1. Bell Ringer – 9/16 None Today Mrs. B is presenting at a conference and will be back tomorrow. We’ll finish the notes from Friday

3.  Wandering Entertainers  Mimists, jugglers, acrobats, wrestlers, and storytellers  How?  Acting out the story silently or the reading of a play/script  NOT a formal presentation of “theater”

4.  Fire Dancers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1BrlXxuSEEhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1BrlXxuSEE  Jugglers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60xJuyJLKnghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60xJuyJLKng  Storytelling/Reenacting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evb5U0uiUS0http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evb5U0uiUS0

5.  Liturgical drama began as an elaboration of the Roman Catholic Mass, probably in France first  Tropes: elaborations of the Catholic Mass, took place on ceremonial occassions  Easter, the dramatic highlight of the Church year  Theatre was adopted by the Church and became an instrument of God in an age of faith and demons  Mystery Plays: Bible Stories  Miracle Plays: Lives of the Saints  Morality Plays: Didactic Allegories  Characters such as Lust, Pride, and Hatred

6.  Included written dialogue  Included Scenery, Costumes, and Gestures written into the Latin instructions  Example: “Paradise shall be situated in a rather prominent place, and is to be hung all around with draperies and silk curtains.”  Example: The Creation of Adam & Eve  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9xG7pt_LGE&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9xG7pt_LGE&feature=related

7.  At first, only priests performed the roles  Soon after, laymen are allowed to act in liturgical drama  Female roles were still mostly portrayed by boys

8.  Comic characters appeared, even in the Easter trope.  The most popular comic character of all was the Devil

9.  Hellmouth: the mouth of hell into which sinners were cast  Descriptions of devils amid smoke and fire, pulling sinners into the mouth of hell, often the jaws of a dragon-like monster are common  Audiences demanded more and more realism and complexity in the depiction of hellmouth

11.  Some Hellmouths were so complicated that they took 17 people to operate  Some plays were clearly intended to be frightening  Most, even vividly depicted, seemed to have been comic in their intentions rather than fearsome  Plays of this period are humorous and compassionate

12.  In England, France, and the Netherlands, another stage style developed – the wagon stage  Rather than move the audience or set up all the locations in different places on the mansion stage, theatre was brought to the audience on wagons  Similar to the floats of a modern parade

13.  Each wagon carried the set for a specific part of the play cycle  Very elaborate – two stories tall and curtained for entrances and exits like modern theater  Some cases, a flat wagon was combined with an elaborate background wagon to provide a playing area  Narrow wagons needed to navigate narrow streets

14.  At intersections, wagons were coupled and crowds gathered to watch a segment of a play  When the segment finished, the wagon moved on and was replaced by another wagon, creating the setting for another short play in the cycle

17.  Church writings condemned dancing to the 11 th century and beyond  St. Augustine said it was better to dig ditches on the Sabbath than to dance a “round dance”  Dancing continued, however, because it gave people pleasure

18.  Dances were not planned, they were largely spontaneous  No audience – for fun, not performance  Dancing was a response to a chaotic and frightening world  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBv5My9CGLc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBv5My9CGLc

19.  Performed to instrumental accompaniment  Spontaneous and expressive, but increasingly they conformed to specific rules  Performances depended on the guiding hand of the dancing master – like a square-dance caller  Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiE17pvisBghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiE17pvisBg