In The Second Shepherd's Play, there was very little historical evidence on to how the play was performed during medieval times. Nevertheless, historians had to dig deeper into how the play was structured to get a better understanding of how it could possibly be performed. With the play thought to be the first of it’s time, it fluenced great writers, like Shakespeare, into changing the way plays were written. By looking at the performance choices, structure, and overall themes of the play, this can give a greater insight as to how the author wanted their particular audience to experience when watching the play.
During the fifteenth century, a majority of people in Europe were peasants before the industrialization. Only people of the higher
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Thus, when The Second Shepherd’s Play was first performed in Corpus Christi, its main objective was to educate people about the bible and try to relate it to ordinary people. The play was based on the nativity play and was thought of as a mystery play. Many performances were thought to have been performed in wagons; moving throughout the city and well as having non professional actors play the main characters. There were normally two stages- one as Mak’s cottage while the other as a field. The cottage referenced the holy manager that Jesus born in. The play was supposed to have a comedic effect- it is an allegory of the nativity scene. In line 585, the shepherd exclaims, “ What the devil is this? …show more content…
This style of writing allows the audience to relate with the characters and the contrasting dialects appeals to more than one crowd. Lastly, the themes of revenge and forgiveness are utilized throughout the play. For instance, when the shepherds find out that the baby is actually a sheep, the second shepherd exclaims, “It was high fraud” (591). Normally, for an act of crime like this, it is punishable by death. Following Christianity beliefs of forgiveness, they decide to only throw Mak in a blanket to humiliate him instead of killing him. This is another instance of educating the public about the New Testament as well as throwing in a comedic effect for the audience with the
When Mary Zimmerman adapts a play from an ancient text her directing process and the way she engages with text are woven together, both dependent on the other. She writes these adaptations from nondramatic text, writing each evening while working through the pre-production rehearsals and improvisations during the day with the cast. The rehearsal process influences the text, and the text enriches the rehearsal process, so that one cannot exist without the other. Every rehearsal is structured the same but each production is unique because as Zimmerman states in “The Archaeology of Performance”, she is always “open to the possibilities”. The piece is open to everything happening in the world and to the people involved, so the possibilities are honest and endless.
When we came together with ideas for what text we wanted to use to inspire our performance, we ended up with about 10 ideas. Fairy tales, Edgar Allen Poe, Dr. Seuss, and urban legends had all been thrown out as ideas, but the play we chose was is a much lesser known greek play named, Casina. Casina, looking through one lens, is a comedy about two men fighting over a woman. Through a different lens, Casina is a power struggle between husband and wife and seeing which of the two will win over the other.
Shakespeare's first tragedy has been a topic of discussion since the day it was written. Titus Andronicus "was staged on 24 January 1594 by the Earl of Sussex's Men at the Rose Theatre" (Welsh 1). Though this tidbit of information seems somewhat irrelevant to Titus, we must note that there are certain standards and practices established by a play from its first performance. It is also important to establish the general attributes that audiences attribute to Shakespearean performance.
Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is a comedy that has been interpreted in different ways, enabling one to receive multiple experiences of the same story. Due to the content and themes of the play, it can be creatively challenging to producers and their casting strategies. Instead of being a hindrance, I find the ability for one to experiment exciting as people try to discover strategies that best represent entertainment for the audience, as well as the best ways to interpret Shakespeare’s work.
A parallel of the parable of the lost sheep is found in the Gospel of Matthew. The remaining two parables in chapter fifteen of this Gospel are unique. The reader may assume that the source of the material found in and around this passage comes from both Q and Special L. The use of triplets is common in Luke and that is precisely the literary technique we find in chapter fifteen. The parable of the lost coin that follows the lost sheep is almost identical in content. Th...
