Staging Renaissance plays in the 21st century: Church and the Feudal system. George Nichols is
Staging Renaissance plays in the 21st century: Church and the Feudal system. George Nichols is the Assistant Director for Edward II and After Edward. He is writing a blog series about the processes and ideas in these two plays.In this blog, George discusses the relevance of the Church and the Feudal system in 14th century England. In further blogs, he looks at the importance of understanding the etiquette of the time the play is set and the meaning of words and how they have evolved.Edward II was written in the 16th century, set in the early 14th century and will be performed to a 21st-century audience in a building that has the central goal of recreating the performance conditions of the early modern stage. This convoluted series of perspectives brings with it a number of challenges and questions. For example, how do we deal with obscure allusions and references? How do we work with words that are no longer in common usage or now have different meanings? How do we stage peculiar and antiquated codes of etiquette from the day?Church and the Feudal system In the medieval period, societal order was structured in a hierarchical triangle known as the feudal system. At the top we have the king, believed to be appointed by the church and god; the king’s right to rule and the right of his heir to inherit the throne is known as the divine right of kings. This was common knowledge among our company, however, something we knew less about was the specific relationship between the church and monarchy. You can see from the diagram above that this hierarchy is supposedly ordained by God, but what happens if a king wants to get rid of an archbishop or make changes to the church? The answer to this is more convoluted as the king and the church seem to validate each other. If a king wants to be rid of an archbishop they must get permission from Rome, and when the monarch tried to do things like tax the church or change its structure Rome often voiced its displeasure.In our cut of Edward II, we’ve tried to bring the church to the fore, partly for clarity of storytelling and partly because it’s a fascinating aspect of the play. But how does the above research contribute to the way we stage Edward II?Well, something we grasp from both Marlowe’s play and the real life of Edward II is that civil war and deposition were highly unusual and that the stakes of this play must be extremely high. From our research, we know that the final power the church had available was to excommunicate the King, and thus end the divine right of his successors. By using this, or at least being aware of it in the scenes between the Archbishop of Canterbury and King Edward, we can heighten the stakes and ramp up the tension for the audience. Edward II, written by Christopher Marlowe will be directed by Nick Bagnall. After Edward, a contemporary response to Marlowe’s piece was written by Tom Stuart and will be directed by Brendan O'Hea. Tom will play Edward in both productions. The cast will be the same for both plays. -- source link
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