Medieval Cycle Plays

Cycle Plays

This is quite an exciting time for me and my family. The festival of Corpus Christi is fast approaching and we are looking forward to it with great anticipation. Fortunately it is late spring and the weather will be perfect for the entire town to get together to hold this magnificent celebration. This year, because I am part of the cattle raising guild I have been given a special task. The town leaders have put me in charge of producing part of a series of dramas in conjunction with the festival. Since a fatted calf is mentioned the story of the Prodigal Son I have been asked to create it into a drama. This will be no easy task. There are many things that I must consider including how it is to be staged, what kind of space I will be working with and who will be attending the performance. God be thanked for this glorious opportunity I have been given. These plays have given meaning to my life and shown me how important the role of the church is. I am very excited to provide that for others.

Last year our attendance at the festival suffered greatly. The crowds at the cycle plays were particularly small. I intend to change all of that by making my play appeal to a larger audience. There are a couple ideas that I have come up with to make this happen. First, I am going to incorporate comedy into my play. Now I know that the story of the prodigal son is serious in nature, but I have to give the audience something to laugh at. Nobody wants a repeat of last year when half the crowd fell asleep at Drako's portrayal of Lazarus and he rich man. So I think I will portray the sons as pestering kids that are always arguing and driving their father crazy. When the younger one asks to leave he is almost relived and excited to see him go. I will portray the younger son's foibles in a comical manner and depict him, as well as all the other characters, as ordinary men and women of the medieval era. It should be known that I have mentioned things like "medieval era" and "cycle plays" even though as a person writing from that time I would have no knowledge of these titles. This is known as an anachronism. We do that all the time in these plays so this paper should be no different, right? This helps the audience (and reader) better relate to what is going on.

Last year Drako tried to stage his cycle play with processional staging. He loaded everything up on his traveling wagons and moved to different locales throughout town. It created specially for his performance with a stage out in front, a curtain and a backstage area for the actors. In theory everything sounded great but he found it really difficult to keep everything moving from location to location without falling behind schedule. These plays are only supposed to last three or four days. Once you hit five people start looking for something else to do because of their short attention spans. (a little medieval humor) Based on last year's fiasco, I have decided to use stationary staging. Just to add a little to the spectacle I will have the main characters ride in on Drako's old wagon and then have them perform on the stage that I have set up in the middle of town. I have quite the set! Two mansions lined up side by side. The