Making a stage without a theatre[edit]
In the Middle Ages, performances took place without the aid of dedicated theatre buildings. The players used speech and action to create a performance space, and to guide the audience where and when to give their attention.
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Theatre buildings don’t just provide a warm, dry space for the performance, and the technical infrastructure required to stage it. They also help manage the audience, guiding them to behave in the right way so the performance can take place as intended. Entrances to the building, and the foyer spaces, direct people into the auditorium – itself a defined space that determines the audience’s behaviour. Seats are arranged so that each spectator has a good view of the playing area, which is often raised up both to give better sightlines, and to demarcate the stage from the auditorium. This separation ensures the audience cannot get in the way of, or interfere with, the dramatic action. Wing space at the side of the stage provides room for the actors when they are not in a scene, and where various technical functions can be carried out, such as costume changes, the storage and preparation of scenery and props, and so on. The curtain signals the start and end of each part of the performance when it is raised and lowered; alternatively, the dimming and raising of the houselights in the auditorium has the same function. Theatre buildings, as we know them today, support some of the fundamental features of theatre: that some people perform, while others watch; that those watching can tell what is part of the performance, and what is not; that they can tell when the performance has started and when it has finished.
In the Middle Ages, theatrical performances did not take place in theatre buildings. Religious performances took place in churches, or in public spaces such as market squares, sometimes using a series of temporary stages constructed for the purpose, and sometimes mobile stages known as pageant wagons (E.02, F.02). In the same period, small nomadic bands of actors travelled around Europe, performing wherever they could find an audience in the marketplaces and squares, sometimes on wooden stages with a scrap of fabric as a backstage area, and sometimes just on the open ground.
In the absence of a theatre building, theatre-makers need other means to define the space of the performance, to tell the audience when the show starts and ends, and to indicate who is part of the action. Texts recording the performances of plays in the Middle Ages (G.02) show that the theatre-makers of that time had a specific set of strategies to achieve these things. Where temporary stages were used, the playing space was defined by the area of the platform. However, in the case of the ‘simultaneous stage’ system common for the large-scale religious plays, the performance moved between platforms, and smaller shows had no platform at all. At the start of each scene, an actor would enter the crowd, calling out for space to be made for the players – in John Palsgrave’s Lescarcissement De La Langue Francoyse (1530), an entry reads, ‘Make romme maysters here cometh a player’ (make room, masters, here comes a player). Similarly, John Baret, in his Aluearie (1574), records: ‘I haue not Roome enough Cause the people to auoyde, or giue place, or make roome’ (I have not room enough. Cause the people to avoid, or give place, or make room). For one processional performance moving through the streets in Norwich, England in 1590-91, a person known as the ‘whiffler’ rode ‘before to laye ope the waye’ (before to lay open the way).
As well as making space for the action, it was necessary to silence the audience – in one play, the Imperator opens the performance with ‘Be styll, beshers, I command yow/ That no man speke a word here now/ Bot I alon’ (be still, I command you, that no man speak a word here, but I alone). Opening lines were sometimes in the form of a command, a greeting, a thanksgiving or prayer, an announcement, or a complaint. All had the effect of calling the audience to be silent and pay attention.
Individual actor’s entrances also needed to be marked, since there was no wing or physical entrance space from which they could appear, and they could be mistaken for a member of the audience. In the anonymously authored play, A newe merry and wittie Comedie or Enterlude, newely imprinted, treating upon the Historie of Jacob and Esau (1568), a stage direction states, ‘Here Esau appereth in sight, and bloweth his Horne, ere he enter’ (here Esau appears in sight, and blows his horn before he enters). In the same play another character is described as coming in ‘clapping his hands and laughing’. Both these stage directions show a clear understanding of the need for the actor to draw attention to themselves when they enter, using action and sound, in a crowded market-place, with no stage lighting, scenery or defined stage to direct the audience’s attention to the action.
In the Middle Ages, there were no dedicated theatre buildings. Without the devices we now expect as part of theatre – an auditorium with seats, a stage, scenery, lighting, and so on – the essential requirements of theatre performances were still needed: a defined space and period of time, clearly communicated to the audience. This was achieved through the actions and words of the players, serving as master of ceremonies, narrator, actor and stage manager, all in one.