Morality plays

Morality plays:
  • Type of allegory
  • Protagonist is met by personifications of various moral attributed
  • Antagonist try to prompt protagonist to choose between good and evil
  • Most popular during Europe 15th and 16th centuries

Two forms morality plays:
  • Episodic
Journey of life until Day of Judgement
  • Specific
Specific point of life/age
One of the most famous morality plays:
  • Everyman
  • Specific age or journey
  • Everyman is summoned by Death
  • To make his finals Books of Accounts
  • In order to present it before God
  • Everyman is abandoned by his untrue friends
  • Salvation lies only in his own Good Deeds


Rome were at first very powerful and had organized armies, their territories became larger so it was harder to protect so many tribes fought with them and they couldn't protect their territory and lost their battle and eventually rome ‘fell”
Most of the population were illiterate, the church figured out if they use theatre they could educate the people about the bible and so on, they realized it was a useful tool to communicate to the masses

Performers would travel around and improvise wherever they went as the didn't have much with them, the church said that theatre could continue but only if it was religious in nature

This was a period of about 1000 years   
Because they didn't have bibles and couldn't read, the priests acted out stories from the bible

Christmas time: reenacted story of jesus
Easter time: resurrection
Evolved to include important events like noah's arc, cane and able

Other theatrical practices involved Streets players, jugglers, acrobats and animal trainer

The catholic and christian church wanted to eradicate superstition
It evolved to performances In religious holidays and seasonal festivals, as well as choirs
In spain, italy, and south american countries still create massive reenactments of crucifixion  
There was some dilemma as the value of these dramatic interpretations, they would think if they should be doing this, is it suitable, but the people wanted these performances to go on and it attracted many people
People would start to give more money to allow these plays to develop, and became very popular like a new movie coming out.
They elaborated over time and included sub plots and elements of humor, the wagons stored scenery and dressing room space for actors, etc.

People would give money to stand at the front to get a good view

They created more permanent locations for dramatic performances, and would have an elevated area representing heaven and a lower area representing hell, it was known as the hellmouth, which was the most popular part of the stage because it had special effects and the crowd loves it

They ended up with mystery plays and miracle plays

By the end of this time theatre had reestablished itself as an important part of society

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 5, 2017 at 4:03 AM

    This is a strong introduction and I like that you have included images to support your notes as well as links to relevant sources; you should continue to do this and remember that you can enhance the information you gather with your own independent research into a specific area that might interest you.

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