Morality Plays

Morality Plays introduces and discusses the morality play as a unique and highly influential form of drama, one that was especially popular in late-medieval and early modern Europe, and that continues to influence contemporary theatrical culture. It explores some of the earliest surviving examples of the form, outlining its characteristic features and tracking key adaptations and changes through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It discusses and analyses the likely prompts for the form’s variations, as well as the aesthetic and performance traditions, and the historical and theological contexts that shaped its structures, practices and dramaturgical conventions. The book closes with a coda introducing the form’s legacy in later theatrical cultures, focusing specifically from the late-sixteenth to the twenty-first century. The aim of the volume is not only to introduce the morality play as a form, but to challenge assumptions about its place in theatre history and argue for its dramaturgical sophistication. Morality Plays showcases the variety and diversity of the form, the ways in which it crosses and blurs generic boundaries, the varying contexts of its production, and the diverse sorts of audiences and performers who engaged with it. In doing so, it illuminates the rich performance tradition of the morality play and its legacy in drama today.