Mystery Plays, Morality Plays, Interludes PDF

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Mystery Plays The word mystery refers to the spiritual mystery of Christ's redemption of humankind, and mystery plays are dramatizations of incidents of the Old Testament, which foretells that redemption, and of the New, which recounts it. The English mystery plays can be divided into: Plays of the Fall: "The Fall of the Angels"; "The Fall of Man"; "Cain and Abel" Types and Prophecies of the Redemption: "Noah"; "Abraham and Isaac"; "Moses and the Prophets" Nativity Plays I: "Caesar Augustus"; "The Early Life of the Virgin"; "Joseph's Doubts"; "The Visit to Elizabeth"; "The Trail of Joseph and Mary"; "The Nativity" Nativity Plays II: "The Adoration of the Shepherds"; "The Adoration of the Magi"; "The Purification"; "The Massacre of the Innocents" The Life of Christ between the Nativity and the Passion: "The Doctors in the Temple"; "The Plays of the Ministry"; "The Entry into Jerusalem"; "The Last Supper"; "The Agony in the Garden" The Passion: "The Trial before Annas and Caiaphas"; "The Trials before Pilate and Herod"; "The Buffeting and Scourging"; "The Crucifixion and Burial" Triumph and Eschatological Plays: "The Harrowing of Hell"; "The Resurrection and Resurrection Appearances"; "The Ascension"; "The Coming of the Holy Ghost"; "The Death and Assumption of the Virgin"; "The Antichrist"; "The Last Judgment"

The mystery cycles begin and end in the heavens, the opening play of the Fall of the Angels being on a subject never dramatized before and rarely since. The story was reconstructed by the Fathers by the piecing together of a number of biblical texts. The account of Satan's Fall is now best known from the elaborate narrative in Paradise Lost, and present-day criticism of Milton has

made everyone highly conscious of the pitfalls that await those who venture to treat this theme in literary rather than theological form. Medieval authors largely evade these pitfalls by a concise and symbolic treatment of the subject, the most symbolic of the plays, that in the York cycle, being also the most successful.

Example: "Noah's Flood" The Chester Play of 'Noah's Flood' was one of the 'Mystery Plays' referring to God's redemption of mankind in the Old Testament. They were probably written earlier than the 15th century but were rewritten conserving much of their medieval feeling, especially regarding what might be considered Chauceresque humour based on human nature. 'Noah's Flood' was produced for the last time (according to the Norton Anthology of English Literature) in 1575. The guild responsible for the production of the play was 'The Waterleaders and Drawers of Dee'. They carted and sold water, which could also be considered appropriate for this particular theme. The verses that might have been 'modified' in the 16th century, refer to the 'clean' and 'unclean' beasts. This seems to suggest an influence of Jewish law. The text was last revised in 1974. The biblical story of the Flood shows a continuation of the Fall with the world become so wicked that God repents that He has made man. Summary: The plot of this play follows the plot of the story in the Bible. At the beginning, God tells Noah that he will put an end to all the people on earth because of their violent and evil deeds. Noah is the only one good man whom god believes, so he is told to build an ark and, besides his family, he has to take into a male and a female of every kind of animals and bird. In the Bible, Noah takes his family and the creatures into the ark without any problem; however, in the play, he gets problems to get his wife

into the boat because she can not leave her friends alone and just goes away. Then, the rain fell on the earth for forty days and nights. The flood destroys all the creatures on earth and only those on the ark survive. The play end with the dove’s returning to Noah with an olive leaf in its break and the promise of God that flood will never destroy all living beings on earth any more Noah's obedience to God's will: The Wakefield Master has skillfully indicated that God's command was not an easy one for an old man to execute, whereas in the Towneley play the idea that the building of the ark will be a back-breaking labour is introduced only when Noah is at work. Noah's being instructed to his own advantage and in a way that he could readily see to be to his own advantage, and since obedience seems scarcely meritorious, one may pass too lightly over the explicit profession of obedience to God's will which Noah makes in all the plays. We should bear in mind that God's command did not seem immediately attractive: 1) the flood was not an apparent danger 2) the building of the ark was a long and burdensome duty 3) in some versions of the tale in which Noah's wife and one of his sons mock for building a ship when living far inland. Analysis of the character of Noah's wife: In the medieval period, that women are greedy, deceiving, disobedient, angry and evil-tongued is a proposition well exemplified by Noah's wife. Also the miseries of marriage; the subject of the malicious, shrewish wife and the suffering husband… She does not wish to be in the ark when the flood comes, which represents the recalcitrant sinner, perhaps even the sinner on his deathbed, who refuses to repent and enter the church. But in fact the moment on board she becomes meek and submissive both to Noah

