Early English Drama as the Cause of Chaos, Drunkenness, and Disorder

Andrea Piccinin

ENG331H1
Professor: Matthew Sergi
Thursday April 3, 2014
998260126

 

Early English Drama as the Cause of Chaos, Drunkenness, and Disorder

            The genres of Early English Drama performed at festivities varied from morality to farce, or having elements of both to appeal to a wide range of audiences, including the higher and lower class.  While attending these plays and festivities, food and drink accompanied their entertainment and ended up playing a larger role to the play than they would think.  Consuming alcohol while watching the plays may have just been seen as a casual recreational activity for them, but according to REED, it influenced how people would respond and participate in the plays.  These Early English Drama's would encourage their audience to enjoy themselves by drinking, which would lead to the chaos of intoxication and would cause disorder and crimes.  In the Lancashire REED, sin occurred in the church by Papists.  They had meetings with "in-stage-playes" with ale which would cause sin, uncleanness, and drunkenness (Lancashire, 19).  Just like how the actors made a spectacle of themselves in their plays, the intoxicated audience similarly made a spectacle of themselves through drunken song and dance.  Early English Drama indirectly encouraged "drunkeness" to their audience through play, song, and dance.  However, this excessive "play" would impact their daily lives (i.e. getting charged) rather than occurring for just the duration of the Drama's.  Knowing the extent of how much the audience interacted with the play due to their drunkenness fills in possible missing stage directions that could only be known through analyzing REED and applying it on the plays. 

             In REED, "drunkenness" is often surrounded with the words "crimes" and "disorder" in the index.  In the records explaining the drunk crime, the writer condemning the intoxicated people often paired drunkenness with "idleness" and these result in loud and disrupting  "dancing" and "singing" spectacles (Dorset, 114).  In a court book in the Dorset records, it contains a crime by a man named John Woodes who was influenced by "last night entertaynment" and was drunkenly "singing of songes" (Dorset, 207).  This drunken "disorder" shows a direct correlation with watching entertainment resulting in singing.  In plays such as Gammer Gurton's Needle and The Chester Play of Noah's Flood, singing is linked with consuming alcohol and it is done in order to forget the problems the characters are being faced.  In The Chester Play of Noah's Flood, The Good Gossips sing a song about being aware of the flood quickly approaching.  However, instead of trying to avoid the flood, they decide to drink and sing away their fears because it will "rejoice both heart and tongue" (line 234).  Since they are avoiding their problem rather than trying to solve it, this "drunkenness" was considered "idleness".  "Idleness" and "drunkenness" was often a crime charged together which would result in being "slaundered or contemned" (Dorset, 114).  The Gammer Gurton's Needle similarly uses song and alcohol to dismiss problems of lack of warmth, food, and clothing in Act 2.  The last stanza of the song starts off as "Now let them drink till they nod and wink | even as good fellows should do" (line 35-36).  "Good fellows" implies that drunkenness is acceptable to do since even they do it.  While "good fellows" is a broad term, those who watch the play can apply their own meaning to it in order to justify their drunken actions.  Minstrels, for examples, were high-class musicians yet they frequently consumed ale (Dorset, 535).

            In the Dorset Cornwall REED, court books show that those writing them wanted the consumption of alcohol to be eliminated to avoid disorder.  Richard Carew (Survey of Cornwall) thought it caused "a multitude of abuses, wit, idlenes, drunkennesse, lasciuiousnes, vaine disports of minisrelsie, dauncing, and disorderly night-watchings" (Dorset,  535).   He continues to call these "publike meetings" (Dorset, 536) a "shame" (Dorset, 536) and that the songs "should be of their auncestours honourable actions" (Dorset, 536).  Carew was aware that the festivities encourage chaos and disorder but characters such as A and B in Fulgens and Lucres were able to downplay this by turning the chaos into something positive.  A and B would enthusiastically encourage the audience to "dance and make revel, | Sing and laugh with great shouting, | Fill in wine, with revel-routing. | I tow it be a joyful thing| Among such folk to dwell!" (lines 407-411).   Presenting "play" this way made it easy for idleness to occur because if you don't have "manner of busyness" (line 402), you might as well enjoy yourself.  While the actors for A and B may or may not have been aware of the chaos their characters encouraged, it did not matter to them because it made audiences of all class types enjoy Fulgens and Lucres.  This play appealed to high and low class audiences because of the farce of A and B and the morality lessons of Lucres.  It may have given those of the higher class watching an excuse to enjoy the comedy and play of A and B since they may not usually be exposed to games involving  poking each other in the anus (line 1164), fake jousting, and dancing.  By having A and B encourage play and drinking by making it a positive activity, it makes them and the play more likeable, therefore making more people watch it which is all that's important for those involved in the production.   

            There are many court cases in REED that outline the disorder and spectacle drunkenness has caused.  In a Episcopal Visitation to Corpus Christi College, a charge was made against Thomas Greenway the president, by Jerome Reynolds for coming from the Town drunk on Christmas.  He sat in the hall amongst scholars, "tipling" with his mouth and "hering bawdy songs" (Oxford, 145).  In Kent, a man name Roberte Burte was selling drinks and had people dancing in his house and a shoemaker got so drunk that he vomited at an evening prayer in Church, causing much disturbance (Kent, 894).  In Dorset, a man named Thomas Angel was taken in by Katerin Morfell at about one or two o'clock in the morning due to drunkenly playing the fiddle on the pavement (Dorset, 282).  All of these examples of drunken disorder involve some form of a song or dance causing a disturbance to the public.  In the Broadview Anthology Of Medieval Drama's version of Fulgens and Lucres, the editors interpret a dancing scene possibly involving the audiences' participation and becoming the entertainers of the play (426).  Since this play encourages dance, singing, and play, it influences the audience but not just in the "play" world.  It caused disturbance of the everyday life and because of this, court authorities wanted to end these play festivities.  In Bristol, Thomas Thompson, the corporation lecturer was strongly against drunkenness.  He blamed it on the "popular festivities associated with disorder and drinking" (Bristol, xxiv).  While plays such as Fulgens and Lucres was enjoyable, it caused disturbance upon public places.

            The festivities involving drama were popular recreational activities for all class types.  While the "theatre" carries a prestigious connotation today that requires the audience to remain silent, these drama's were more informal because they relied on the audience's singing and dancing for entertainment.  Due to this informality, it encouraged loud play and drunkenness which would eventually lead to chaos, crime, and disorder which is thoroughly documented in REED. 

Work Cited

 

"Gammer Gurton's Needle". The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama. Ed. Christina Marie. Fitzgerald and John T. Sebastian. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview, 2013. 498-540. Print.

Medwall, Henry. "Fulgens and Lucres." The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama. Ed. Christina Marie. Fitzgerald and John T. Sebastian. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview, 2013. 395-435. Print.

Records of Early English Drama: Bristol. Ed. Pilkinton, Mark C. University of Toronto Press : Toronto. 1997. Print.

 Records of Early English Drama: Dorset. Ed.  Hays, Rosalind Conklin University of Toronto Press., 1999. Print.

Records of Early English Drama: Lancashire. Ed. George, David.  University of Toronto Press: Toronto, 1991. Print

Records of Early English Drama: Oxford. Ed. Elliott, John R. Jr and Nelson, Alan H./Johnston, Alexandra F. and Wyatt, Diana. University of Toronto: Toronto. 2004. Print.