Category Archives: Peters, Jak

Aristotle: Aristotle’s come-uppance

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About the scene and clip:
In this clip four performers act out how Alexander the Great’s beautiful Indian mistress teaches a lesson about the irresistibility of love to the philosopher Aristotle.

About the work:
The title of this fabliau—The Lay of Aristotle—probably suggests its relatively courtly style. It tells how Alexander the Great falls in love with a beautiful Indian woman and neglects his kingly duties. His tutor, the philosopher Aristotle, reproaches him for the affair and Alexander agrees to break with her. But unable to stay away, he reveals his problem to her. Determined to have revenge on Aristotle, she sets out to seduce him, and she succeeds in making him fall in love and play the fool for her: she rides around the field on his back as though he were an ass—while Alexander is a witness to Aristotle’s humiliation. Was Aristotle right, or wrong, to warn Alexander against Love?

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:
Abridged from Gallic Salt, ed./trans Robert L. Harrison, Berkeley, CA, University of California Press, 1974, pp. 268-289.

About the performer/ensemble:
Amanda Guillett is a Drama student in the CAP 21 Studio at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (2004). Alexander Sarian is a student in Educational Theatre at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education (2004). Jak Peters is a Drama student in the Meisner Studio at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (2004). Michael Ritchie is a PhD student in the French Department at New York University; he served as Teaching Assistant in “Acting Medieval Literature” (2004).

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 2004. It took place in May 2004 in the Great Hall of 19 University Place at New York University, at a public gathering of medievalists held under the auspices of the Colloquium for Orality, Writing and Culture, co-convenors Prof. Nancy Freeman Regalado and Prof. Vitz. The performance was videoed by NYU-TV.

Hunchbacks: Servant tries to dispose of bodies

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About the scene and clip:
The wife has hired a man to get rid of the bodies of the three dead hunchbacks. Each time he takes one away, she brings out another from the trunks where they suffocated and accuses him of not having done the job. In this clip, the performer focuses on the attempts of the man to dispose of what he thinks is a single hunchback, and on his frustration and increasing alarm at the repeated reappearance of dead hunchbacks.

About the work:
The Three Hunchbacks is a comic tale about a man who marries off his daughter to a jealous hunchback–and about the wife’s clever stratagem to get rid of the bodies of three hunchbacked minstrels who suffocated in trunks in her chamber; her nasty husband is disposed of as well. The website contains several clips drawn from this fabliau, exemplifying some of the many ways in which this story can be performed.

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:
Abridged from Fabliaux Fair and Foul, trans. John Duval, Binghamton, NY, Pegasus/ Medieval & Renaissance Texts, 1992, pp. 143-146. Old French: Fabliaux, ed. R.C. Johnston and D.D.R. Owen, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1965 (other Old French editions also exist).

About the performer/ensemble:
Jak Peters is a Drama student in the Meisner Studio at New York University Tisch School of the Arts (2004).

About the production:
This scene was performed and filmed in a classroom in “Acting Medieval Literature,” taught by Prof. Timmie (E.B.) Vitz at New York University in spring 2004.

Renard: Camel, papal legate, speaks in court before Lion the King

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About the scene and clip:
In this scene, the Camel, the Papal Legate, is invited by King Noble the Lion to speak to the court about Renard’s case. The Camel, an Italian, speaks in a blend of Latin, Italian, and French (the French is here replaced by English). Two performers do this scene; the Legate (Nick Robbins) imitates (with a wad of chewing gum) the Camel’s cud-chewing nature, as well as his pompous, if impassioned, largely incomprehensible speech. The play of languages or dialects was often central to the performance of medieval works.

About the work:
Le Roman de Renart– The Romance of Renard [or Reynard] the Fox– is the work of many poets, some known, some unknown, of the 12th and 13th centuries. It consists of different “branches,” which recount in octosyllabic rhymed couplets the adventures of Renard and his generally-violent tangles with Isengrin the Wolf, Tibert the Cat, Chanteclere the Cock, and numerous other birds and beasts. Tone and treatment vary, but parody and satire predominate. Many scenes mock feudal institutions, royal justice, religious practices, and courtly love, as well as literary genres such as the epic, romance, and saint’s life; obscenity is frequent. The Renard material apparently originated in France, and then traveled widely, finding receptive audiences in the Low Countries and elsewhere in Europe.

This story comes from Branch II–one of the earliest and most important branches–by Pierre de Saint-Cloud. This particular episode tells about Chanteclere the Cock and his wife, Pinte the Hen; Renart catches Chanteclere but is tricked into letting him go.

The website contains several clips from the Renart that demonstrate some of the many different ways in which characters and scenes from this work can be performed.

About the genre:
While these stories are called a “roman,” that is a romance, Le Roman de Renart is primarily a loose compilation of related tales; these stories also partake of the mock-epic and of satire. Thus, they do not fit neatly into any genre classification.

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.”

About the edition/translation:
Renard the Fox: The Misadventures of an Epic Hero, trans. Patricia Terry, Boston, Northeastern University Press, 1983, pp. 29ff. French: The Earliest Branches of the Roman de Renart, ed. Anthony Lodge and Kenneth Varty, New Alyth, Lochee Publications, 1989 (other French editions also exist).

About the performer/ensemble:
Nick Robbins (the Camel Legate) and Jak Peters (Lion, the King) are both Drama students in the Meisner Studio at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (2004).

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 2004. It took place in an open class held at the Maison Française in April 2004, and was videoed by NYU-TV.