of language at each other, as a necessary prelude to interacting dramatically on stage and with an audience. They should savor the sound and force of these words, and become increasingly curious about their meaning. <br />
<br />
If you like, you can accompany this exercise with a homework assignment to discover or create a similar insult and/or compliment sheet from another medieval work or from modern materials.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? Exercise B: Tossing lines ===<br />
Take the word-toss game one step further by extracting and tossing brief and catchy lines from the work under consideration. On a set of cue cards write out (or have the students search and write out) a couple of dozen (depending on the size of your class perhaps as many as fifty) lines from the work, one per card, numbered by plot order. <br />
<br />
Have the students form a circle and distribute the lines sequentially around it. Initially have them randomize the voicing of their lines by having them speak them out—“loudly and proudly”—each time a ball or a stuffed animal thrown across or around the circle reaches them. <br />
<br />
Gradually encourage them to voice each other’s lines as they come to realize that they know them. If necessary, repeat with a second set of lines. <br />
<br />
After the students seem comfortable with their individual lines, pass the ball or stuffed animal around the circle sequentially from the first to the final number one or two times, and explain that, whether they realize it or not, they now have a preparatory overview of the plot of the entire work. <br />
<br />
Ask them to guess and query what the play seems to be about, and send them home to read it and be prepared for further enactment and discussion. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play Everyman | Sample text from ''Everyman''.]]<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should by now not be shy about voicing some unfamiliar words and reacting to prompts from their classmates. They should have begun to look at and to listen to each other, to bond together in seriousness and silliness. They should be ready to encounter this language in a private reading experience and have begun to imagine or speculate about the type of characters and story with which they are about to become involved.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 2: The twenty props you need to put on any medieval drama ==<br />
[[File:Monreale,_Noah_and_his_sons_build_the_ark.JPG|thumb|Noah and his sons build the ark. Mosaic. Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael.|400x400px]]<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
The drama teacher’s best asset for spontaneous in-class performance is a prop bag. Go to the dollar store, the party store, Goodwill, or your own closet or garage (don’t spend more than $20-$50 dollars!) and assemble your own bag of inexpensive props which you judge, based on your reading of the texts, will be of use for putting on medieval and early modern plays. <br />
<br />
No two prop bags will be the same, but we here include [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays | a list of twenty symbolically-suggestive props]] and [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” | some of the resonances they set up between the plays.]]<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
In class set this collection of props out on a long table.<br />
<br />
Take out the play or anthology of plays you will be working with, and have the students read their titles around the room. Based solely on these titles, prompt them to answer or speculate what the plays are about, and what props might be useful for putting them on. (If they have limited ideas, prompt and elaborate a bit from your own knowledge of the plays.) <br />
<br />
Divide the class into working groups of 3 to 5 students, assign each group a play, and invite them up to the front of the room to select those props which they think might be useful in staging their play.<br />
<br />
Have them split up into different areas of the room to begin to block out as a ''tableau vivant'' (a snapshot living picture made from their posed bodies) what they think is a central moment in the action of their play, complete with the relevant props.<br />
<br />
Have them reconvene as a group and show-and-tell each group’s ''tableau vivant''.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
The students should be intrigued, and should already begin to have some speculative sense (it’s OK for now if that sense is incorrect) of the possible action of each play and what it might look like. They should also have made a beginning in collaborating with—in playing creatively with—each other.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and begin the first reading assignment.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 3: Typology or medieval living history ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
[[File:Biblia pauperum (Resurrection).jpg|left|thumb|548x548px|The resurrection page of the ''Biblia Pauperum'' of Esztergom (Hungary).]]<br />
Acquaint your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible, where Old Testament events are held to prefigure New Testament ones as type to antitype. <br />
<br />
Show how these correspondences organize much of the artistic representation in medieval ecclesiastical art, religious poetry, and biblical drama—particularly the pageants in the biblical “Creation” to “Last Judgement” cycles. <br />
