Staging conventions

A number of staging conventions that evolved in the church were to continue throughout the Middle Ages. Apart from the mansions there was a general acting area, called a platea, playne, or place. The methods of staging from these first liturgical dramas to the 16th-century interludes can be divided into six main types. The first involved the use of the church building as a theatre. In the beginning, for Easter tropes (embellishments of the liturgy), a tomb was set up in the north aisle. As dialogue was added, the entire nave was used, and within this space different localities were indicated by mansions. A few mansions housed numerous elaborate properties, particularly those for the Last Supper. Some mansions had curtains so that characters or objects might be revealed at a particular moment or concealed at the end of an episode. Sometimes the choir loft was used to represent heaven and the crypt to represent hell.

The second type of staging evolved by the 12th century, as drama began to outgrow the capacity of the church to contain it. As long as the action was confined to the central theme, it could be played in an arrangement of mansions down the length of the nave. But as the subject matter extended to include both Old and New Testament history, the action was transferred to a stage outside the west door of the church. In 1227 Pope Gregory IX decreed the removal of what had become a show from holy ground to the marketplace or an open field. During the same period the language of the plays began to change from Latin to the vernacular. When drama was first taken outdoors, the crucifix was placed at one end, no doubt where it would have appeared above the altar in the church. Mansions were placed alongside each other, usually in sequences reflecting earlier church performances.

A third type of staging was the so-called stationary setting, found outside of England, which involved placing the mansions in a wider range of locales. Here the audience accepted three conventions. One was the symbolic representation of localities by the mansions; the second was the placing of the mansions near each other; and the third was the use for acting purposes of such actual ground as was enclosed by or in front of each mansion. The mansions were placed in either a straight or a slightly curved line, and all of the scenery was visible simultaneously. Because of their scope, many of the plays were divided into parts separated by intermissions ranging from one to 24 hours. During the intermissions, mansions were changed. Also, some mansions might represent more than one location; the identity of the mansions was announced before each segment of a play. It is difficult to know exactly how many mansions were used; in a play at Lucerne, Switz., in 1583, for instance, 70 different locations were indicated, though only about 32 mansions were actually used.

The two mansions almost always present were those representing heaven and hell, set at opposite ends of the playing area. The earthly scenes were set in the middle, and the two opposing mansions were supposed to represent man’s dual nature and the choices that faced him. In the 15th and 16th centuries, heaven was usually raised above the level of the other mansions. Sometimes heaven had a series of intricate turning spheres, from which emanated the golden light of concealed torches. The hell mansion was designed to be the complete opposite of that of heaven; some portions of it, for instance, were below stage level. Sometimes hell was made to look like a fortified town, an especially effective image when Jesus Christ forced open the gates to free the captive souls. The entrance to hell was usually shaped like a monster’s head and was called Hell’s Mouth, emitting fire, smoke, and the cries of the damned.

The fourth type of staging was in the round. In France and England particularly, surviving Roman playhouses were used for drama, and the mansions were probably placed in a circle. The play Castle of Perseverance from this period was intended to be performed within a moated round. Within the moat was an earthen bank on which the mansions were placed. Within the bank was a circle of flat earth with a tower structure in the centre. Members of the audience perambulated in the centre from mansion to mansion. The actors dressed in a small tent outside the round. Entry to the circle was over one bridge. The remains of several of these rounds still exist, the principle one being Piram Round in Cornwall.

The fifth type of staging employed movable settings. Processional staging was particularly popular in Spain. The wagons, called carros, on which the scenery was mounted were positioned next to platforms that had been erected in every town. Developments were somewhat different in England and the Netherlands. There, the mansions themselves became portable, being called pageant wagons in England and wagonseel in the Netherlands. Beneath the raised platform was a curtained space with room for the actors. Although the number of settings available was the same as for the mansion presentation, only one wagon was visible at a time; the audience remained stationary, and the successive pageants were wheeled into place before it. Sometimes the pageant wagons were quite elaborate structures: a realistic ark, stocked with animals and possibly floated on water, might be constructed for the story of Noah and the Flood; or an ingenious model of a whale, able to contain an actor within its belly, might be used for the story of Jonah.

Special effects, which were very popular, became so complex and numerous by the 15th century that many scenes were added to show them off. For flying, a fixed setting was often placed against a building equipped with pulleys and windlasses on its roof. Additional flying machinery was also hidden inside the heaven mansion. Angels, souls released from limbo, devils, and fire-spitting monsters could be shown flying. The machinery became so complex that 17 people were needed simply to operate the hell scenes at a theatre at Mons, in what is now Belgium. Trapdoors were used for sudden appearances, disappearances, and substitutions of dummies for actors in scenes of violence. In a production involving Barnabas’ burning at the stake, bones and entrails stuffed in the dummy gave off a realistic smell.

The morality plays, which first appeared in the 14th century, made use of no scenery or complex properties. Although some were performed indoors, most were offered outside on a stage that anticipated the English Elizabethan public theatre. A fixed facade was built at the rear of a large platform, and there were three openings at stage level that could be used to show interior scenes. A second level included similar openings, and a third level had a throne for the figure being honoured by the morality.

The last type of staging, and the one about which least is known, was the curtained platform. Toward the end of the Middle Ages itinerant professional actors who performed interludes required only a curtain behind them for staging.

Courtly diversions

Another kind of theatre flourished in the courts—more or less impromptu entertainments, deriving from the medieval love of tournament. Essentially secular diversions, they were most sumptuously costumed and caparisoned, with the emphasis on spectacle. This type of theatrical entertainment grew in popularity throughout Europe, culminating during the 16th century.

Another manifestation of courtly theatrical display took place on the triumphant entry into a city of a prince and his entourage after victory in war or on the occasion of a neighbouring ruler’s visit. Public participation was usually invited, and sometimes mandated, to help augment the sense of occasion. Such entertainment was followed by private festivities held at court. On occasion, a group of strolling players would also be invited to perform in the great hall or courtyard of the palace.

The theatre of the Middle Ages was essentially one of participation, and throughout its development it never lost an intimacy between actors and audience. It was a theatre that combined realism with considerable symbolism.