Early theatre: Religious drama

David Bradley as God in The Mysteries by Tony Harrison, directed by Bill Bryden, National Theatre, London, 1999

Most early theatre in England was religious and evolved from the liturgical drama of the 10th and 11th centuries. Theatre became a truly popular form when the clergy encouraged the staging of mystery cycles in England from around 1350.

Mystery cycles and miracle plays were written in the vernacular in order to teach ordinary people about the Bible and Christianity. Church services and religious books were written in Latin and because most people did not receive an education, they could neither read nor understand the Latin mass.

Mystery cycles

Mystery plays were produced by local towns and were written in cycles. These followed the stories of the Bible from Creation to Doomsday. They included dramatisations of the Fall of Lucifer, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Flood, The Nativity and The Passion of Christ. Plays from only four town cycles still exist. These are from Wakefield (known as the Towneley cycle), Chester, Coventry and York. The largest was the York Cycle which contained 48 pageants.

Miracle plays

Miracle plays told the stories of the lives of different saints. At the time people believed in the power of saints to solve their problems.

Holy relics supposedly taken from the bodies of the saints (eg, bones, pieces of their hair, clothing and even skin) were kept by the church. People paid money to the church to pray to these relics. The superstitious belief that seeing or touching a holy relic would cure all ills was commonplace and was promoted by the Catholic church.

Miracle plays were popular in the 14th and 15th centuries, but in the 16th century Henry VIII banned all drama that could pose a threat to Protestantism in an attempt to stop any celebration of Catholic doctrine. As a consequence very few mystery or miracle play texts still exist.

Everyman, 15th century morality play, black and white photograph, Elizabethan Stage Society, 20th century

Newspaper cutting from Illustrated London News, The Ober-Ammergau Passion Play, 7 June 1890. Museum no. S.1187-2009

William Poel as Adonai (God) in Everyman, a 15th century morality play, black and white photograph, Elizabethan Stage Society, 1901

The Triumph of the Archduchess Isabella in the Brussels Ommeganck (detail), Denijs van Alsloot (1570-1628), oil on canvas, Flemish, 1615. Museum no. 5928-1859

Staging

Mystery and miracle plays were often performed on pageant wagons in town squares or in the grounds of churches.

Pageant wagons had a stage, sometimes with two levels, which could be used with the ground in front of the wagon as another performance level. Pageant wagons processed through the streets and stopped to perform at pre-arranged sites. In some towns, however, plays were acted in a set space or 'place' surrounded by fixed stages or 'scaffolds'.

Plays were produced by tradesmen's guilds. Guilds would specialise in producing one or more plays that were appropriate to their profession. For example the carpenters might perform Noah's Ark and the Pinners (who made nails) The Crucifixion. The design of the costumes contained symbols to help the audience recognise the characters, for example God wore a white coat and had a golden face.

The Tradesmen's guilds raised the money for the plays by a system called pageant silver. All the workers in the guild were expected to contribute a set amount, no matter how small their wages.