Coventry was so famous in the later Middle Ages and early modern times because of its cycle of mystery plays, that many monarchs visited the town in order to attend the annual performances, or – while on a royal progress – were celebrated by a special stage event. Unfortunately, of the complex cycle only two plays have survived, one of which in two manuscripts, whereas the other in an early nineteenth-century printed transcription, its manuscript having been burnt at the Birmingham Free Reference Library later in 1879. By analysing the documents collected in the Coventry volume of the Records of Early English Drama, the article tries on the one hand to reconstruct the performance of at least one pageant the play text of which is not extant any longer (focusing mainly on The Last Judgment episode). On the other it considers how historical evidence (generally concerning city laws and guilds’ expenses) can be of help in visualising the show of an existing playtext whose performance remains undocumented.
Coventry: a case study for theatrical philology between documents and scripts
MULLINI, ROBERTA
2016
Abstract
Coventry was so famous in the later Middle Ages and early modern times because of its cycle of mystery plays, that many monarchs visited the town in order to attend the annual performances, or – while on a royal progress – were celebrated by a special stage event. Unfortunately, of the complex cycle only two plays have survived, one of which in two manuscripts, whereas the other in an early nineteenth-century printed transcription, its manuscript having been burnt at the Birmingham Free Reference Library later in 1879. By analysing the documents collected in the Coventry volume of the Records of Early English Drama, the article tries on the one hand to reconstruct the performance of at least one pageant the play text of which is not extant any longer (focusing mainly on The Last Judgment episode). On the other it considers how historical evidence (generally concerning city laws and guilds’ expenses) can be of help in visualising the show of an existing playtext whose performance remains undocumented.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
