The Ark...

[fajrdrako]

I went to see the National Arts Centre production of The Ark with auriaephiala and commodorified. We started with dinner at the Bay Bistro; my stomach was upset (something I am thankful to say rarely happens to me), so I opted for their soup and salad bar, and a soft drink. The soup was actually rather good, but I've seldom had less appetite.

While eating, we discussed cultural and religious diversity in a multicultural setting, and approaches to handling this with fairness. I found myself confronting a central dilemma of my own sense of morality: my own strong feelings about what is right and wrong for myself, contrasted with my belief for others to make the same choices. Despite feeling not at my best, I enjoyed the topic. I often don't, but commodorified and auriaephiala are good people for this sort of talk.

We then walked over to St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, which is significant in my life (even though I've never been to a service there) because it is the place where I almost got married. It's a lovely big church; in design and style you'd think it was Anglican, with its Victorian neo-Gothic arches and leafy carvings. A nice setting for a medieval theatre piece.

The presentation was entitled The Ark: The Passion, the mystery and the light of the Dark Ages. They seemed to think the Dark Ages lasted until 1485; or maybe the Dark Ages are with us still, who knows?

It was a workshop presentation in association with the National Theatre School of Canada, the narrator being the man responsible for it all, Peter Hinton, Artistic Director of the English Theatre at the NAC. There was a certain sense of love of the material. Hinton wrote in the programme: "What at first felt so foreign and far away, now feels shockingly close." In the show, he referred to the middle ages as "lusher, more vibrant, full of incredible pain".

Most of the works were ecclesiastical: one got the impression that the secular side of medieval literature (the Arthurian cycle, the troubadour tradition, Marie de France, the fabliaux, oral poetry, and s on) did not exist. The show used Hildegard of Bingen to place the theme, perhaps because they had an academic on hand who has made a study of Hildegard.

Once upon a time I had a book called A Medieval Miscellany, and it was an anthology of excerpts and songs and poems and odds and ends of medieval literature. This show felt like reading that books: a bit here, a bit there, never the whole story, but the flavour of the times - or part of the times. We had a few excepts from Hildegard's plays, a bit of Canterbury Tales, Mankind, Everyman, and Ezra Pound. The programme implied that we'd get a bit of T.S. Eliot, too, and we were looking for ward to it - but we didn't get it. I guess they could only fit in so much. They ended with the Agincourt Carol.

The pièce de résistance was sections of two Mystery plays (The Nativity and Noah' Ark - hence the title of the show) and a good chunk of a Passion Play. These were in translation, while the parts they did of Canterbury Tales were not. And even though I've read Chaucer, and was fairly familiar with the passages they used, I had trouble following it: they made the most of the Great Vowel Shift, and that, combined with church acoustics and the face that they were often turned away from us, made it difficult. That, and the fact that I find it difficult to follow Chaucer orally anyway - I have to read it and take it slowly to get the sense. The words aren't all that different from modern English, but the sound is very different, and even just following someone with a heavy accent on stage is difficult. That was pretty much what it sounded like.

All in all, it wasn't my favourite face of the middle ages, but interesting all the same.

Comments

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

Oh, that sounds like a fun piece. I'd have enjoyed seeing it, I bet.

Did they say in the program which mystery cycles the plays were taken from? I adore the mystery cycles, and I fondly wish I were someplace where people performed bits of them once in a while.

perhaps because they had an academic on hand who has made a study of Hildegard.

Heh. It does seem out of keeping with the late-medieval-English mostly-popular texts they seem to have used, doesn't it? As, I guess, would most of the courtly texts you mention as examples of secular medieval literature...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Oh, that sounds like a fun piece. I'd have enjoyed seeing it, I bet.

I wish you could have joined us!

Did they say in the program which mystery cycles the plays were taken from?

Precious little detail, and as far as I could see, nothing about the translations and adaptation. Not even clear indication which works were adapted/translated and which weren't. Now, I think commodorified and auriaephiala could pretty much tell, but considering that some of the works were in the original and some weren't - and the exact dates weren't always clear - I thought they needed better footnotes.