<br />
(So, for example, God’s willingness to save Noah and his family in the wooden Ark was seen as a type or prefiguration of Jesus’ willingness to save mankind on the wooden cross; or Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac was seen as a type or prefiguration of God’s willingness to sacrifice his only son; or Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary was seen as the reversal of the serpent’s temptation of Eve—Eva/Ave—or the dew of the Psalms was seen as a prefiguration or type of the Annunciation.)<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Review the basic theory of Biblical typology and some of its key examples. (Chapter Four, “Corpus Christi Form: Principles of Selection,” in V.A. Kolve’s 1966 ''The Play Called'' ''Corpus Christi'', pp. 57-100, and especially the diagram on page 85, offers the classic exposition of this theory.) <br />
<br />
Show the students some major visual examples of this thinking, from the 12th through to the 16th centuries. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some visual examples of biblical typology | Some visual examples of biblical typology]].<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
Ideally the students should now have a sense of these religious stories as organized visually, and should be becoming more visually alert.<br />
<br />
Have them go home and conclude a reading assignment that links a pageant from the Old Testament—for example a Noah or an Abraham and Isaac play with a New Testament play, for example, the Crucifixion. <br />
<br />
Based on their reading to date, ask them also to sketch their own panel for a modern ''Biblia Pauperum,'' flanking a central image from a New Testament story with typological prefigurations from two Old Testament stories.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, ask them to be typological illustrators of some aspect of their own personal history or of present-day events, flanking some event from their own lives or from the present day with what might be argued to be two typological prefigurations of it: for example, an image of their own pet bracketed by images of two previously-loved earlier family pets; or a picture from their own current living space bracketed by images of previous homes; or a picture of themselves bracketed by earlier family portraits; or an echoed historical or political event like presidential inaugurations or assassinations. What story/ stories do these linked images tell?<br />
<br />
If these triptychs are effective, consider some way to make them continuously visible to the class as a whole--for example, as blown-up images or an online photo gallery--as an aid to further narrative building, as in the later lessons below.<br><br />
<br />
== Lesson Plan 4: Typology or medieval living history and ''tableau vivant'' ==<br />
<br />
=== What’s On for Today and Why? ===<br />
Bring the prop bag to class again, and have it at the ready.<br />
<br />
Continue acquainting your students with the basic theory of Biblical typology—that God “writes” the creation and events of human history and also provides a partial record of them in the Bible—and move to showing how by developing some tableaux vivants to illustrate key typological turning points in the biblical cycle plays that they have read.<br />
<br />
=== What to Do? ===<br />
Have them read out loud and analyze several [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Three typological poems and some dramatic applications |key lyric poems from the 12th through to the 16th centuries]] which illustrate typology, and imagine their possible analogues and application in some early English plays.<br />
<br />
Now distribute brief texts from key turning points in a variety of cycle plays to working groups of four, five, or six students, where one student in each group will be the reader/chanter, one will be the sculptor, and the remaining students will be the blocks of marble which will form the characters in the tableaux vivants. While the chanter reads out the marked passage, the sculptor works on the bodies of the blocks of stone until she had a satisfying tableau vivant, a sculpted representation of a key typological moment. After the students have done this as groups, reconvene as a class and have each group show their tableau vivant—now with props added if they wish—to the class as a whole. <br />
<br />
Take photographs of each tableau vivant, and post them around the room or in the course electronic archive to serve as a record and a kind of preliminary story-board for a more extensive possible production. [[Verba_et_Res/Words_and_Things:_The_Speaking_Picture_of_Medieval_Drama#Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays | Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical plays.]]<br />
<br />
NB: This exercise can also be adapted to the episodes of any medieval play or set of plays.<br />
<br />
=== How’d It Go? ===<br />
With the first round of reading done, a formal and structural outline in place, some historical context provided, and a beginning awareness of the conjunction of words and things in medieval drama, students should be ready and eager for some selective re-reading and the move, in the next round of classes, to more dynamic acting of these plays.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
== Support materials for lesson plans 1 through 4 ==<br />
