The Play Called Corpus Christi: The Beginnings
Seven
short, anonymous medieval plays adapted and directed by Robert
Cohen
This
evening of medieval theatre, the first of three, was created
by Robert Cohen and Edgar Schell as part of the three-year,
funded Focused Research Program in Medieval Theatre during the
late 1980s. In all, 21 plays originally written for Corpus Christi
festivals in England during the fourteenth and fifteenth century
were adapted and produced on the stage over a period three consecutive
summers, and one (The N. Towne Passion) was made into
a professional video under a major grant by the National Endowment
of the Humanities.
The
first of these compilations, subtitled The Beginnings
and translated by Cohen, include the individual plays: The
Creation of the Universe and Fall of Lucifer, The Creation of
Adam and Eve, The Fall of Man, The Expulsion, The Murder of
Abel, Noah, and Abraham and Isaac. It is published in Cohen,
Eight Plays for Theatre (McGraw-Hill). Performance
rights available from the author.
Review
Excerpts
“Someone forgot to tell director Robert Cohen and dramaturge
Edgar Schell that these 600 year-old plays were dry historical
artifacts. And Cohen certainly forgot to mention it to his cast,
which wades fearlessly into the rhymed text with conviction
and passion. The happy result is living, breathing theater rather
than a museum curiosity. ...There is an urgency behind the words,
the characters are not cardboard cutouts, but real people facing
tough choices. There is also spectacle - and plenty of it. A
literate and inquisitive exploration of the genesis of English
language theatre." --Los Angeles Times (review)
“Pushes
the issues of life beyond the psychological, and also one that
makes larger claims on the imagination… has the size,
the richness and the imagination that we have been craving in
the theater.” --Los Angeles Times (Sunday feature)
“Magnificent
entertainment.” --Daily Pilot
“Absorbing
theatre.” --Irvine World News
”There
is nothing musty here, either in the familiar Biblical narrative
or in the inventive, lively - sometimes ingenious - staging
by Robert Cohen and his energetic, articulate young cast. For
its researchers, this giant undertaking has probably been most
productive, but what matters to those of us of a less scholarly
bent is how much fun and sheer theatrical fascination UCI has
uncovered.” --Orange County Register
