#ooc

managed to get to about 1400

realized I had ten minutes left, and summarized the reformation 🙂

Ha! Nice. I've done some research on that, too, though a long time ago. I'm guessing you hit the transformation from Cathedral festivals to pageant wagons?

Yeah

talked a lot about the death and rebirth of theatre via the Church

and wacky stories about English Mystery Cycles

Tracing the development from the pageant wagons to the Globe-style theater is interesting. I wrote a paper on that, once.

The only ones I really know are Everyman and the Ludus Coventry.

Saw an AMAZING performance of Everyman in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine back in the 80s. It was...WOW.

Everyman survived/is still performed because it's actually rather atypical for a morality play

Now, see, these things are cropping up post-plague, some big upheaval in the social order, nu?

A LOT of them are incredibly didactic. And LONG.

Like - there's one that's 8,000 lines

Captive audience.

Nope!!!

Morality plays were not civic!

They were professional 🙂

Well, not literally, but...

They were performed by priests, yes, but also by members of the various guilds, if I recall correctly. Unless the guilds were just providing the sets/props/costumes.

Unlike civic plays - Mysteries, passions, miracles, etc...

Morality plays are later

Ahh.

Most of them are awwffffullllll

It's been a while...my sequencing is out of order.

Everyman is pretty good

Mystery plays, you get a lot of sophistication and humor

Morality plays...

well..

A lot of morality.

you know God's Not Dead?

No?

It's a movie

and it is about on the same level of subtlety

To be fair, the concept of allegory was pretty novel in the 15th century

Ugh...I've tried to read Pilgrim's Progress. Or, at least part of it. BLEH.

I think the audience took some smug satisfaction in seeing the immoral sinners being punished, and imagined themselves (obviously) as the virtuous soul being rewarded

Well, and that's what I mean by a "captive audience"...stay for the whole thing, sort of like completing a pilgrimage, or you're not sufficiently pious.

Competitive virtue.

Ehhh, maybe

Much stronger argument for that with the civic plays

TONYS

As a distinct form, morality plays stuck around ~150 years

Who did the opening number?

Sarah Bareilles and Josh Groban

"this is to those who lose"

Ha. I'll have to look for it. NPH's opening numbers have spoiled me.

it is on right now?

expect updates

...I get opinions