Category Archives: Performers, Multiple

Rose: Mimed images on garden wall

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About the scene and clip:
This scene comes from the opening passage of The Romance of the Rose by Guillaume de Lorris. The Narrator–the “Dreamer”–describes the images that he saw painted on the outer wall of the Garden of Pleasure, or “Verger de Déduit”: these negative figures–Hate, Felony, Villainy, Covetousness, Avarice, Envy, Sorrow, Old Age, Pope Holy, and Poverty–are excluded from the garden of love. This performance combines a single reader with three actors who mime the allegorical figures.

About the work:
The Romance of the Rose is arguably the most influential French work of the Middle Ages. This work is a romance, composed in verse and treating of love. But it is a highly unusual romance in many regards.The Rose introduced into romance a set of major allegorical figures such as Love, Reason, and Danger; it established the popularity of the dream vision; and it launched a new fashion in pseudo-autobiographical narrative. The first 4000 lines (in octosyllabic rhymed couplets) were written by Guillaume de Lorris around 1230. This strongly lyrical part of the romance emphasizes the beauty of the Garden of Love, and the suffering by the Lover in his quest for love; Guillaume’s romance was left unfinished. Around 1280, Jean de Meun completed the work by adding close to 18,000 lines; his lengthy and learned text features speeches delivered by such characters as Reason, the Jealous Husband, the Old Woman, Nature, and Genius.

About the genre:
Medieval romances are typically long narratives of love and adventure in which an aristocratic hero (or occasionally a heroine) proves himself in combat and courtship. Medieval romance arose in France and Anglo-Norman England in the 12th century and spread through Western and even Eastern Europe. Many early romances tell the stories of knights and ladies at King Arthur’s court. In the 12th and 13th centuries, romances are composed in verse (typically octosyllabic rhymed couplets), and are commonly performed aloud from memory by minstrels; romances are also sometimes read aloud. In the 13th century, some romances begin to be written in prose; public and private readings become more frequent.

Allegory is a way of composing and of interpreting texts: characters and the plot point beyond themselves to something “other”—something symbolic. Characters are often personifications of forces such as Love, Pride, Reason, or Friendship. The plot is also symbolic: characters’ struggles are between vices and virtues; their journey may refer to life’s pilgrimage or to the discovery of some great truth, such as the nature of love. Works may be entirely allegorical, or may just contain brief passages written in this mode. Allegorical works are often strongly religious, philosophical, or moral.

About the edition/translation:
Performance abridged from of The Romance of the Rose, Harry W. Robbins trans., New York, Dutton, 1962, pp. 5-12/ ll. 129-520; French edition: Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, Le Roman de la Rose, ed./[Modern French] trans. Armand Strubel, Paris, Lettres Gothiques, 1992.

About the performer/ensemble:
Amanda Espinosa is a Spanish major in the College of Arts and Science at New York University (2002). Erin Huiett is a Drama major at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (2002). Rebeca Jefferson is an English major in the College of Arts and Science at New York University (2002).

About the production:
This clip was filmed at the Maison Française of New York University in the course “Acting Medieval Literature,” taught by Prof. E.B. Vitz in fall 2002.

Partridges: Wife devours birds

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About the scene and clip:
This performance represents an experiment with mimed action: one performer mimes the furtive but passionate eating of the partridges, while readers narrate the story.

About the work:
In The Partridges (Les Perdris), an anonymous fabliau, a wife cannot resist devouring the partridges she and her husband were to eat for dinner. The priest, who was to have joined them for dinner, arrives just as the husband is sharpening his knife to carve the partridges. The wife tells her husband that the priest has stolen the partridges, and she tells the priest that her husband wants to castrate him with his knife. The terrified priest runs vs rolex daytona 116520bkso mens rolex calibre 7750 mingzhu engine hands and markers away with the husband at his heels.

