Category Archives: Holtslaw, Brittany

Lancelot: Queen Guinevere is delighted with Lancelot

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About the scene and clip:
Lancelot tells Queen Guinevere’s young lady messenger that he is willing to do his best or his worst in combat—whatever the queen asks of him. The queen is delighted.

About the work:
Lancelot is one of the five surviving romances by the great narrative poet Chrétien de Troyes; it is centrally concerned with the love affair between Guinevere, wife of King Arthur, and Lancelot, one of the knights of the Round Table. This unfinished romance contains many adventures of Lancelot and Gawain as they attempt to rescue Guinevere, who has been carried off by the evil Meleagant.

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.

About the edition/translation:
Lancelot or the Knight of the Cart, trans. Ruth Harwood Cline, Athens, GA, University of Georgia Press, 1990, pp. 162ff. French: Le Chevalier de la charrette, ed. Charles Méla, in Romans de Chrétien de Troyes, eds./trans. J.M. Fritz et al, Paris, Classiques Modernes/Livre de Poche, 1994.

About the performer/ensemble:
Brittany Holtsclaw is a Drama student in the Stonestreet Studio at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (2008).

About the production:
This performance was created for “Acting Medieval Literature,” taught by Prof. Timmie (E.B.) Vitz in spring 2008; it was videoed in the classroom.

Tristan by Béroul: Lovers take revenge

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About the scene and clip:
Tristan comes in secret to see Iseut; she spots one of their enemies spying on them, and Tristan kills him with an arrow. The solo storyteller plays all the parts.

About the work:
Béroul’s mid-12th-century story of Tristan and Iseut is one of the earliest surviving versions of the love story. He is completely on the lovers’ side, though their love is illicit. Béroul’s narrative is full of dialogues and dramatic scenes, some of them strongly comic, some highly physical.

About the genre:
This work is probably best understood as a tale that is close to a romance, or an early romance.

The tale, like the epic, is an ancient genre and one found everywhere in the world. Many tales are firmly rooted in oral tradition and are recited or told by amateur and professional storytellers and performers. Other tales are the work of literarily sophisticated authors and are often intended to be read aloud or silently from written texts. Some tales circulate separately, while others are part of collections, which may be set in complex frames (as in the case of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Boccaccio’s Decameron and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales). There are many sub-groups of tales with specific characteristics; see for example the “lai” and the “fabliau.”

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.

About the edition/translation:
Béroul, The Romance of Tristan, ed. and trans. Norris J. Lacy, New York, Garland, 1989, pp. 207ff.

About the performer/ensemble:
Brittany Holtsclaw is a Drama student in the Stonestreet Studio at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (2008).

About the production:
This performance was created for “Acting Medieval Literature,” taught by Prof. Timmie (E.B.) Vitz in spring 2008; it was videoed in the classroom.

Partridges with four performers

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About the scene and clip:
In this strongly physical clip, four performers, wearing simple costumes and using props, divide up and act out the roles. One performer (Jenn Messina) adds lively fiddle accompaniment.

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 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 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. 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:
Michael Abourizk is a major in Dramatic Literature and Theater History, with a minor in French, in the College of Arts and Science at New York University. Brittany Holtsclaw is a Drama student in the Stonestreet Studio at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Jen Messina is a Drama student in the Atlantic Acting School at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, with a minor in Chemistry. Kim Woycke is a Drama student in the CAP 21 Studio at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (2008).

About the production:
This performance was created for the course “Acting Medieval Literature,” taught by Prof. Timmie (E.B.) Vitz at New York University in spring 2008. It took place at the Maison Française at an event called “Making It Real 2008” in April 2008; it was videoed by Gina Guadagnino.