Drama During The Age Of Revival

Drama During the Age of Revival are as follows: 

MYSTERY PLAYS

Mystery Plays dramatised stories from the Bible. They included dramatisations of the Fall of Lucifer, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Flood, The Nativity and The Passion of Christ. The mystery plays were long cyclic dramas of the creation, fall and redemption of human kind, based on biblical narratives, concentrating mainly on the life and passion of Jesus Christ. They always ended with the Last Judgement.

Texts of cycles staged at York, Chester and Wakefield and at an unstated location in East Anglia (the N Town plays) have survived together with fragments from Coventry, Newcastle and Norwich. The plays are thus known by these names. They were traditionally performed on 'Corpus Christi Day', one of the many festival days of the Christian calendar and so were also known as the Corpus Christi Plays. Some of these plays are : 

1. The Wakefield Cycle

The Wakefield cycle has several brilliant plays, attributed to the anonymous Wakefield Master. This cycle consists of thirty two plays commencing with the creation, and the Second Shepherds Play, is one of the masterpieces of medieval English literature. The usual series the plays follow Noah, Abraham and Isaac., the last Supper, and the other important plays like the Hanging of Judas.

2. Second Shepherds' Play

The Second Shepherd's play was written in the late 15th century. It is part of the Wakefield mystery play cycle. The title of the play refers not to a second shepherd, but to the fact that this play was the second of two plays that dealt with the Biblical nativity story.

The play begins with a conversation between three shepherds, Coll, Gib and Daw (a boy, who works for them), as they watch over their sheep. They complain about such problems as the weather and their poverty. Another character Mak arrives, pretending to be a messenger from a Southern lord, but the shepherds recognise him and suspect that he plans to steal their sheep.

As the shepherds settle down for a night on the Moons, Mak takes advantage of their exhausted slumber to make off with a prized sheep. Mak and his wife Gill devise a scheme to put the sheep in a cradle and pretend it's her newborn son. When the shepherds wake and find the sheep gone, they immediately say Mak to visit.

The shepherds discover the couple's ruse and Mak is brought to justice, with a merciful twist. They punish Mak by tossing him in a blanket and then return to the fields. An angel arrives and calls to the shepherds, telling them to find the child born in Bethlehem. They enter the stable and discover Mary and the Christ-child. The story thus mingles sacred and profane. The play's dual plot is designed to remind the audience of the two-fold nature of man's existence-the real world on Earth and the spiritual world of the after-life.

3. The Chester Plays

The 25 Chester plays are more serious and didactic, acted on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in Whitsun week from 1268 to 1577, then in 1600. Important plays of this cycle are Fall of Lucifer and The Creation and The Fall. Using strange animals and a flight of pigeons added interest and made these more realistic.

4. The Coventry Plays

These plays were said to be acted at coventry on the festival of Corpus Christi. The forty-two plays are preserved, and it is known that not all the plays were acted in one year, the custom was to perform the first twenty-eight in one year and the remainder the next year.

MIRACLE PLAYS

Miracle plays were representations of lives of different saints. They specially re-enacted miraculous interventions by the saints. Although many scholars consider the term 'Miracle play' to include the genre of mystery play, others distinguish miracle plays from mystery plays by way of their source material. Whereas mystery plays are based upon scripture, miracle plays are not recognised as miracle plays since, they resemble miracles more than any other dramatic form. Examples of Miracle plays are The Conversion of St Paul, Mary Magdalene and The Play of the Sacrament.

1. The Conversation of St Paul

The Digby Conversion of Saint Paul is a middle English miracle play of the late 15th century. The play's dominant motif is conversion, which it explores through the biblical figure of Saul, who, thanks to a miraculous encounter, is changed from an avowed persecutor of Christians to a steadfast advocate for the faith. The stanzaic form of the play is a very regular rhyme royal.

2. The Play of the Sacrament

Play of the Sacrament is the only host Miracle play to survive in English. It was written in the East Midland dialect of Middle English not long after 1461, Play of the Sacrament tells the story of a miracle, in which a rich Jewish merchant and his companions purchase the consecrated host from a Christian merchant and subject it to a series of tests in order to determine the truth of the Christian claim that Christ is present in it.

At the end of the play, he is converted and promises to repeat his story for the moral instruction of others susceptible to the blandishments of covetousness. The play's central scene, the staging of the bloody torture of consecrated bread, is consistent with widespread reports of host desecration that circulated in chronicles and sermons throughout Europe beginning at the end of the 13th century.