<br />
=== An insult and compliment sheet derived from the medieval morality play ''Mankind'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
Insults:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Criminous<br />
|<br />
|Obsequious <br />
|<br />
|Beast<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Culpable<br />
|<br />
|Odible<br />
|<br />
|Caitiff<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cunning<br />
|<br />
|Perversious<br />
|<br />
|Clerk<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Cursed<br />
|<br />
|Shrewd<br />
|<br />
|Devil<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Demonical<br />
|<br />
|Sinful<br />
|<br />
|Dunghill<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Detestible<br />
|<br />
|Stinking<br />
|<br />
|Sinner<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Dispectuous<br />
|<br />
|Uncourteous<br />
|<br />
|Transgressor<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Inconsiderate<br />
|<br />
|Unthrifty<br />
|<br />
|Turd<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lecherous<br />
|<br />
|Venomous<br />
|<br />
|Wretch<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Lewd<br />
|<br />
|Wanton<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
Compliments:<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!<br />
!Column A <br />
!<br />
!Column B <br />
!<br />
!Column C <br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Blessed<br />
|<br />
|Precious<br />
|<br />
|Lord<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Courteous<br />
|<br />
|Predilect<br />
|<br />
|Master<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Delectable<br />
|<br />
|Preponent<br />
|<br />
|Savior<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Glorious<br />
|<br />
|Seemly<br />
|<br />
|Sovereign<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Mellifluous<br />
|<br />
|Steadfast<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<br />
|Merry<br />
|<br />
|Suavious<br />
|<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some arresting lines from the medieval morality play ''Everyman'' ===<br />
''Everyman and Mankind''. Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen. Methuen Drama, 2009.<br />
<br />
:[[File:Everyman first page.jpg|thumb| Frontispiece from edition of ''Everyman'' published by John Sklot c. 1530. |756x756px]]<br />
:By figure a moral play. <br />
: <br />
:Man, in the beginning<br />
:Look well and take good heed of the ending.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger?<br />
<br />
:Go thou to Everyman<br />
:And show him, in my name,<br />
:A pilgrimage he must on him take . . .<br />
<br />
:Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going<br />
:Thus gaily? Hast thou thy maker forgot?<br />
<br />
:A reckoning he will needs have<br />
:Without any longer respite.<br />
<br />
:Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind!<br />
<br />
:Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,<br />
:But haste thee lightly that thou wert gone that journey,<br />
:And prove thy friends if thou can.<br />
<br />
:To whom were I best my complaint to make?<br />
:What if I to Fellowship thereof spake . . .<br />
<br />
:I will not go that loathsome journey.<br />
:And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer<br />
:Or haunt to women the lusty company,<br />
:I would not forsake you while the day is clear.<br />
<br />
:But an thou will murder any man or kill,<br />
:In that will I help thee with a good will.<br />
<br />
:To my kinsmen I will, truly,<br />
:Praying then to help me in my necessity.<br />
:I believe that they will do so,<br />
:For kind will creep where it may not go.<br />
<br />
:No, by our Lady, I have a cramp in my toe.<br />
<br />
:Lo, fair words maketh fooles fain.<br />
<br />
:Where art thou, my goods and riches?<br />
:I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,<br />
:And in chests I am locked so fast,<br />
:Also sacked in bags.<br />
<br />
:For it is said ever among<br />
:That “Money maketh all right that is wrong.”<br />
<br />
:My condition is man’s soul to kill,<br />
:If I save one, a thousand I do spill.<br />
<br />
:Marry, thou brought thyself in care,<br />
:Whereof I am glad.<br />
:I must needs laugh; I cannot be sad.<br />
<br />
:Oh, to whom shall I make my moan<br />
:For to go with me I that heavy journey?<br />
<br />
:I go to my Good Deed.<br />
:But alas, she is so weak<br />
:That she can neither go nor speak.<br />
<br />
:. . . I cannot stand, verily.<br />
:[But] I have a sister that shall with you also,<br />
:Called Knowledge . . .<br />
<br />
:Now go we together lovingly<br />
:To Confession, that cleansing river.<br />
<br />
:Lo, this is Confession. Kneel down and ask mercy.<br />
<br />
:And a precious jewel I will give thee<br />
:Called penance, voider of adversity.<br />
<br />
:Here shall you receive that scourge of me,<br />
:Which is penance strong that ye must endure.<br />
<br />
:I thank God, now I can walk and go,<br />
:And am delivered of my sickness and woe.<br />
<br />
:Put on this garment to thy behoof,<br />
:Which is wet with thy tears . . . .<br />
:Contrition it is.<br />
<br />
:Thou must lead with thee<br />
:Three persons of great might . . . .<br />
:Discretion and Strength they hight,<br />
:And thy Beauty may not abide behind.<br />
<br />
:Also, ye must call to mind<br />