and to God's will: a psychologically unmotivated change of heart signals the allegorical meaning. In York play she wants to go back to collect her belongings and she insists that her friends and relations must come too; in Chester she wants to stay drinking with her "gossips"; in Towneley she wants to finish her spinning. These excuses are on a par with those in the parable suggesting all worldly concerns. "Gossips" of Noah's wife are introduced to suggest the worldly pleasure which Noah's wife refuses to forsake rather than the wickedness of the world which led to the Flood. In Chester play, when Noah calls to his family for help after hearing God's command, his wife with the others co-operates benevolently in the labor. But when a little later the ark is built and Noah summons his family in, Noah's wife has turned into the perverse shrew. Comparing the story of Noah’s ark in the Bible and the Chester’s play of Noah’s flood, the most different part between them must be the character of Noah’s wife. In the bible, there is no any description about Noah’s wife, but in this play, Noah’s wife is an important character who makes the play more interesting. In the Chester’s play, she is a very bad-tempered woman, and it seems that she thinks her friends are more important than her family. She would rather stay with her gossips than go with her family. She thinks her friends love her more and she is the only person who can save them. Bot Noah can not leave his wife alone, so he asks his sons to drag his wife into the ark. Noah’s wife seems to be very unhappy to get on the boat and hits Noah. Noah is not angry, he just says, “it is good to be still.” It means he had better keep silent. Here, it seems that Noah is a henpecked husband; however, he is not really so coward. We know that women were always belittled in the Middle Ages. The idea is also shown in this play. It is obvious that the is a very insensible and unwise woman although she seems more powerful than Noah. However, even though Noah’s wife shows the terrible image of woman, she still plays an important part in this play because she offers the function of entertainment. Actually, she was very popular in that times.

Symbols: In God promise, he mentions the rainbow. Rainbow, actually, is a sign of the covenant between God and all living beings on earth. When they see the rainbow in the sky, they will remember the promise of God. The number seven appears in the play several times. In the Bible, the number seven is a meaningful number. It suggests the completion of a cycle, perfect order. The imaginative reconstruction of the story: examples of the exigences of stage performance Building of the ark: the ark was assembled from prepared sections rather than brought on to the stage complete; Noah's building the ark had the practical function of serving to cover the time required for the assembling of the ark in front of the audience; the waters of the flood were simulated by a painted cloth waved in front of the ark.

Morality plays Moralities apparently evolved side by side with the mysteries, although they were composed individually and not in cycles. The mysteries endeavored to make the Christian religion more real to the unlearned by dramatizing significant events in biblical history and by showing what these events meant in terms of human experience. The moralities, on the other hand, employed allegory to dramatize the moral struggle that Christianity envisions as present in every individual: the actors are every man and the qualities within him, good or bad, and the plot consists of his various reactions to these qualities as they push and pull him one way or another-that is, in Christian terms, toward heaven or toward hell. The intent of the morality is more overtly didactic than the mystery, but most of the moralities share with the mysteries a good deal of rough humor.

Example: "Everyman":

Everyman is a late-15th-century English morality play. Called by Death, Everyman can persuade none of his friends - Beauty, Kindred, Worldly Goods - to go with him, except Good Deeds.

Sense of inevitability: Everyman is stripped, one by one, of those apparent good on which he had relied. First he is deserted by his patently false friends: his casual companions, his kinsmen, and his wealth. Receiving some comfort from his enfeebled good deeds, he falls back on them and on his other resources-his strength, his beauty, his intelligence, and his knowledge-qualities that, when properly used, help to make an integrated man. At the end when he must go to the grave, all desert him save his good deeds alone. Allegory: each actor has his allegorical significance defined by his name and behaves entirely within the limits of that definition.

Interludes The interlude was a moral entertainment . It is considered to be the transition between medieval morality plays and Tudor dramas. Interludes were performed at court or at “great houses” by professional minstrels or amateurs at intervals between some other entertainment, such as a banquet, or preceding or following a play, or between acts. Although most interludes were sketches of a nonreligious nature, some plays were called interludes that are today classed as morality plays. John Heywood, one of the most famous interlude writers, brought the genre to perfection in his The Play of the Wether (1533)....