The emergence of drama as a literary art - Mindy Ploeckelmann

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When presented with the problem of hoards of illiterate commoners, English clergymen in the 11th century created plays to spread word about the Bible. Eventually, the plays moved out of the church and into the streets. Mindy Ploeckelmann tracks the development of drama from mystery plays to morality plays and, eventually, to Shakespeare.

Lesson by Mindy Ploeckelmann, animation by Johnny Chew.

In the 11th and 12th centuries,

most English commoners were illiterate.

Since they had no way to learn the Bible,

the clergy came up with an inventive solution:

they'd create plays out of certain Bible stories

so even people who couldn't read could learn them.

These were called mystery plays

because they revealed the mystery of God's word.

At about the same time,

the clergy also developed plays

about the saints of the church,

called miracle plays.

In the beginning,

the clergy members acted out Bible stories

on the steps outside the cathedral.

The audience reacted so well

that soon they needed to move out to the street

around the town square.

By building moving carts to put on each play

and by lining up one after the other,

they could put on cycles of stories,

which would take the viewer

from Genesis

to Revelation.

These movable carts, called pageants,

looked like huge boxes on wheels.

Each was two stories tall.

The bottom story was curtained off

and was used for costumes, props, and dressing.

The top platform was the stage for the performance.

Spectators assembled in various corners of the town,

and the pageant would move around in the cycle

until the villagers had seen the entire series.

Soon, the plays required more actors

than the clergy could supply.

So, by the 13th century,

different guilds were asked to be responsible

for acting out different parts of the cycle.

The assignments were meant to reflect

the guilds' professions.

For example, the carpenter's guild might put on

the story of Noah's Ark,

and the baker's guild might put on The Last Supper.

Can you imagine what might happen to the story

if the butcher's guild put on The Crucifixion of Christ?

Yes, without the clergy,

the plays soon started changing

from their true Bible stories.

By the end of the 14th century, a new form of drama,

called the morality play, had evolved.

Faith,

truth,

charity,

and good deeds

all became characters on the stage.

And, at the same time, the opposite virtues

of falsehood,

covetousness,

worldly flesh,

and the devil

became the antagonists.

The morality plays were allegorical stories

in which these characters battled for the control of the soul.

Audiences loved the immoral characters,

and spectators were encouraged

to interact with the actors.

Throwing rotten food

and even getting into scuffles with other spectators

became very common.

The character of the devil

often would roam through the crowds

and pull unsuspecting watchers

into a hell that was depicted as a dragon's mouth.

The virtuous Biblical stories had morphed

into crude and sometimes comic stories.

The clergy intended to teach against immorality.

How ironic, then, that the morality plays

actually encouraged vices as more popular than virtues.

By the mid-15th century,

the church started to outlaw these performances.

Town charters required that any theater

must be built outside the city wall.

One of the first theaters

was built like a larger version of a pageant,

with tiers of gallery seating

encircling a grassy area in front of the stage.

Sound familiar?

A young William Shakespeare

developed his craft here at the theater

that was eventually renamed The Globe.

The medieval morality play had led to Renaissance playwrights

who were inspired by the inner struggles

and the conscience of man.

And that, in essence, is how drama emerged

as a literary art form.