About the genre:
Fabliaux are short comic tales. This narrative genre was extremely popular in the 13th and 14th centuries in France and elsewhere in Europe (Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale is a sophisticated fabliau). Fabliaux almost invariably deal with the passions of lust, gluttony, avarice–and with attempts to trick or deceive others. Characters are typically bourgeois, clerks and monks, or peasants–and often women. The treatment is comic or satirical. But fabliaux vary considerably. Some are extremely vulgar in language and treatment, inviting crude gestures in performance. Other fabliaux are based on puns or wordplay. Many have a moral at the end and some have ethical overtones throughout. A few fabliaux are refined and courtly in language and themes. Many fabliaux are anonymous, but a few are by known poets. Performance styles green apple flum and strategies for the fabliaux probably varied considerably in the Middle Ages, according to the subject matter and characters, the poet, the performer(s), the occasion, and the kind of audience present.

About the edition/translation:
This performance is drawn from Fabliaux, Fair and Foul, trans. John DuVal, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, Binghamton, NY, 1992 (pp. 46-49), pp.46-47; II. 1-52. Original: Le Nouveau recueil complet des fabliaux, eds. Willem Noomen & Nico van den Boogaard, Assen: Van Gorcum, Vol. IV (1983), pp. 8-12.

About the performer/ensemble:
Stacey Sund (the wife) is a Drama student at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts; the readers are Amanda Espinosa (New York University’s College of Arts and Science: Spanish major) and Gabriella Mongiovi (New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts: Drama) (2002).

About the production:
This scene was performed and filmed during a class titled “Acting Medieval Literature,” taught by Prof. E.B. Vitz at New York University in fall 2002.

Knights, Clerks and Churls

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About the scene and clip:
This tale contrasts the reactions of two knights, two clerks, and two churls as each pair looks at a beautiful meadow: the knights see it as an ideal spot for a fancy picnic; the clerks (medieval students), as a place to make love with a woman; the churls (peasants) as the perfect place in which to defecate. The fabliau reflects and plays with medieval ideas of class differences. In this clip, two performers act out the three pairs of characters; they also interact in a comic and vulgar way with their audience of fellow-students and with the third performer who reads parts of the story aloud. Props are used: a fake buttocks and chocolate turds.

About the work:
See “About the scene” (above).

About the genre:
Fabliaux are short comic tales. This narrative genre was extremely popular in the 13th and 14th centuries in France and elsewhere in Europe (Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale is a sophisticated fabliau). Fabliaux almost invariably deal with the passions of lust, gluttony, avarice–and with attempts to trick or deceive others. Characters are typically bourgeois, clerks and monks, or peasants–and often women. The treatment is comic or satirical. But fabliaux vary considerably. Some are extremely vulgar in language and treatment, inviting crude gestures in performance. Other fabliaux are based on puns or wordplay. Many have a moral at the end and some have ethical overtones throughout. A few fabliaux are refined and courtly in language and themes. Many fabliaux are anonymous, but a few are by known poets. Performance styles and strategies for the fabliaux probably varied considerably in the Middle Ages, according to the subject matter and characters, the poet, the performer(s), the occasion, and the kind of audience present.

About the edition/translation:
This performance is drawn from Fabliaux, Fair and Foul, trans. John DuVal, Medieval and Renaissance Texts & Studies, Binghamton, NY, 1992, pp. 44-45. Original: Fabliaux et contes des poètes français des XI, XII, XIII, XIV et XVe siècles, ed. Étienne Barbazan, Paris, Chez B. Waree oncle, 1808, Vol. 3., 28-29.

About the performer/ensemble:
Justin Fair is a Drama Student in the Atlantic Acting School at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (2003). Andrew Kahrl is a student in the Playwrights Horizons Theatre School at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (2003). Brooke Stanley is double majoring in Drama and Political Science at New York University (2002).

About the production:
This scene was created for “Acting Medieval Literature,” taught by Prof. E.B. Vitz at New York University in fall 2002. This performance was filmed for a class held at the Maison Française.