Mystery play

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For the graphic novella, see The Mystery Play.

Depiction of a performance of the Mystery Play of Saint Clement in Metz during the Middle Ages.

Mystery plays and miracle plays (they are distinguished as two different forms although the terms are often used interchangeably

craft guilds.[5]

Origins

Mystery play, Flanders, 15th century

As early as the fifth century, living tableaux were introduced into sacred services.[6] The plays originated as simple tropes, verbal embellishments of liturgical texts, and slowly became more elaborate. At an early period chants from the service of the day were added to the prose dialogue. As these liturgical plays increased in popularity, vernacular forms emerged, and travelling companies of actors and theatrical productions became common in the later Middle Ages.

The Quem quaeritis? is the best known early form of the dramas. It is a schematic dialogue between the angel at the tomb of Christ and the women who are seeking his dead body.[6] Early forms of the responsorium were later elaborated with dialogue and dramatic action. Early performances were given in Latin, and were preceded by a vernacular prologue spoken by a herald who gave a synopsis of the events. The writers and directors of the earliest plays were probably monks or clerics.

In 1210, suspicious of the growing popularity of miracle plays,

Wakefield Cycle
. Acting and characterization became more elaborate.

These vernacular religious performances were, in some of the larger cities in England such as York, performed and produced by guilds, with each guild taking responsibility for a particular piece of scriptural history. From the guild control originated the term mystery play or mysteries, from the Latin ministerium meaning "occupation" (i.e. that of the guilds). The genre was again banned as a result of the Reformation and the establishment of the Church of England in 1534.

The mystery play developed, in some places, into a series of plays dealing with major events in the Christian calendar, from the Creation to the Day of Judgment. By the end of the 15th century, the practice of acting these plays in cycles on festival days was established in several parts of Europe. Sometimes, each play was performed on a decorated pageant cart that moved about the city to allow different crowds to watch each play.[7] The entire cycle could take up to twenty hours to perform and could be spread over a number of days. Taken as a whole, these are referred to as Corpus Christi cycles. These cycles were often performed during the Feast of Corpus Christi.[8]

The plays were performed by a combination of clerics and amateurs and were written in highly elaborate stanza forms; they were often marked by extravagant sets and special effects, but could also be stark and intimate. There was a wide variety of theatrical and poetic styles, even in a single cycle of plays.

English mystery plays

Two Players of St. Peter portraying Adam and Eve

There are four complete or nearly complete extant English biblical collections of plays.

Saint Paul exist. Besides the Middle English drama, there are a few surviving plays in Cornish: namely, the Ordinalia (which is a cycle of three plays) and Pascon Agan Aruth which both tell biblical stories, and Bewnans Ke and Bewnans Meriasek
, which tell the stories of the lives of saints.

These biblical plays differ widely in content. Most contain episodes such as the Fall of Lucifer, the Creation and Fall of Man, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Flood, Abraham and Isaac, the Nativity, the Raising of Lazarus, the Passion, and the Resurrection. Other pageants included the story of Moses, the Procession of the Prophets, Christ's Baptism, the Temptation in the Wilderness, and the Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin. In given cycles, the plays came to be sponsored by the newly emerging Medieval

St Katherine Cree on Leadenhall Street, London was the location of miracle plays from the tenth to the sixteenth century. Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London (c 1500 - 1569) stopped this in 1542.[13]

Spanish mystery plays

The

Elx (also known as Elche). The prohibition of theatrical plays in churches by the Council of Trent eventually threatened to interrupt the yearly performance of the Misteri, but in 1632 Pope Urban VIII
issued a special permit for its continuation. In 2001, UNESCO declared it one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

The oldest liturgical drama (12th century) written already in old Spanish language was a codex found in the library of the Toledo Cathedral. The Auto de los Reyes Magos belongs to the Christmas cycle. It is a play about the Biblical Magi, three wise men from the East who followed a star and visited the baby Jesus in Bethlehem.[14] It is believed to have been based on an earlier liturgical Latin play written in France.[15]

Miracle play

Miracle plays, or Saint's plays, are now distinguished from mystery plays as they specifically re-enacted miraculous interventions by the

Robert Chambers, writing in the 19th century, notes that "especially in England, miracle [came] to stand for religious play in general".[17]

plain-an-gwarrys.[18] To capture the attention of the audience, "the plays were often noisy, bawdy and entertaining".[19]

Modern performances

Mystery plays are still produced regularly throughout the

Lincoln mystery plays,[21] and in 1994 the Lichfield Mysteries were revived (now the biggest community theatre event in the United Kingdom).[22]

