English literature and the origin of the theatre

English literature and the origin of the theatre

English literature originated in 650 AD and greatly developed into different forms and genres.
In the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries the English theatre was born and developed: its origin was linked to religious celebrations especially those commemorating great Christian events.
In this time these performances took place in the nave of the church, but later they also moved to other places. This change marked the replacement of Latin with English and consequently people took the place of monks and priests in these performances.

The Medieval Drama was characterized by three different forms: the first and the most important was “the Miracle play”. It was staged by members of the trade guilds and was mainly performed on movable stage wagons, that were known as pageants: They were open on all sides and the actors performed some stories from the Bible, about the creation of Adam to the Resurrection of Christ and the Last Judgement. They acted in English. The pageants used to stop in different parts of the city and people listened to the stories with great interest and emotional involvement.

The second important form of theatrical composition is “the Morality play”, which was the new development in drama based on the personifications of human vices and virtues and not about the Bible. They represented the first step towards psychological stories set in a contemporary environment. Everyman was the most important example of Morality play.

In the late 15th century the “Interlude” developed: this new form of composition was based on a short story, usually performed by a small acting company at a lord’s house. It was characterized by a combination of serious and comic elements: Disguise was one of the main features together with the dramatic character, whose purpose was to a arouse laughter by means of witty word games.

Greta Perini

The Knights of the Round Table

Sir Thomas Malory in the 15th centuries wrote a long collection of romances about King Artur and the Knights of the Round Falle making reference to Chorètien de Troyes works.

Chrètien de Troyes lived at the Maria di Champagne's court between 1160 and 1180 and wrote a series of knights romances, those romances were full of magic events and the most important part was dedicate to the importance of love.
In those romances dedicated to the Knights of the Round Table there were numberless personaes, the first is King Artur, a legendary gallant warrior that was able to unite the British and Christians Tribes against the Anglo-Saxon invasions, pagan people who worshipped a Germanic religon.
All around King Artur mouved many other personaes as his tutor wizard Merlin who grew Artù to attain the unification of the british tribes under his wise government.
Wizard Merlin was a fantastic personage who come from the celtic culture, in fact he rapresented the Druid figure.
In antithesis to Merlin was the witch Morgana, so she was a magic figure, but she had negatives characteriestic, she worked for the breton defeat and for the paganism supremacy.

Another very important figure of the romance was Queen Ginevra very loved and idealized by Artù, but she was unfaithful to him following in love with Sir Lancillotto one of the most brave kinghts and friends of Artù.

The greatness of those romances doesn't lie in the more or less veracity of the told stories but in the represented values; with those romances had come to us the medioeval vision of life, ideals like onor, loyalty, faithfulness and love for the King and for the Church were unrenounciabily values for the medieval man; those feelling are so far from ours that they train an unresistible actraction.

Lia Fabbri

THE THEATRE IN ENGLAND

Initially performances were linked to religious celebration, in particular Christian events: monks and priests acted pieces of Bible in churches.
Then, during the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, these performances took place elsewhere, and members of trade guilds, not more monks and priests, acted in them. During this period Latin was replaced with English too.These performances, called Miracle Plays, gave dramatic shape to the whole story of the Bible and they were set on movable stage wagons called pageants, which stopped at different place in town. In front of them people watched the episode they wanted to see.
Then appeared a new kind of performance: the Morality Play. Their characters weren’t taken from the Bible, but they were personifications of human vices and virtues. This represented the first step towards a psychological interpretation of characters.
At the end of the 15th century were created Interludes. Theese were short plays that combined serious and comic elements, performing by a small acting company at lord’s house.

By Giulia Covacci

Hamlet in Concert at the Theatre

Last Tuesday we went to the theatre Puccini in Florence to see “Hamlet in concert”, based on the famous tragedy of Shakespeare.

The Shakespearean masterpiece puts staging the inner anguish of the young prince of Denmark, Hamlet, who, discovered the horrible plan behind the death of his father, cultivates revenge against his uncle, murderer and usurper, but fought by doubts and insecurities continually delaying action until the tragic epilogue.