:Your Five Wits for your counsellors.<br />
<br />
:Go to Priesthood, I you advise,<br />
:And receive of him in any wise<br />
:The holy sacrament and ointment together.<br />
<br />
:Alas, I am so faint I may not stand.<br />
:My limbs under me do fold.<br />
<br />
:What? Into this grave? Alas!<br />
<br />
:Oh, all thing faileth, save God alone—<br />
:Beauty, Strength and Discretion—<br />
:For when Death bloweth his blast,<br />
:They all run from me fast.<br />
<br />
:All fleeth save Good Deeds, and that am I.<br />
<br />
:Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend.<br />
<br />
:Come excellent elect spouse, to Jesu . . . .<br />
:Thy reckoning is crystal clear.<br />
:<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== A list of 20 symbolically-suggestive props, and some of the resonances they set up in early plays ===<br />
# A number of nimbuses or halos cut from golden cardboard or looped from golden rope for divine interventions such as creation, expulsion, annunciation, and saints and miracle plays<br />
# Some crowns for kings and tyrants<br />
# A set of inexpensive costume-store blank masks, some white, some black, to signify, problematize, and critique conflicts between “good” and “evil”<br />
# A small decorated box, for secrets and gifts<br />
# A scroll and a bound book, for letters, notes, and reading<br />
# A hoe, for digging and delving<br />
# A staff, for old age and as a weapon<br />
[[File:Monreale Cathedral, Adam and Eve after the fall.JPG|thumb|Adam and Eve laboring after the fall. In the words of the medieval Lollard preacher John Ball, “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who then was the gentleman?” Mosaic, Monreale Cathedral. Photo by Nicholas DiMichael]]<br />
# Some (bloody) fake daggers (we like the hollow plastic ones that bleed down when you tip them!) to maim and to kill<br />
# In place of fake swords, some foam pool noodles cut in two for dueling and fights (you can advance to fake swords if you have some experience as a fight coach, but we prefer the pool noodles because they are safe, cheap, and funny—everyone enjoys mixing it up with them!)<br />
# A knotted length of rope for whipping, tying up, and torture<br />
# A couple of silly hats or caps for fools<br />
# A couple of cheap tankards for eating and drinking<br />
# A couple of flat white sheets for ghosts, corpses, togas, etc., and for drawing symbolic maps with permanent marker on which to play or block your action<br />
# A sky blue shawl for the Blessed Virgin Mary and other virtuous ladies (and consider some red ones for the not-so-virtuous) <br />
# A figured scarf for a lady’s favor<br />
# Some pairs of gloves to drop in flirtation or in knightly challenge<br />
# A baby doll(s) and/or a/some fun stuffed animals, swaddled, to play around with<br />
# A bottle of fake blood for all sorts of ghastly good reasons<br />
# A couple of pieces of jewelry, like a gaudy ring, gold chain(s), a heart-shaped token, a cross, to serve as gifts, status signifiers, tokens of fidelity<br />
# A skull or a death’s head, to remind us!<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== Some instructive examples that illustrate the enduring sacramental/symbolic resonances of these “things” ===<br />
[[File:Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.jpg|thumb|332x332px|Horatio strung up in his father’s garden like Christ on the cross, frontispiece to Thomas Kyd, ''The Spanish'' ''Tragedy'', 1615.]]<br />
* The knotted rope has proved grimly useful for both Crucifixion plays and for stringing up Horatio in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster ''The Spanish Tragedy''<br />
* The sky blue shawl has signified for Annunciation and Incarnation plays, but has also suggested the sacred dimensions of the sexual politics in Shakespeare’s ''Measure for Measure''<br />
* A child’s favorite stuffed hippo has just the shape to suggest Mary’s sudden miraculous baby bump at the Annunciation and to double for both the demon sheep baby and the swaddled Christ child in the Wakefield “Second Shepherds’ Play”<br />
* The fools’ caps and ladies’ favors endure as signs of transience and folly from ''Everyman'' and ''Mankind'' to Shakespeare’s ''1 Henry IV'', ''Othello'', and Ben Jonson’s city comedies<br />
* The gloves can stand for other courtly favors and as chivalric gages, and find their absurdist climax in the inconclusive challenges that directly precede the deposition of the anointed king in Shakespeare’s ''Richard II, 4.1''<br />
* The skull grins over Everyman, and any number of ''memento mori'' moments in sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century drama, most famously the gravediggers’ scene (5.1) in ''Hamlet.''<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== Some visual examples of biblical typology ===<br />
In church art:<br />
* The program of the late 12th-century mosaics—the central image of Christo Pantocratore, Christ the creator of all things, and the typologically-organized images which flow from it—at the [http://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/5monreal/#Cathedral Cathedral of Monreale] in Sicily.<br />
* Or the [http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/virtual-tour/index.html#stained-glass window program at King’s College, Cambridge]. <br />
<br />
In print:<br />