MORALITY PLAYS

Morality plays, evolving from the medieval sermon, conveyed a moral truth or lesson using allegorical terms. They personified moral qualities (such as charity or vice) or abstractions (such as death or youth).

They were dramatised allegories of the life of man, his temptation and sinning, his quest for salvation and his confrontation by death. The purpose of the morality play was didactic; its object was to instruct the audience on the application of Christian doctrine to everyday life and the cultivation of character. The earliest complete extant morality play is The Castle of Perseverance, which was written around 1425. Everyman written around 1500 is perhaps the best known morality play. It depicts Everyman's journey in the face of death.

1. The Castle of Perseverance

It is a 15th century morality play of 3649 lines. The play describes the whole ontology of man, opening before his birth and ending after his death and his judgement before the throne of God. The protagonist is Humanum Genus or Man. Mankind's traditional three enemies, the world, the flesh and the devil speak from his own scaffold, introducing his followers, the Seven Deadly Sins.

World points out his chief henchman, greed (avarice, or covetousness), whose central importance in the seduction of mankind is signalled by his placement on his own scaffold. Flesh is accompanied by sloth, gluttony and lechery; the Devil by pride, wrath and envy.

Mankind is born, perhaps from the bed, which lies at the base of the castle. He points out his ignorance and helplessness, asking for God's grace; he introduces his two companions, the good and bad Angels, noting that every man has such a pair of advisors, one good and one evil. There is a comical debate between man's Bonus Angelus (Good Angel) and Malus Angelus (Bad Angel).

Mankind opts for the pleasures of the world. He sins first by becoming a servant of the World, who sends him to avarice and the other deadly sins. When penance pierces him with a lance, he confesses to shrift, receives absolution and enters the castle of perseverance. But mankind's enemies, alerted by backbiter, summon the sins to a siege against the castle. Although six of the sins are repelled by their opposing virtues, avarice succeeds in enticing the aging mankind back to worldly goods.

Mankind's pleasure in his newfound wealth is interrupted by the figure of death, who stabs mankind with his lance. With the coming of death, he realises that his treasure will go to an unknown heir and he dies calling on God for mercy. The soul reproaches the body and cries again for mercy. However, since mankind died in a state of sin, the good angel is unable to help his soul and it is carried off to hell by the bad angel.

But mankind's last request for mercy has summoned the four daughters of God; Truth, Justice, Peace and Mercy, who then debate his case before God. God judges in favour of mankind and directs the daughters to remove the soul from hell.

2. The Somonyng Everyman

The Somonyng of Everyman (The Summoning of Everyman), usually referred to simply as Everyman, is a late 15th century English morality play. A short play of some 900 lines, it portrays a complacent Everyman, who is informed by death of his approaching end.

It is speculated that the play is based upon a Dutch (Flemish) morality play of the same period called Elckerlijc. The play centers on Everyman's plea for companionship on his journey to his grave. He realises during the course of his journey that in the end, he can only fall back on his moral and religious values. The play is an allegory of life, in which the only thing that will save Everyman from certain damnation is good deeds alone.

3. Skelton's Magnificence

It was written by John Skelton, often referred as a 'Goodly Interlude'. it is considered to be the first extant political morality play. The play was designed to be acted in the hall of Court of Henry VIII. Composed of 2500 lines, the play was printed around 1530. The play shows how Magnificence is deceived by vices, but finally redeemed by good hope and perseverance.

According to Tai-Won Kim, "with its primary focus on Magnificence's financial mismanagement and the political and economic consequences of his willful conduct, Skelton's play calls for a royal balance between extravagance and parsimony and thereby links the arts of political and personal government." It is a veiled attack on Cardinal Wolsey.

4. Interludes

The term denotes a short play or playlet actually performed between the courses of a cycle of plays. It can be applied to a variety of short entertainments, including secular farces and witty dialogues with a religious or political point. The Interlude developed out of the morality and the two cannot always be distinguished. John Heywood is a popular writer of interludes in this period.

The manuscripts of medieval English plays were usually ephemeral performance scripts, with even fewer numbers surviving. Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim was the first person to compose drama in the Latin West. She was a 10th century German secular canoness, dramatist and poet who wrote the classical imitations of Terence.