The programme had a list labelled "THE TEXTS", which seems to be, generally, their sources - citing T.S. Eliot, Barbara Tuchman, Tony Curtis, William Golding, and Margaret Visser, among others. For the mystery cycles it said:

The Mystery Cycle: Part 1, Creation (c. 1300-1500)
The Mystery Cycle: Part 2, Nativity (c. 1300-1500)
The Mystery Cycle: Part 3, The Passion (c. 1300-1500)

with no futher details.

I fondly wish I were someplace where people performed bits of them once in a while.

All too rare. I'd like to be able to claim that Ottawa is such a centre of historical enlightenment and theatrical brilliance that it is a common occurrence here; but I suspect you (quite rightly) wouldn't believe me.

It does seem out of keeping with the late-medieval-English mostly-popular texts they seem to have used, doesn't it? As, I guess, would most of the courtly texts you mention as examples of secular medieval literature...

Yes. Considering that the cultural lines drawn in the middle ages weren't the same as ours, I thought that was a pity. I suppose they thought that the Biblical/nunnery theme gave a certain coherence to it. Personally I'd rather see the secular material performed, but they didn't ask me.

Maybe some day.

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

The lines between secular and religious culture tend to get blurry in the middle ages, definitely. Like, the mysteries were of course part of a religious celebration -- the cycles were performed for the feast of Corpus Christi, and so they celebrate the idea of the Church as the Body of Christ, but they also have a major civic component because they were put on by the different trade guilds, and there's also a sense of celebration of civic pride and pride in the labor that the performers are doing.

(A medievalist friend of mine, and this seems very vaguely pertinent, once asked his lj readers: "How Christian do you think Chaucer was?" And everybody's answer, including mine, amounted to "Exactly as Christian as I am." Heh.)

All too rare. I'd like to be able to claim that Ottawa is such a centre of historical enlightenment and theatrical brilliance that it is a common occurrence here

Hee. No, I know that you have to go to Toronto for that. ;)

And boo on them for not footnoting! The four surviving cycles all have a very different feel to them. Also, 1300 is rather too early for the texts they were probably doing; I don't think the cycle dramas start appearing until the late fourteenth century. (The moralities, at least the most-frequently-anthologized ones, are even later than that, being by and large mid-to-late fifteenth century, which is about the same time you start getting secular interludes about things like people eating pie except it really means sex. Also, I love that they did bits of Mankind; it is rather a shame that scatological humor and slapstick are no longer considered appropriate for religious discourse. ;) )

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

The notes did say that Mankind was dated to 1469-70, because of the kind of coins mentioned in the play. The other Morality (as opposed to Mystery) play excerpt they did was from 1485, and they made a real point of the Vowel Shift having occurred in the interim.

I think that the footnoting requirements of obsessive historians (or history amateurs) like us may be somewhat more exacting that the requirements of most actors. I've read a lot of interviews where the actor was asked what research they did, and a number of the honest ones said they just believed the script...

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know. I don't care what the actors know. The audience might like to know, though -- like, if people wanted to read more medieval drama or something. ;)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It's nice to know what they're dealing with. Since they had tame historians on hand, they could have at least annotated their bibliography a little more.

Though I suppose I should count myself lucky we got any kind of a bibliography in the programme.

On the whole, they did a good job of showing the passage of time, not just implying that all these texts came from the same period.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

they made a real point of the Vowel Shift having occurred in the interim.


I thought they brought that point across very well. Perhaps too well - it was great to see it illustrated, but it's a linguistic point, not an artistic one.

I think that the footnoting requirements of obsessive historians (or history amateurs) like us may be somewhat more exacting that the requirements of most actors.

Yes, clearly! And they can well work on the true assumption that if we want to know, we can look it up. Their purpose was not so much didactic as theatrical.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

they also have a major civic component because they were put on by the different trade guilds, and there's also a sense of celebration of civic pride and pride in the labor that the performers are doing.

One thing I noticed is that there were more references to animals, and uses of animals, than we would tend to expect in a story. (Not the Noah's Ark story per se, which one would expect to have animals as part of the theme, but all of them.) It seemed like a digression - and may partly have been the way the pieces were performed or chosen - but it was an interesting segue from the strictly Biblical to the familiar.

