THEATER THAT MOVED
When the Christian dramas moved out of churches, they kept moving -- actually moving on wheels.
The Pageant play, enacted on "pageant cars," might remind us of a parade today. Not only in the design of the moving stages, but in the communal quality of the plays. As Nagler writes, "FOR PROCESSIONAL PLAYS a whole city was turned into a vast auditorium. Mansions on wheels (pageants or carriages in England, edifizii in Italy, carros in Spain) were moved through the principal streets of a city and brought to a halt at predetermined stations where a scene of the play cycle was performed. The responsibility for these pageant cars rested with the local guilds, whose members had to attend to the building, decorating, and drawing of the floats. The production of religious plays was an undertaking which involved the entire community. Archdeacon Robert Rogers (d. 1595) has left us a description of the pageant cars that were used in the processional presentation of the Chester Whitsun plays:
Every company had his pagiant, or parte, which pagiants weare a high scafolde with two rowmes, a higher and a lower, upon four wheeles. In the lower they apparelled them selves, and in the higher rowme they played, beinge all open on the tope, that all behoulders mighte heare and see them. The places where they played them was in every streete. They begane first at the abay gates, and when the firste pagiante was played it was wheeled to the highe crosse before the mayor, and so to every streete; and soe every streete had a pagiant playinge before them at one time, till all the pagiantes for the daye appoynted we are played: and when one pagiant was neere ended, worde was broughte from streete to streete, that soe they mighte come in place thereof excedinge orderlye, and all the streetes have theire pagiantes afore them all at one time playeinge togeather; to se which playes was greate resorte, and also scafoldes and stages made in the streetes in those places where they determined to playe theire pagiantes. (Nagler, 49).
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| Part of a much larger painting commemorating the Ommegang in Brussels in 1615, a procession for the prestigious Crossbowmen guild -- It's called the Triumph of Isabella as she was crowned queen of the procession (the full work is here: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O18973/the-ommeganck-in-brussels-on-painting-alsloot-denys-van/#) |
Here is a
Jean Bodel's Jeu de Saint Nicolas, "which was probably first performed in Arras on 5 December 1200" is one such play -- which I've never read. "Situated in the middle of an epic battle between Christians and Muslim, the play tells the story of a good Christian who escapes the battle and is found by the Muslim forces praying to a statue of Saint Nicolas. The Muslim leader decides to test the saint by unlocking the doors to his treasury and leaving the statue as a guardian, stipulating that if anything were stolen the Christian would forfeit his life. Three thieves attempt to steal the treasure, but Saint Nicolas stops them. As a result, the Muslim ruler and his entire army convert to Christianity.[1]
More typical, however, were focused on teaching the Bible and the path to personal salvation.
Biblical stories were enacted (sometimes in a serious, moving tone and sometimes in a surprisingly -- even shockingly -- comical form) or archetypal tales were told of a Christian seeking acceptance into Heaven.
The British plays were often written in cycles -- lots of little connected plays telling different Biblical stories. They would often be staged on pageant wagons (see separate post) by craftmen's guilds, and often there is a useful link between the craft and the play (the shipbuilding guild might stage the Noah story, for example). The York Mystery Plays, the Chester Mystery Plays, the Wakefield Mystery Plays and the N-Town Plays
are all cycle plays.
CLICK on this link to read a section of the Wakefield play on The Flood:
http://people.ucalgary.ca/~scriptor/towneley/plays/noefram.html
CLICK on this link to read one of the first English farces, the Second Shepherd's Play:
https://archive.org/stream/secondshepherdsp00chil#page/36/mode/2up/search/Second
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