The 2005 Class produced a "Goodfellas" version of the York Crucifixion Play (Image Credit: Fee 2005) |
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This course involves combining classroom lecture and discussion, independent research, and the collaborative effort of scripting, staging, and producing a Medieval play. Modern productions of Medieval plays have proven ideal vehicles through which students may begin to approach an alien culture, and in our efforts at Gettysburg we have attempted to forge a new path by updating selected plays: We stage student-produced plays which are translated and updated by the participants themselves.
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The 2008 Class produced an '80's teen cult classic version of "The Castle of Perseverance" (Image Credit: Fee 2008)
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The 2001 Class produced a Jazz Age version of the Morality Play "Mankind" (Image Credit: Fee 2001) |
Following in the footsteps of 1999's highly successful Hillbilly version of the Wakefield Noah, the Spring 2001 Medieval Drama course produced a gangland, Jazz Age version of the morality play Mankind, complete with live music. Our 2003 '70's After-school Special version of Wit and Science featured a disco soundtrack, and our 2005 version of the York Crucifixion of Christ brought the black comedy of the York Realist to life to a punk beat, giving new meaning to the phrase "They know not what they do." As early as the fall of 2000 the Chicago Sun-Times was the most notable of dozens of papers which picked up a wire service story which featured our 1999 class production, and in 2005 we were invited to perform at a regional undergraduate Medieval Studies conference at Hood College, where we received rave reviews. In April of 2008 we collaborated with a student production of a Tudor comedy at Centenary College in New Jersey. |
Students in this course learn a great deal about the evolution of drama in the Middle Ages, write a number of papers, including one which suggests links between Medieval plays and contemporary films, and utilize this newfound knowledge by tackling the problems of text and time first-hand, as it were, by scripting and staging their own play. In 2008 we produced The Castle of Perseverance, a play about the struggle between good and evil within the individual soul, but with a twist: It’s a battle royale with no-holds-barred, complete with preaching angels and farting devils, and the Seven Deadly Sins march to war with the Seven Cardinal Virtues at the very gates of the Castle of the Soul. The Castle of Perseverance is long and theologically complex, as well as elaborate in its use of costumes and props; following in the footsteps of our previous successes, however, we truncated, translated, and updated the play in a minimalist style evocative of such '80's teen classics The Breakfast Club and Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
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The 1999 Class produced a Hillbilly version of the Wakefield Master's "Noah" (Image Credit: Fee 1999)
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Medieval Drama Class Webpages:
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Medieval Drama Class Production Videos:
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The 2003 Class produced a '70's After-School Special version of the early humanist "Wit and Science" (Image Credit: Fee 2003)
All Medieval Drama Webpages, Images, Videos, and Text Copyright 1999-2008 Christopher R. Fee and Gettysburg College