Interpreting in an original way the figure of young Hamlet the director, Grant Fraser, abandons the dark drama of the Elizabethan opera to realize a show which develops over the notes of the grandiose 80s rock. That's “Hamlet in concert", whose plot remains almost entirely linked to the original one.

In this musical Hamlet with his doubts and insecurities, closely remembers a teenager of nowadays; the music becomes a way of expression and protest: the young prince seems like the eternal teenager that hates his family, he doesn’t know what he wants from his life, he struggles against himself and against the world too. He tries to escape from the torments of everyday life through art, like Graffiti art.

The director recasts the story of Hamlet through the sounds of Rolling Stone, Pink Floyd, U2, Queen and others; their music intertwine to the verses of the great Shakespearean classic. Also the characters on stage assume the profile of famous rock star: for example, the young Hamlet directly remembers, with his black dress and studded belt, the post punk people in England, Ophelia may be related to the most famous pop stars of the 80s, even the Queen with leather boots; and the uncle with Heavy Metal t-shirt, accompanied by boots and cowboy hat, seem to come from a Hard Rock band (the character that the audience like most) mainly youth, perhaps due to his strange way of introducing himself: in any case also the other characters, perhaps less important, like Ophelia's father, can be fun.

The comedy is very funny and the actors are very good, so much that despite being in the original language it was not difficult to follow the story, thanks to their talent and the presence of songs. Another thing that struck much the audience was the presence of special effects, such apparitions of ghosts and many more, which have increased the attraction of all those present.

Mirko Risaliti - Cantiani Michele - Goretti Martina

at the Theatre, again!

...but this time for a MUSICAL..."Hamlet in Concert" produced by Palketto Stage!
While waiting for your reviws and comments, go to the site!

vote 4 the competition!

I am very pleased to inform you that the whole 3B class has been selected as judge for a competition:

some students of the class 4C have written fantastic ghost stories and you should judge them according to your personal opinion.
Please, reply with your preference to:

a) No Place is Safe
b) The Cemetery
c) The Mistery of the Classroom
d) The Revealing mirror

(Obviously, the names are omitted not to influence you)

The 4 stories are the following:

a) No Place is Safe

A beath woke me up, I started to perspire...

little by little the sigh became louder and louder.

I was holding my pillow close to my heart that was beating as fast as it could.

I was hot but I wasn't able to uncover myself.

I was pietrified.

After few minutes I realized that I had to get up from the bed and try to discover what the hell was going on.

I took a big breath and I turned on the light...I went in my leaving-room where I saw a pool of blood.

I couldn't scream because of the shock but I was crying.

I followed the line of blood on the floor and i got in my mother's room but I heard a strong noise behind me:

I turned but I couldn't see anything.

IIturned back and I prolonged my arm in order to turn on the light..........SWISHHHHHHHH...Ponk:

All Dead!

b) The Cemetery.

I am lying down on a field. It’s all dark around me and I feel the wet grass brushing my skin. I realize that my eyes are closed, so I open them slowly.

It’s evening, and the sun is setting down.

«What’s happened? Where am I?» I ask myself.

The last thing I remember is my mum who says «Goodnight, dear» and kisses me before going to sleep.

I manage to raise myself, and I begin to look around. I see a line of cypresses on a hill and a lot of grey tombstones placed in an orderly way that make me think «I’m in a cemetery».

«I must go away from here before the sunset, or it will be too dark… I haven’t time to lose!». So I start running looking for a way out, but suddenly I feel something that blocks my feet on the ground… Two horrible hands that come out from the grass are holding my ankles and I can move myself anymore!

I scream at the top of my voice and I start struggling, but the hands keep on tighten. Then I feel some icy fingers grinding my neck, and I can breathe no more!

After a few seconds the hands loosen the grip, so I take the opportunity to free myself and run away.

I stop only when I’m out of breath, and I sit on the ground… but I don’t make it in time for resting that I’m surrounded by a lot of zombies!

They come closer and closer and I don’t know that to do… So I lie myself with my face on the grass, and I begin to cry loudly.

Then I open my eyes and all of a sudden I realize that I’m not in the cemetery anymore. I feel the pillow under my head and the warm blanket covering me… «Oh my god, this is my bed» I shout. «It was just a nightmare!».

c)THE MYSTERY OF THE CLASSROOM

In my school there is an old old legend about a mysterious classroom, the art-classroom. It is situated under the headmaster-room, near the physical-room. Now it is always closed, but once I heard some keepers talking about it, that is a very incredible scary story.

