Category Archives: Stockman, Theo

Roland: Roland grieves over Oliver

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About the scene and clip:
The performer recounts and acts out Roland’s grief as he weeps over the body of his friend Oliver; a fellow student serves as a human prop.

About the work:
La Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland) is one of the great masterpieces of French medieval literature. The earliest surviving version of this anonymous epic dates apparently from the late 11th century and is preserved in a famous manuscript now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. This classic version—there were numerous others—is composed in laisses (or stanzas) of variable length with ten-syllable lines in assonance (the final vowel is the same within each laisse). Epics like the Roland were originally sung by jongleurs, often with vielle accompaniment. The Roland tells of the Emperor Charlemagne’s great struggle to conquer Spain from the Muslim Infidels. It recounts the betrayal of the French by the traitor, Ganelon, resulting in a great battle at Roncevaux. There, the French rearguard, led by Roland, defeats the Moors, but all the great French knights—the twelve peers—die. Charlemagne avenges the peers in two great battles, and Ganelon is punished. At the end, Charlemagne is called by the angel Gabriel to a new mission.

About the genre:
The epic is an ancient genre and is found in almost every culture. It is a long heroic narrative which tells of war and great deeds. Epics are generally composed in verse, and sung from memory or improvised in performance by professional performers with instrumental accompaniment. These narratives are created from traditional elements, commonly without recourse to writing, by poets whose names are often unknown to us. Among the famous traditional epics are the Iliad and the Odyssey, attributed to Homer; the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf; and the Old French Song of Roland. Many known poets adopt epic forms and themes for their literary verse (such as Virgil in his Aeneid).

About the edition/translation:
The Song of Roland, translated from the Old French by Dorothy L. Sayers, Penguin, 1957, laisses 163ff., pp. 136ff. Old French: La Chanson de Roland, ed. Ian Short, Paris, Lettres gothiques, 1990.

About the performer/ensemble:
Theo Stockman is a Drama student in the Experimental Theatre Wing at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (2006).

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 fall 2006.

Yvain: Maiden provides horse

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About the scene and clip:
In a comic, edgy performance, high in energy, the actor tells and acts out the scene where a maiden (who has just healed Yvain’s madness with a magic balm) brings him a horse to ride.

About the work:
Yvain is one of the five surviving romances by Chrétien de Troyes, who is often considered the father of Arthurian romance. This great work, in octosyllabic rhymed couplets, was composed for Marie, Countess of Champagne, around 1170. The romance recounts the adventures of Yvain, a knight of King Arthur’s court, who wins the beautiful Laudine in marriage (having killed her husband in single combat). He then loses both her love and his honor through his failure to keep a vow to return home from his knightly activities by an agreed-upon date. The second half of the romance is devoted to adventures in which Yvain, accompanied by a lion, creates a new name for himself (the “Knight with the Lion”), recovers his honor through a series of good deeds, and finally wins back his wife.

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:
Yvain or The Knight with the Lion, trans. Ruth Harwood Cline, Athens, GA, University of Georgia Press, 1975, pp 86ff. Old French: Le Chevalier au Lion (Yvain), ed./trans. David F. Hult, in Romans de Chrétien de Troyes, eds./trans. J.M. Fritz et al, Paris, Classiques Modernes/Livre de Poche, 1994.

About the performer/ensemble:
Theo Stockman is a Drama student in the Experimental Theatre Wing at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (2006).

About the production:
This performance was created for “Acting Medieval Literature,” taught by Prof. Timmie (E.B.) Vitz, in fall 2006.

Tahkemoni: Of seven maidens and their mendacity, 2

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About the scene and clip:
In this clip, a performer tells part of the story of the “Seven Maidens and their Mendacity” with strong emphasis on the rhymes and the humor, and with guitar accompaniment; his side-kick holds the book and also participates.

About the work:
Tahkemoni is a collection of tales written in Hebrew by a Spanish Jewish writer, Judah Al-Harizi (or Alharizi), around 1220. The tales belong to the medieval Arabic “maqama” tradition: witty episodes, full of satire and extravagance, written in strongly rhymed prose with poetic inserts. Tahkemoni tells of many adventures and conversations of Heman the Ezrahite and a highly comic trickster figure, Hever the Kenite. The work contains many references to Hebrew Scripture and Jewish tradition, as well as to Al-Harizi’s own travels in the Middle East.

About the genre:
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:
Judah Al-Harizi, The Book of Tahkemoni: Jewish Tales from Medieval Spain, tr. David Simha Segal, Oxford, The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2003; from Gate 20, pp. 199ff. Original Tahkemoni, Judah Al-Harizi, eds. Y. Toporovski and I. Zmora, Tel Aviv, Mahbarot le-sifrut, 1952.

About the performer/ensemble:
James Mackey is a Drama student in the Stonestreet Studio at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts; Theo Stockman is a Drama student in the Experimental Theatre Wing at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (2006).

About the production:
This performance was created for “Acting Medieval Literature,” taught by Prof. E.B. Vitz at New York University in fall 2006.