{"id":463,"date":"2016-06-01T09:35:37","date_gmt":"2016-06-01T09:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.dur.ac.uk\/theatrum.mundi\/?page_id=463"},"modified":"2016-06-01T09:35:37","modified_gmt":"2016-06-01T09:35:37","slug":"the-hell-mouth","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/reed-ne.webspace.durham.ac.uk\/?page_id=463","title":{"rendered":"The Hell Mouth"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Durham

Durham Medieval Theatre\u2019s 1998 production of the Doomsday pageant.<\/p><\/div>\n

Much of the evidence of performance that the Records of Early English Drama North East<\/a> project uncovers is partial. A note about a costume here, a record of a payment made to an actor there: these are the clues that allow researchers to piece together a picture of what early drama may have been like.<\/p>\n

York is one place in the\u00a0region from which\u00a0there\u00a0are unusually comprehensive\u00a0records.\u00a0One\u00a0parchment manuscript of 1433, which belongs to the York Company\u00a0of Merchant Adventurers<\/a>,\u00a0details the set, props and costumes for their Last Judgement\u00a0(\u2018Doomsday\u2019) pageant \u2013 a short play performed on a wagon stage.<\/p>\n

Plays from this period, now known as \u2018mystery plays,\u2019 dramatised\u00a0the story\u00a0of the relationship between humanity and God using sources from the Bible.\u00a0A\u00a01998 production by Durham Medieval Theatre was designed using evidence from the Merchants\u2019\u00a0document, and shows the model angels\u00a0\u2018in the heaven\u2019 on the roof of the wagon as well as the Hell-mouth\u00a0below into which the devil scooped the wicked after their final judgement.<\/p>\n

Researchers from Records of Early English Drama North East <\/a>are piecing together the puzzle of early drama from what few documents remain, and then use live performance as a way of testing out their ideas in practice. There will be a chance to see two of the York plays, including the doomsday play, at the\u00a0Theatrum Mundi<\/a>\u00a0festival in July 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Much of the evidence of performance that the Records of Early English Drama North East project uncovers is partial. A note about a costume here, a record of a payment made to an actor there: these are the clues that allow researchers to piece together a picture of what early drama may have been like. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":458,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-fullwidth.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-463","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P67HiV-7t","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reed-ne.webspace.durham.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reed-ne.webspace.durham.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reed-ne.webspace.durham.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reed-ne.webspace.durham.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reed-ne.webspace.durham.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reed-ne.webspace.durham.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/463\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reed-ne.webspace.durham.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reed-ne.webspace.durham.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}