Is it A guild in A Midsummer Night's Dream? I remember each of the different rude mechanicals as having a different occupation: Bottom the Weaver and so on. ("Especially when drunk," as Richard Armour wrote in Twisted Tales from Shakespeare.)
This makes me wonder about the history of theater. We're always told the Greeks invented it, but the way you describe these mystery plays, they don't show a lot of evidence of being influenced by Euripides. I can't help but suspect theater has actually been independently invented a bunch of times, but I don't know how you'd document that.
I suspect your suspicions are right. I'd be surprised if most of these playwrights had actually read any Greek plays.
But beyond that, when I contrast these mystery plays with Greek tragedies, what stands out is that the medieval playwrights were working from a written holy book, and a single church with one authoritative interpretation of it. The Greek playwrights weren't - look at how Aeschylus's "Oresteia" and Euripides' "Electra" took the same myth, changed its events around, and interpreted it in radically different ways. Writers do that with Bible stories nowadays, but they couldn't back in the Middle Ages.
The concept of "theater" as opposed to "storytelling", with different actors playing different parts, is admittedly a little unintuitive. Aristotle attributes the idea of a second actor to Aeschylus, and the idea of a third actor to Sophocles. So maybe, even if the medieval playwrights never read the Greek playwrights, there's an indirect chain of influence and without Aeschylus and Sophocles there'd have been sermons telling those stories, but no plays.
On the other hand, maybe Aristotle was just full of shit regarding the "invention" of a second and third actor. I'm just sure how you'd prove it.
Is it A guild in A Midsummer Night's Dream? I remember each of the different rude mechanicals as having a different occupation: Bottom the Weaver and so on. ("Especially when drunk," as Richard Armour wrote in Twisted Tales from Shakespeare.)
You're right; thanks for the reminder! I'm guessing Shakespeare did that for more comedy.
This makes me wonder about the history of theater. We're always told the Greeks invented it, but the way you describe these mystery plays, they don't show a lot of evidence of being influenced by Euripides. I can't help but suspect theater has actually been independently invented a bunch of times, but I don't know how you'd document that.
I suspect your suspicions are right. I'd be surprised if most of these playwrights had actually read any Greek plays.
But beyond that, when I contrast these mystery plays with Greek tragedies, what stands out is that the medieval playwrights were working from a written holy book, and a single church with one authoritative interpretation of it. The Greek playwrights weren't - look at how Aeschylus's "Oresteia" and Euripides' "Electra" took the same myth, changed its events around, and interpreted it in radically different ways. Writers do that with Bible stories nowadays, but they couldn't back in the Middle Ages.
The concept of "theater" as opposed to "storytelling", with different actors playing different parts, is admittedly a little unintuitive. Aristotle attributes the idea of a second actor to Aeschylus, and the idea of a third actor to Sophocles. So maybe, even if the medieval playwrights never read the Greek playwrights, there's an indirect chain of influence and without Aeschylus and Sophocles there'd have been sermons telling those stories, but no plays.
On the other hand, maybe Aristotle was just full of shit regarding the "invention" of a second and third actor. I'm just sure how you'd prove it.