"How Christian do you think Chaucer was?" And everybody's answer, including mine, amounted to "Exactly as Christian as I am." Heh.

Gotta love Chaucer! One tends to think of Humanism becoming an accepted item in the Renaissance, but there are so many instances of it earlier - instances where it's just taken for granted.

I know that you have to go to Toronto for that. ;)

Blasphemer! Heretic!

The four surviving cycles all have a very different feel to them.

I don't think that came across in the presentation. Not that they all seemed alike, they didn't - and the subjects were very different - but at least as a casual audience member watching and listening, the similarities seemed greater to me than the differences.

1300 is rather too early for the texts they were probably doing; I don't think the cycle dramas start appearing until the late fourteenth century.

I thought that, but didn't feel sure of my ground: it's all much later than 'my' period and I am not up on the reading. But I thought of the Mystery Cycle as more of a 15th century thing.

it is rather a shame that scatological humor and slapstick are no longer considered appropriate for religious discourse. ;)

I blame the Puritans. Or maybe the Victorians. Or both. Anyway, good for the NAC for not censoring that.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

The presentation was entitled The Ark: The Passion, the mystery and the light of the Dark Ages. They seemed to think the Dark Ages lasted until 1485; or maybe the Dark Ages are with us still, who knows?

I've come across this once or twice re: transatlantic attitudes to the Middle Ages: US school courses referring to everything post-Roman but pre-Columbus as 'Dark Ages'. It's weird. Even what used to be the 'Dark Ages' are now generally called 'Early Mediæval' now, because we know so much more about them. And from their arts, they were certainly no barren period.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

It certainly used to be the view. When I was studying archaeology one lecturer referred to "The Incredible Shrinking Dark Ages" and we got i nto a lot of discussions about whether Late Antiquity or Early Middle Ages was more appropriate for the 6th century, and where, if at all, the line ought to be drawn.

By the time I'd read Sidonius Apollinaris' descriptions of a) his own very, very Roman home and lifestyle and b) that of the King of the Visigoths I came to the conclusion that it was better to talk about overlap rather than drawing lines. I mean, this 5th century king's daily routine was: go to Mass, sit in state and deal with business (can't remember which came in the morning, domestic or international), go hunting, do more business, play board games, dine in state. Not much change for the next 1000 years.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

"The Incredible Shrinking Dark Ages"

LOL. It's a funny phrase in the first place. I'm not sure what it was originally supposed to mean - 6th to 11th centuries, perhaps? I tend to prefer the less loaded phrase "early middle ages".

By the time I'd read Sidonius Apollinaris' descriptions of a) his own very, very Roman home and lifestyle and b) that of the King of the Visigoths I came to the conclusion that it was better to talk about overlap rather than drawing lines.

Yes, of course. It was a time of diversity. And variety. It took me a long time to realize how much the middle ages as a whole were not uniform. We are lucky that the Chritian Churches had a passion for documentation and literacy, but at the same time, there are huge sectors of population and cultures that fell outside that purview - even in Europe.

And over the course of a thousand years, some things changed radically and other things didn't change at all, depending what you're looking at and where. It's misleading to think it was all of a piece.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

Nobody outside the English speaking world used it; it applied originally to the period in which people were "unenlightened" and then was narrowed down to the period for which we don't have much useful documentary evidence - all savage barbarians pouring into the collapsed Roman Empire. Yeah, right, like the former Consul "Flavius Theoderichus Rex Italiae" who took over the civil service intact from Odovacer, who had taken it over intact himself. And the Patrician ex Magister Militum, Gundobad.

As to diversity, Sidonius Apollinaris gives an even weirder bit of information: that in his time there were chieftains living Iron Age style in hillforts. He boasts that he personally persuaded some of them to have their sons taught Latin.

And this was in the middle of Gaul, after half a millennium of Romanisation!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

it applied originally to the period in which people were "unenlightened" and then was narrowed down to the period for which we don't have much useful documentary evidence

Yes, and it doesn't help the issue to have it used in different ways by different historians and commentators. The people of the 9th century saw it one way. The people of the 16th century saw it another. And then the 19th and 20th century historians - well, it was used with any number or meanings, or none, and the pejorative connotation didn't do much service to anyone.