Two things about this show immediately piqued my interest. First: Christopher Walken played the lead during the Broadway run of the play. I love Christopher Walken and, although UGA’s production of A Behanding in Spokane will obviously not star him, the fact that he was involved with it initially has endeared the play to me. Second: the show seems to be, from the brief descriptions I’ve read, delightfully twisted. According to Broadway.com, the play is about a man who is missing his left had, two con-artists who promise to sell him what they claim is that hand, and a racy, provocative hotel clerk. That extremely vague description only strengthened my interest in this show; I thoroughly enjoy darker, non “cookie-cutter” stories and can’t wait to learn how the man lost his hand and how all the characters fit together.
The two topics of religion and hypocrisy in the play go hand in hand. The overall play is intended to ultimately bring to light religious hypocrisy, but not to necessarily demoralize it. The play aims to make fun of religious hypocrisy, while hinting that it’s problem or flaw is the way it slanders and makes one question the grandeur of pure religion. Tartuffe’s character portrayal is made up solely by his outspoken and unapologetic displays of religious devotion. Through his actions and displays of religious devotion he gains Orgon’s trust and manipulates him into overlooking his family's wellbeing and overall safety. He used Orgon's want and need to feel close to God himself against him, which left Orgon blinded by ignorance and own self
The play, set in the 1600’s during the witch hunt that sought to rid villages of presumed followers and bidders of the devil is a parallel story to the situation in the US in the 1950’s: McCarthyism, seeking the riddance of communist ideologists. Miller sets this story more particularly in a village called Salem, where the theocratic power governed by strict puritan rules require the people to be strong believers and forbid them to sin at risk of ending up in hell. However, the audience notices that despite this strong superficial belief in God, faith is not what truly motivates them, but it is rather money and reputation.
It becomes quite apparent that the modern scriptwriter does not have exclusive rights to the use of enrapturing dialogue in the creation of gripping scenes. In fact, it may be argued that the medieval playwright was more reliant on dialogue to interest the audience because he needed to write a play that would be engaging on a limited and often primitive set. In just reading this play, I became attuned to the reactions of an audience viewing the play; I believe this attests to the playwright's effective use of language, particularly dialogue, since there are few stage directions, in his composition of The Sacrifice of Isaac.
Given, Welker. A Further Study of the Othello: Have we misunderstood Shakespeare's Moor?. The Shakespeare Press. New York, 1899.
The economic, political, and social system in the 9th to 15th century in Europe where general people work for the nobles of that time and in return the nobles gave them security and land use in return. An example of feudalism in the 9th to 15th century would be a person agreeing to farm land for a noble and in return the noble would grant protection and shelter for the person. Another example would be the nobility holds land from the Crown in return for military service and power and vassals. The peasants in this system were compelled to house on the owner’s land. The owner in return gave the peasants homage, work, and a part of the produce and military protection.
is a warning to them if they bother to listen. The basis of the play
It makes sense to me to see in this Shakespeare's sense of his own art--both what it can achieve and what it cannot. The theatre--that magical world of poetry, song, illusion, pleasing and threatening apparitions--can, like Prospero's magic, educate us into a better sense of ourselves, into a final acceptance of the world, a state in which we forgive and forget in the interests of the greater human community. The theatre, that is, can reconcile us to the joys of the human community so that we do not destroy our families in a search for righting past evils in a spirit of personal revenge or as crude assertions of our own egos. It can, in a very real sense, help us fully to understand the central Christian commitment to charity, to loving our neighbour as ourselves. The magic here brings about a total reconciliation of all levels of society from sophisticated rulers to semi-human brutes, momentarily holding off Machiavellian deceit, drunken foolishness, and animalistic rebellion--each person, no matter how he has lived, has a place in the magic circle at the end. And no one is asking any awkward questions.
Throughout time, there have been many books, plays, songs, pamphlets, sermons, lectures, etc. written. These writings were all written with some kind of purpose to either inform, persuade, entertain, or teach their audience. One such form of literature not too widely known about is that of the medieval morality plays. These plays were not aimed to entertain, but to teach morals and religion to the uneducated lower classes of people in medieval Europe. The morality plays were also quite necessary to teach and inform the underclass people, through the thoughtful persuasion of play entertainment.
the plays in the spirit of the friars, because they had good plans to keep love