Richard Beadle

The theatricality of medieval English plays

Medieval plays were not written for the theatre. They were put on in city streets, in churches, on playing fields, in college halls and in private houses, and they exploited each of these venues in its own distinctive way. The shape and acoustics of the venue, the skills of the actors, the nature of the audience and of the occasion, all presented certain constraints and certain opportunities. Add to this a variety of types of subject matter, and we have not one but a whole range of theatricalities. Plays are for performing, and one recent branch of medieval theatre research has specialised in the informed ‘recreation’ of medieval performance conditions. This has been an eye-opening and salutary exercise. Because medieval theatre is so different from modern commercial theatre both in setting and intention, we modern investigators have had to break down our prejudices about the practical limits of staging and acting style. We have discovered, among other things, that actors can perform on a stage eight feet by ten feet; that twenty-foot-high pageant wagons are not necessarily doomed to overbalance; that long rhetorical speeches are not by definition ‘boring’; that spectacle can speak more strongly than words; that it is possible to look the audience full in the face. Above all we have learnt to trust the plays themselves: that if we take them seriously as theatre, they will work. Medieval theatre has emerged not as childlike or primitive, but as different, and often highly sophisticated.

The Revels History of Drama in English. Volume I: Medieval Drama@@@York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling

The Barkers - The Fall of Angels The Coopers - The Fall of Man The Shipwrights - The Building of the Ark The Fishers and Mariners - The Flood The Hosiers - Moses and Pharaoh The Pewterers and Founders - Josephs Trouble about Mary The Tilethatchers - The Nativity The Masons The Goldsmiths - Herod and The Magi The Marshals - The Flight into Egypt The Girdlers and Nailers - The Slaughter of the Innocents The Smiths - The Temptation The Skinners - The Entry into Jerusalem The Cutlers - The Conspiricy The Bowers and Fletchers - Christ before Annas and Caiaphas The Tapiters and Couchers - Christ before Pilate The Litsters - Christ before Herod The Tilemakers - Christ before Pilate (2) The Pinners - The Crucifixion The Butchers - The Death of Christ The Saddlers - The Harrowing of Hell The Carpenters - The Resurrection The Mercers - The Last Judgement