Medieval and Renaissance Theatre
Medieval and Renaissance theatre traces drama from liturgical and religious plays through the great public playhouses of the European Renaissance, including the Elizabethan stage of Shakespeare and the commedia dell'arte.
Definition
The study of European theatre from the medieval religious drama through the professional and humanist theatre of the Renaissance.
Scope
This topic covers the religious and popular drama of the European Middle Ages—liturgical drama, mystery and morality plays, and civic cycle pageants—and the flowering of professional theatre in the Renaissance: the Italian commedia dell'arte and intermedi, the Spanish corral comedies of the Siglo de Oro, and the Elizabethan and Jacobean public playhouses that produced Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Jonson. It examines staging conditions, acting companies, and the social and religious frameworks of performance.
Core questions
- How did medieval drama grow out of liturgy and civic religious life?
- How were mystery cycles and morality plays staged and organized?
- What were the physical and commercial conditions of the Renaissance playhouse?
- How did humanism and classical revival reshape dramatic form?
Key concepts
- liturgical drama
- mystery and morality plays
- pageant wagon
- commedia dell'arte
- public playhouse
- Siglo de Oro
Key theories
- Reconstructing the Shakespearean playhouse
- Andrew Gurr's account of the companies, playhouses, and audiences of the English public stage, reconstructing performance conditions from documentary and architectural evidence.
- Medieval stage conditions
- William Tydeman's analysis of the varied performance spaces, staging methods, and organization of medieval European drama, from churches to streets and pageant wagons.
History
After the decline of the Roman stage, European theatre revived within the medieval church as liturgical drama, expanding into vernacular mystery cycles and morality plays performed by guilds and communities; the Renaissance saw the rise of professional and commercial theatre—the commedia dell'arte in Italy, the corrales in Spain, and the purpose-built public playhouses of Elizabethan and Jacobean England—shaped by humanist revival of classical models.
Debates
- Continuity from medieval to Renaissance theatre
- Scholars debate whether the Renaissance professional stage grew organically out of medieval popular and religious drama or represented a sharper humanist break with the classical past.
Key figures
- William Shakespeare
- Christopher Marlowe
- Ben Jonson
- Lope de Vega
- Andrew Gurr
- William Tydeman
Related topics
Seminal works
- gurr2009
- tydeman1978
- wickham1992
Frequently asked questions
- What were mystery plays?
- Mystery plays were medieval vernacular dramas, often staged in cycles by town guilds, that dramatized biblical history from creation to last judgment, frequently on movable pageant wagons or fixed station stages.
- What was the commedia dell'arte?
- It was a popular Italian form of professional, largely improvised comedy built around stock masked characters such as Harlequin and Pantalone, influential across European theatre.