"The category of 'medieval theatre' is vast, covering dramatic performance in Europe over a thousand-year period."
The emergence of theater in medieval Europe, with a focus on the development of mystery plays, morality plays, and miracle plays, as well as their relationship to religious and cultural traditions.
Church Drama: The emergence of religious drama and its significance in medieval society, including liturgical drama, mystery plays, and miracle plays.
Morality Plays: Plays that teach moral lessons in allegorical form, often featuring personified virtues and vices.
Farces: Short comedic plays often satirizing societal norms and conventions.
Secular Theater: The emergence of non-religious plays and playwrights, including the rise of the professional actor and theater companies.
Performance Spaces: The evolution of theaters and performance spaces throughout the medieval period, including outdoor stages, church interiors, and purpose-built theaters.
Mystery Cycles: Elaborate productions that included a series of plays depicting biblical stories, often performed on carts or wagons and moving through the streets of towns and cities.
Pageant Wagons: The mobile stages used in mystery cycles and other traveling productions.
Playwrights: The most important medieval playwrights, including Hrotsvitha, Adam de la Halle, and John Heywood.
The Rise of Drama: The cultural and social factors that contributed to the emergence of drama in medieval Europe, including changes in religious practice, the popularity of courtly love, and the influence of classical theater.
Regional Differences: Variations in the style and content of medieval theater across different regions of Europe, including France, England, and Italy.
Mystery Plays: Mystery Plays were a form of medieval theater that depicted biblical stories and events, often performed in cycles and involving the community.
Miracle Plays: Miracle plays were religious dramas performed in medieval times that depicted biblical stories and miracles, often highlighting the lives of saints and emphasizing moral lessons.
Morality Plays: Morality plays were theatrical performances in medieval times that aimed to teach moral lessons through allegorical characters and their struggles between good and evil.
Cycle Plays: Cycle plays were a series of medieval theatrical productions that depicted biblical stories chronologically, aiming to educate, entertain, and engage audiences by presenting a comprehensive narrative of Christian history.
Interludes: Interludes in Medieval Theater refer to short dramatic performances or entertainment pieces that were performed between the acts of larger, more serious plays.
Pageant Wagons: Pageant wagons were mobile stages used in Medieval theater performances, typically consisting of a platform mounted on a wagon that moved from one location to another to present different scenes or acts.
Mummers plays: Mummers plays are traditional medieval performances characterized by comedic and often improvised skits, primarily performed during the Christmas season with actors often wearing masks and costumes.
Court Masques: Court Masques were lavish and elaborate performances, often held at royal courts in medieval Europe, that combined elements of theater, music, dance, and visual arts to entertain and celebrate important occasions.
Passion Plays: Passion plays refer to theatrical productions depicting the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, often staged during the medieval period.
Liturgical Plays: Liturgical plays were religious performances enacted during the medieval period as part of liturgical ceremonies to educate and entertain audiences about biblical stories and Christian teachings.
Folk Plays: Folk Plays in Performing Arts and Medieval Theater refer to traditional theatrical performances, often enacted by local communities, which incorporated elements of comedy, music, and dance to depict stories derived from folklore and legends.
Guild Plays: Guild plays were medieval theatrical performances staged by professional guilds, focused on biblical themes and performed in cycles, depicting the creation of the world to the Last Judgment.
Secular Plays: Secular plays in Medieval Theater refer to performances that were not religious in nature and instead focused on secular themes and stories.
Farces: Farces were comedic plays in medieval theater characterized by their slapstick humor, physical comedy, and absurd situations.
Comedies: Comedies in Medieval Theater were lighthearted and humorous theatrical performances that often featured satire and slapstick comedy.
Tragedies: Tragedies in Medieval Theater refer to theatrical performances characterized by serious and sorrowful themes, depicting the downfall or suffering of the protagonist.
"A broad spectrum of genres needs to be considered, including mystery plays, morality plays, farces and masques."
"The themes were almost always religious."
"The most famous examples are the English cycle dramas, the York Mystery Plays, the Chester Mystery Plays, the Wakefield Mystery Plays, and the N-Town Plays, as well as the morality play known as Everyman."
"One of the first surviving secular plays in English is The Interlude of the Student and the Girl (c. 1300)."
"Due to a lack of surviving records and texts, low literacy in the general population, and the opposition of the clergy, there are few surviving sources from the Early and High Medieval periods."
"However, by the late period, performances began to become more secularized; larger number of records survive."