Thing is, in English, it's such a dramatically descriptive phrase. Like the term "Black Death" - used to mean much more than the pandemic of 1350!

in his time there were chieftains living Iron Age style in hillforts. He boasts that he personally persuaded some of them to have their sons taught Latin.

That is so cool! I'd love to have seen it, and to know what happened to them, and what they thought of it. Did they learn and forget? Did they start reading Livy and Cicero? Did they simply apply it to business? Was it incentive to leave their hill fort? Did it mean something, or everything, or nothing to them?

this was in the middle of Gaul, after half a millennium of Romanisation!

Yup. It is such a mistake to think that all people had the same type of civilization, of learning, of expectations, of technology, of... anything at all.

And look at all the diverse language groups coexisting - some of which still exist. And religious groups, some famous, some not, some accepted by the Church, some not, some respectable, some not.

No wonder I love the period.

It's Tolkien's fault that I love the "dark ages" so much.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

Well, it was a weird time. At the time the boys learned Latin it was the full Roman bit, Livy, Virgil and all... as well as being Christianised. After SA became a bishop he stopped writing poetry using pagan mythology (and I think the poetry itself became crap - there's a really dire one about Noah), but not until then.

But in their grandsons' time society was metamorphosing into Merovingian culture, which itself is weird; there must be some reason why Gregory of Tours thought that Clovis constructed (as opposed to possibly restoring?) a proper chariot-racing circus. And Romans started giving their children Frankish names, and burying their dead with grave goods even though they were Christian. I have a suspicion that this was the true point from which "France" originated: the langue d'oil heartland coincides almost exactly - scarily - with Clovis' realm between 485 and 505. And langue d'oil is more heavily creolised than any other Romance language.

I get more questions than answers, the more I look at the period. Why was Clothilde, the niece of the Arian Gundobad (though he was personally ready to convert to Catholicism at an early stage - just didn't think his people were ready) so determined a Catholic? What was the business about the insignia and rank granted to Clovis? Gregory says he was made consul, but the insignia are those of an emperor, not a consul. Which did Gregory get wrong? The insiginia or the position?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

it was a weird time.

Which is one reason it was so interesting. So many contrasts, so much change.

I wish I could answer your questions even with plausible theories - I love reading Gregory of Tours - but I have no good, hard answers. Too bad we can't find another chronicle. Annals. Memoirs. Whatever.

I find the Merovingians fascinating and I fantasize about writing a novel about them some day. Maybe.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

Talking of Gregory, I need to look up one particular thing he says - he describes something that sounds very like a meteor impact.

And in connection with his family, Gregory of Langres has one of the most fascinating careers I've come about. Doing the arithmetic, he must have been about 20 at the oldest when he became Count of the city of Autun, stayed in the job till his wife died when he was in his 80s and then retired... to become bishop of Langres!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

What an interesting history! Because of this conversation, I was trying to find my copy of his writings to look at it again and I can't find it... how frustrating! Am I going to have to buy another copy?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

US school courses referring to everything post-Roman but pre-Columbus as 'Dark Ages'.

It's an odd point of view, which seems to last insight into what the phrase meant to those who first used it, or who used it at the time it applies to. "Frigiscente mundi" is a phrase I encountered as an undergraduate and it put chills up my back.

Even what used to be the 'Dark Ages' are now generally called 'Early Mediæval' now, because we know so much more about them.

A much better name, because it holds fewer assumptions. But I can understand a theatre director wanting to go for a phrase that's less accuate but more emotion-laden. Peter Hinton was trying to say - I think, I'm freeling interpreting here - that "this time may have been dark, but it was creative, and the people had strong expressions of what was important to them". Which is fair, and true, but expressed in terms of something that is a misleading assummption. No, not even an assumption. A... misnomer. But one he can get away with. Knowingly? I'm not sure. I'd give him the benefit of the doubt, but I don't know if that would mean 'the knew better, but was being dramatic' or 'he didn't know any better'. How much historical savvy can a theatrical group get in three weeks?

More from the plays and poetry, I suspect, than the average text book.