In 1977 the

Wakefield Cycle and others.[23] It was revived in 1985 (whereupon the production was filmed for Channel 4 Television), and again as a part of the theatre's millennium celebration in 2000.[24] The productions won Bill Bryden the Best Director title in both the 1985 Evening Standard Theatre Awards and the 1985 Laurence Olivier Awards, the year the three plays first appeared together in performance at the Lyceum Theatre.[25]

In 2001, the Isango Ensemble produced an African version of the Chester Cycle at the Garrick Theatre in London as The Mysteries – Yiimimangaliso, performing in a combination of the Xhosa language, the Zulu language, English, Latin, and Afrikaans. They revived an adapted version of the production at Shakespeare's Globe in 2015 as The Mysteries.[26] In 2004, two mystery plays (one focusing on the Creation and the other on the Passion) were performed at Canterbury Cathedral, with actor Edward Woodward in the role of God. The large cast also included Daniel MacPherson, Thomas James Longley and Joseph McManners.[27]

See also

References

  1. ^ 'Properly speaking, Mysteries deal with Gospel events only). Miracle Plays, on the other hand, are concerned with incidents derived from the legends of the saints of the Church.' Ward, Augustus William (1875). History of English dramatic literature. London, England: Macmillan.
  2. ^ "Vernacular Drama | Medieval Drama." Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 27 May 2013. Web. 7 February 2015.
  3. ^ "Emergency Lesson Plan Medieval Theatre: Mystery, Miracle, Morality". Archived from the original on 8 February 2015. Retrieved 8 February 2015.
  4. ^ "mystery, n1 9". Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. December 2009.
  5. OCLC 249158675
    .
  6. ^ a b Bellinger, Martha Fletcher, "A Thousand Years Of Quiescence And The Beginnings Of Sacred Drama", A Short History of the Drama, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1927. pp. 115-21
  7. ^ "Mystery Play | Dramatic Genre." Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 27 May 2013. Web. 6 February 2015.
  8. ^ Windeatt, Barry. "Medieval Imaginations: Literature & Visual Culture in the Middle Ages." Medieval Imaginations: Literature & Visual Culture in the Middle Ages. University of Cambridge, n.d. Web. 7 February 2015.
  9. ^ Windeatt, Barry. "Medieval Imaginations: Literature & Visual Culture in the Middle Ages." Medieval Imaginations: Literature & Visual Culture in the Middle Ages. University of Cambridge, n.d. Web. 7 February 2015. [1]
  10. ISBN 0853435499
    .
  11. ISBN 9780300106367
    .
  12. ^ Anonymous. The Towneley plays (line 454) Archived 30 August 2002 at the Wayback Machine
  13. ^ "The London Burial Grounds: Notes on their History from the Earliest Times to the Present Day -Mrs. Basil Holmes (St Katherine Cree)". Londoncemeteries.co.uk. Archived from the original on 11 February 2021. Retrieved 16 April 2012.
  14. ^ "Liturgical drama: Definition from". Answers.com. Retrieved 16 April 2012.
  15. ^ Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Spanish Language and Literature" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  16. ^ "mystery play". Encyclopædia Britannica.
  17. ISBN 978-0-226-11030-1
    .
  18. JSTOR 30087876
    . Retrieved 12 August 2021.
  19. ^ St Just Plain-an-Gwarry. Archived 5 September 2012 at the Wayback Machine Historic Cornwall. Retrieved 23 September 2012.
  20. ^ Rogerson, Margaret. The Plays and the Guilds Archived 1 November 2015 at the Wayback Machine, York Mystery Plays
  21. ISBN 978-1-84384-128-9
    .
  22. ^ Lichfield Mysteries: Home Page, archived from the original on 21 November 2010, retrieved 28 January 2011
  23. ^ Dodsworth, Martin (9 January 2009). "A poet in the land of as if". the Guardian. Retrieved 23 December 2022.
  24. ISBN 0-571-13790-3
    .
  25. ^ Shakespeare's Globe. The Globe Mysteries. 2011
  26. ^ Shakespeare's Globe. The Isango Ensemble Mysteries Archived 1 December 2016 at the Wayback Machine 2015
  27. ^ BBC News. Revival of Medieval Mystery Plays. Thursday, 5 August 2004,
  • Anderson Magalhães, Le Comédies bibliques di Margherita di Navarra, tra evangelismo e mistero medievale, in La mujer: de los bastidores al proscenio en el teatro del siglo XVI, ed. de I. Romera Pintor y J. L. Sirera, Valencia, Publicacions de la Universitat de València, 2011, pp. 171–201.

External links

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