About 20 years before, a couple of students used to meet in that room every day secretly, since they feared not to be accepted by their families and friends.

The meetings between the girls have been continuing for many months, and their love grew day by day; together they were happy and they thought that nothing would have separated them. A day while they were cuddling, a classmate entered the class and saw them. Initially the girl continued to watch secretly, then understood the situation, came forward with the threat to tell the secret love to everybody.

The girls implored her to keep the secret but the cruel spy decided to talk about this with the teachers and with the classmates.

The frightened girls feared the friend’s and the families’ opinion and decided to die together. So they killed themselves in the same place where their love was born and grown with some poison.

The next day they had been found embraced one another lying down on the floor. The bad girl who pushed them to suicide, caught by remorse, became crazy. During the night she had a terrible nightmare: the ghosts of the two students crying and screaming asked her the reason for which she had revealed their secret.

She was shut in a spectral mad-house for the rest of her life, keeping the secret with herself…

The room, where these terrible and dreadful events were happened, was closed forever, trying to forget this sad love story.

Still today the keepers that clear the hall of the downstairs hear some spooky noise and see shadows by the crack under the door of the art-room. Take care…

d) The Revealing Mirror

One fine day, Odette, a young woman of twenty-five years of age, broke her mirror that she had in her bedroom and so she decided to buy a new one.
While she was walking along the street, she noticed that in the window of an old-fashioned shop there was a fascinating mirror: Odette went into the antique shop and she asked the shopkeeper how much the mirror costed. It was very cheap and so she decided to buy it even if the man hinted at a curse related to the mirror.

At the beginning it was all going well but with the passing of the time she noticed that the mirror altered all the things reflected into it. Odette started to be afraid. She was awfully troubled and frightened for this situation insomuch as she thought to be mad.

Odette, one evening, resolved to cover the scary mirror with a red sheet and she went to bed.
At the night she had a terrible nightmare: an old woman, with a ghost that was turning around her, told her that all the hurts to her family and to other people twenty years before would be come back to her and that the day before she would have had to look into the mirror.
Odette woke up at 6 o'clock and immediately she uncovered the "looking glass" and saw into it. The mirror showed her the disastrous blaze that she caused in her small country when she was a child. She was the only survivor although she remained in coma for five months.

Odette started to tremble and she did a terrible scream. She remembered everything and she became really mad. She stayed to look the mirror for 6 hours without a break. In the end she broke the mirror with a fist and she killed herself with a splinter of glass.

The pernicious mirror recomposed itself and, the day before, it was in a old-fashioned shop again.

THE END OF EDEN?

The article takes an idea from the New York Times feature story “In a Funk, Italy Sings an Aria of Disappointment” by Ian Fisher to understand the way in which foreign see Italian life; and if still exist the Italian Eden.

In the past, Italy was seen as the historical and cultural Eden, a place where life was very cheap for outlander visitors, but, after years of inflaction, today life in Italy has became very expensive. In spite of this, too many tourists continue to came in Italy every years to find the Italian way of life, but they don’t meet the Italian reality of daily life; for this reason our writter prefear interview foreign residents and not fleeting travellers.

By those interviews we can see a country in decline.

Robert Nordvall, native Pennsylvanian, claims that Italians always complaining of the public aspects even in the 1960s’ with the economic boom; they have always had a pessimistic vision of the future and this is the cause of the economic slowdown.

Also in the interview grant by Jeremy Boudreau there is the hope that Italy can keep up with the Europe development being not only a country for tourists.

An art historian crub for the excessive cost of the art’s ticket, now inaccessibles for many people.

The article completed with the consideration that bringing the Italian problems on the international press has made the positive effect to promove a discussion on the Italian reality way of life that isn’t only pizza and mandolino.

I think that the Italian Eden has never existed, it was only a romantic idea of some rich and superficial travelers; our country has always been more complex then the foreigns think with many deep contradictions that are the problem and the power of Italy at the same time.

Lia Fabbri