Festival Of Corpus Christi: Play Analysis

Cycle Plays

This is quite an exciting time for me and my family. The festival of Corpus Christi is fast approaching and we are looking forward to it with great anticipation. Fortunately it is late spring and the weather will be perfect for the entire town to get together to hold this magnificent celebration. This year, because I am part of the cattle raising guild I have been given a special task. The town leaders have put me in charge of producing part of a series of dramas in conjunction with the festival. Since a fatted calf is mentioned the story of the Prodigal Son I have been asked to create it into a drama. This will be no easy task. There are many things that I must consider including how it is to be staged, what kind of
space I will be working with and who will be attending the performance. God be thanked for this glorious opportunity I have been given. These plays have given meaning to my life and shown me how important the role of the church is. I am very excited to provide that for others. Last year our attendance at the festival suffered greatly. The crowds at the cycle plays were particularly small. I intend to change all of that by making my play appeal to a larger audience. There are a couple ideas that I have come up with to make this happen. First, I am going to incorporate comedy into my play. Now I know that the story of the prodigal son is serious in nature, but I have to give the audience something to laugh at. Nobody wants a repeat of last year when half the crowd fell asleep at Drako's portrayal of Lazarus and he rich man. So I think I will portray the sons as pestering kids that are always arguing and driving their father crazy. When the younger one asks to leave he is almost relived and excited to see him go. I will portray the younger son's foibles in a comical manner and depict him, as well as all the other characters, as ordinary men and women of the medieval era. It should be known that I have mentioned things like "medieval era" and "cycle plays" even though as a person writing from that time I would have no knowledge of these titles. This is known as an anachronism. We do that all the time in these plays so this paper should be no different, right? This helps the audience (and reader) better relate to what is going on. Last year Drako tried to stage his cycle play with processional staging. He loaded everything up on his traveling wagons and moved to different locales throughout town. It created specially for his performance with a stage out in front, a curtain and a backstage area for the actors. In theory everything sounded great but he found it really difficult to keep everything moving from location to location without falling behind schedule. These plays are only supposed to last three or four days. Once you hit five people start looking for something else to do because of their short attention spans. (a little medieval humor) Based on last year's fiasco, I have decided to use stationary staging. Just to add a little to the spectacle I will have the main characters ride in on Drako's old wagon and then have them perform on the stage that I have set up in the middle of town. I have quite the set! Two mansions lined up side by side. The mansion on the left is going to be father's farm where the two sons labor until the younger one decides to go into the city. The middle mansion will be my depiction of the city where he squandered his inheritance. When he returns to his father's house we will simply go back to the first mansion where the audience will imagine a new location. I want to give my actor's a great performance space to work with.
I think both the performers and the audience will enjoy it if I use many secrets, or to put it anachronistically, special effects. This will hopefully be facilitated by using a central platform where most of the action will take place. I have a feeling that everything is going to turn out great. The best part is that my house is right next to the staging area and it has a perfect view for watching the performance. I will probably charge people to come watch it at my house because it is better than sitting on the box seats or standing up if they are next to the stage. Lastly I wanted to discuss my ideas for the actual material we will be performing. All I really have to work with is 22 verses that tell the story of the prodigal son very briefly. I was hoping to add a second story-line to the performance. It would take place when the brothers are still infants. The younger brother would be constantly doing bad things and causing trouble. When the father would come into the room it would appear that the older brother was to blame and he would be the one to get punished. This would add the final comedic twist to the story that will push it over the
top.
I have a feeling that this year's performance is going to be quite inspiring for all involved. There are many different aspects that go into putting on one of these cycle plays. A lot of different things have to be considered. Staging, audience, performance space, and entertaining twist on old story-lines are just the beginning. It is hard work, and the frequent rehearsals are keeping me away from my family, but I know that in the end it will all be worth it. My only hope is that I do a good enough job for the town leaders to ask me to do this again next year. It truly is a great honor