* The iconographic program of the late 15th century block book ''The Biblia Pauperum'' ([http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/ht24wj49c#digitized version of Princeton’s copy]) with its triptych organization of a key New Testament event bracketed by two Old Testament typological anticipations and four prophecies of it.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
=== Three typological poems and some dramatic applications ===<br />
<br />
1.<br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 13<sup>th </sup>century)<br />
<br />
:Nou goth sonne under wode<br />
:Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.<br />
:Nou goth soone under tree,<br />
:Me reweth, Maria, thy sone and thee.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval passion plays, but also Hieronimo’s paternal lament in Thomas Kyd’s c. 1584 ''The Spanish Tragedy'': “But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?/ A man hang’d up and all the murd’rers gone!/ And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!/ This place was made for pleasure, not for death.” (2.5)<br />
<br />
2. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(Anonymous, 15<sup>th</sup> century)<br />
<br />
:[[File:BibliaPauperum.jpg|thumb|614x614px|Page from a 15<sup>th</sup> century ''Biblia Pauperum'' showing the Annunciation prefigured by the Serpent’s Temptation of Eve (left) and the Angel and Gideon’s fleece (right)]]I syng of a mayden<br />
:That is makeles,<br />
:King of alle kings<br />
:To here sone che chees.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder was<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That fallyt on the gras.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:To his modres bowr<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the flowr.<br />
<br />
:He cam also stille<br />
:Ther his moder lay<br />
:As dew in Aprylle,<br />
:That falleth on the spray.<br />
<br />
:Moder & mayden<br />
:Was nevere noon but she:<br />
:Well may swich a lady<br />
:Godes moder be.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Medieval Annunciation plays, but also Portia’s speech in the court from William<br />
Shakespeare’s ''The Merchant of Venice'':<br />
“The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from<br />
heaven/ Upon the place beneath.” (4.1)<br />
<br />
3. <br />
<br />
'''Poem '''(George Herbert, 1593-1633)<br />
<br />
:Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,<br />
:And the configurations of their glory!<br />
:Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,<br />
:But all the constellations of the story.<br />
:This verse marks that, and both do make a motion<br />
:Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:<br />
:Then as dispersed herbs do watch a poition,<br />
:These three make up some Christian's destiny:<br />
:Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,<br />
:And comments on thee: for in ev'ry thing<br />
:Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring,<br />
:And in another make me understood.<br />
:Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss:<br />
:This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.<br />
<br />
'''Application:'''<br />
<br />
Early 16<sup>th</sup> century sonnet illustrating the entire theory of biblical theology in application to the believing Christian.<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=== Some possible moments to sculpt from the English biblical play ===<br />
* The (prat)fall of Lucifer<br />
* The creation of Adam and Eve<br />
* The snake tempting Adam and Eve<br />
* The expulsion from Eden and bodily shame<br />
* Cain slaying Abel with the chavel-bone<br />
[[File:1024px-Andrea di Bartolo - Massacre of the Innocents - Walters 371018.jpg|thumb|485x485px|''The Massacre of the Innocents'' by Andrea De Bartolo and Bartolo de Fredi, c. 1380|left]]<br />
* Noah’s wife refusing to go into the Ark for the sake of her gossips<br />
* Abraham, Isaac, and the Angel “holding” the stroke<br />
* The Angel Gabriel announcing Mary’s pregnancy and Joseph troubled by it<br />
* The revelation of Mak and Gil’s sheep demon baby and the nativity of Christ<br />
* Herod raging on the pageant cart and in the street<br />
* Herod’s soldier slaying the innocents and their mothers resisting them<br />
* Jesus, the Pharisees, and the woman taken in adultery<br />
* Christ stretched on the cross<br />
* Jesus harrowing hell<br />
* “Quem quaeritas”: The angel and the three women at Jesus’s tomb<br />
* The judgement seat of Christ<br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
Go to [[Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy|Medieval Drama and Performance-Based Pedagogy.]]<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Setting the Medieval Stage]]: Lesson Plans 5 through 7.<br />
<br />
Continue on to [[Performing Medieval Drama: Audiences, Communities, and Adaptations]]: Lesson Plans 8 through 10.<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Page written by''' <br />
<br />
[[Barbara J. Bono]], University at Buffalo, SUNY <br />
<br />
[[Maria Horne|Maria S. Horne]], University at Buffalo, SUNY<br />
<br />
[[Michelle Butler| Michelle Markey Butler]], University of Maryland<br />
<br />
[[Category: Folger Institute]] <br />
[[Category: Scholarly programs]] <br />
[[Category: Program archive]] <br />
[[Category: Colloquium]] <br />
[[Category: Medieval Drama]]<br />
[[Category: Medieval]] <br />
[[Category: Drama]] <br />
[[Category: Performance]] <br />
[[Category: 2016-2017]]</div>BarbaraBono