- 500-800 BC - The dark ages. Theatre is almost extinct as it was heavily discouraged by the Church.
The church began to use theatre in events that taught christian values to the public. Much of the population was illiterate. In addition the church gained a lot of power and forced christians to attend, theatre and the performances were to ensure that the people in attendance didn't get bored.
The way that the theatre was performed was that there were multiple performances going on, and the audience was free to move around and watch a little bit of each one. This form of performance is a form of interactive theatre still in use today.
There were three types of plays in medieval time:
- Mystery Plays - Dramatisations of the Old and New Testaments lasts for days or weeks with over a hundreds actors.
- Morality plays - Battle between God and the Devil, Questions your religious morality. Personifies abstractions of virtues and vices.
- Saint Plays - Dramatic performances of the lives of the martyred saints
In the picture we have a performance of an old tale of "Everyman". "Every Man" played by Sahitya travels along the path towards heaven, he must not stray from the path, however the path is beset by personifications of the 7 deadly sins. In this picture I represent Lust, I lay on the block to provocatively lure in "Every Man".
These plays are to educate the illiterate public on how to remain a pure christian, by not using complex metaphors, and instead being simple for anyone to understand
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