Everyman
A Study in the Design and
Production of Medieval Drama
©by Patrick Ian White
Plymouth State University
1995
Originally located on the web at
http://homepage.fcgnetworks.net/patrick/concept.html
Grammatical editing by Dr. Koster
Introduction
Everyman is a Medieval morality play anonymously written in the mid-fifteenth century in England. It has a very simple plot. The message and strength of the play are found in the individual scenes. The author has centred the play on Everyman's plea for companionship on his journey to his grave. Everyman in the end discovers that you can't take it with you when you go and must fall back on his moral and religious values. The play is an allegory of life, in which the only thing that will save Everyman from certain damnation is Good Deeds alone.
This production is meant to be a historical reproduction of Everyman acted on a pageant wagon. The play is to look and feel as if the audience has somehow stepped back into the mid-fifteenth century. All the designed elements are based on Medieval sculpture, manuscripts and stained glass. The production's constraints dictated a single arcade screen backdrop consisting of four mansions and a curtain. Heaven and Hell, while not directly mentioned in the text, must be focal points balancing each other in terms of colour and detail. Death's entrance and Everyman's exit required the use of a trapdoor and elevator, a complicated effect due to the pageant wagon nature of the show. The set has to be adaptable to either a performance outside Silver Cultural Arts Centre in the amphitheatre by the West entrance or in case of inclement weather, the Studio Theatre.
This production of Everyman is designed to be a study in the staging of a Medieval drama. It is an excellent opportunity to blend Medieval artistic ideas and theatre with the modern view of the Medieval world and appreciation for classic drama.
Past Productions
Everyman was probably written before the end of the fifteenth century. However, it is preserved in only four printed copies in four different editions, which date from between 1508 and 1537. The two copies by Richard Pynson are fragmentary, but two complete copies represent John Skot's editions. Sir Walter Greg has reprinted all four editions, with a reproduction of the woodcut of Everyman and Death from the title-page of the Skot editions (Cawley 195).
Everyman closely resembles the Flemish play Elckerlijc, first printed in 1495. One of them is probably a translation of the other and many scholars have argued as to the superiority of one over the other. The difficulty of deciding whether Everyman or Elckerlijc came first is a reminder that the play is a product not of Holland or England in particular, but of medieval Catholic Europe. Everyman's fear of death is a universal emotion, but his spiritual victory over death is a triumphant expression of Christian faith and Catholic doctrine.
Everyman was originally produced in the late fifteenth century and was performed regularly for the next seventy-five years by professional and semi-professional companies. Although the play was based on a Dutch play and was extensively produced in Holland and England, no production records from that time exist today.
After a lapse of nearly four hundred years, William Poel, founder of the Elizabethan Stage Society, produced the first modern production on July 7, 1901 in the Great Hall of the Charterhouse in London. Poel directed and designed the play as well as acting the part of Death, in subsequent productions he played the role of God. Poel's productions were acted in strict accordance with the original text with no cuts alterations or additions. His set design consisted of a bare medieval chapel interior. The costumes were based on figures from fifteenth century Flemish tapestries (Goodman 133-34).
After its successful premiere, Poel gave two more performances, this time outside the Chapterhouse. He then took the play on the road traveling all over England, playing town squares, college theatres and churches, giving performances both indoors and out. Early in the play's production, Ben Greet came aboard as co-producer, director and actor. It was Greet who finally brought Everyman to America in 1912.
In 1911, Max Reinhardt, a famous German director decided to mount his own production of Everyman after seeing Poel's version. The script was revised and modernized by Hugo von Hofmannstal and an original score was composed by Einar Nilson. The premier of Jedermann, as the play is called in German, was December 1 at the Zirkus Schumann in Berlin. Hofmannstal removed much of the religious dogma and highlighted Everyman's insatiable lust for life. An elaborate banquet scene was added and quickly became the central feature of the German production. The play was done in an area style house with simple props and set pieces. Jedermann has been produced every year, except during World War II, in the Salzburg Cathedral square during the summer.
Design Concepts
In this production of Everyman, the objective is to create a mid-fifteenth century Medieval stage. This is accomplished by brining the play out of a modern proscenium setting and stage it on a pageant wagon. This immediately sets the tone for the play and brings the audience back in time five hundred years. The wagon itself has to look like a Medieval stage on wheels, yet it has to be sturdy enough to hold a cast of twelve plus flats, stairs and a balcony. A complication to the wagon is that has to be built in pieces, to be put together before the performance, which would fit through a normal double door. The ground plan of the production offered ample acting space downstage of the mansions, considering that at most times there are no more than three actors actively involved in any given scene.
The backdrop is painted to look like a page taken form a Medieval manuscript, the colours were to be vibrant and the symbolism evident at a glance. The other design element the helps reinforce the Medieval look is the use of an arcade screen, four stationary mansions representing the homes of some of the cast. The curtain hung in the centre of the screen served as an entrance and exit point for the rest of the cast. This screen represented Earth and is painted in neutral tones of grey and brown. Heaven, at the very top of the balcony, is portrayed to be an ideal paradise. Glittering jewels act as stars against a velvet blue sky with God inside an mandala flanked by the symbols of the four evangelists is meant to inspire peace and hopefulness. While below the stage, Hell, with its cavorting demons, devils torturing the damned and the gaping maw of Satan is designed to inspire fear and dread. The use of violent reds and purples with ample amount of black helped to contributed to the sense of despair in the Hell scene.
The mansions were all based on buildings that a fifteenth century person would have known and recognized. Fellowship is represented by a pub, complete with a sign detailing the food to be found within. Goods is a warehouse made of daub and wattle on a wooden frame. The house is stuffed to overflowing with chests, bags, sacks and boxes. A castle is shared by Kindred and Cousin, with its towers flying banners based on the Plymouth State College seal. Chartres cathedral is used as a basis for Confession's house. The rose window at the top of that mansion is to be lit by a few candles, due to the lack of electric lights in the fifteenth century. All other characters, except for Good Deeds, were to enter from the central curtain. The curtain is to be topped by a facade similar to a arch draped with fabric, a common feature in castles and cathedral of the time period. It has been decided that Good Deeds would remain crouched at the stage right edge until called for. All characters were to remain motionless in their respective mansions until they were called for in the script; this motif further strengthened the look of a manuscript page.
The single most complicated set piece in the production is the trapdoor and elevator used for Death's entrance in the beginning of the play and Everyman's exit at the end. Due to the fact the play is staged on a wagon-like structure only five foot six inches tall, any elevator built has to be small in size. This also required the actor(s) to mime part of the descent or ascent. It is decided to use a counterweight system to rise the two foot by six foot platform in place.
Director's Concept
Everyman is a typical Medieval morality play. Everyman is overcome his fear of facing death alone and calls upon all his friends to accompany him to his grave. One by one they agree to follow, but then abandon him, that is all but Good Deeds, his only true friend. The religious dogma aside, Everyman is still a compelling story some five hundred years later. One of the most difficult aspects of staging Everyman is to make a 1550's play exciting and interesting to a 1990's audience. There are no records of the acting techniques used by Medieval companies, yet somehow the Stanislavsky method seems slightly out of place in Everyman. The characters are not real people but personified ideas. Everyman could have easily been called Everywoman, he can be either Christian, Muslim or even Hindu. Goods, Confession, Strength and the rest are mere symbols and must through actions and delivery of dialogue identify themselves to an audience that might not understand the Medieval emblems they hold.
The costumes are based on figures from English sculpture, stained glass and manuscripts from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. God appears in flowing white robes, his face covered by a golden mask, Confession is represented by a bishop, the Doctor of Theology is dressed in scholarly robes of the period. Everyman at first is dressed as a well- to-do middle class man, perhaps even a merchant of some sort, however further in the play he casts off his wealth, puts on a hair shirt and adopts a more humble, haggard look.