Mansion Stage - Specific Characteristics of Mansions

Specific Characteristics of Mansions

In the earliest days of liturgical drama, plays were performed inside the church with limited scenery and the focus of the audience on the action. Mansions were used to indicate location but much of the performance took place on the platea, the open space in front of the scenic structure, with the actors moving from mansion to mansion only when strictly necessary. The increase in length of the plays and the inclusion of a wider variety of locations that needed to be represented by individual mansions was part of what caused the movement of performances from clergy control inside church spaces (where the mansions were nestled within structural arches or alcoves) to laity control outdoors in the streets or public squares.

This movement to the outdoors resulted in two different methods of staging: in England, mansions were converted into pageant wagons, which could be wheeled along in a parade-like fashion from audience to audience, while in France and the rest of continental Europe, the stations were more commonly lined up in an open square, sometimes on a u-shaped or circular platform, and the actors would move from mansion to mansion. As time passed the plays came to be performed in the vernacular and required the involvement of community members, local guilds, and patronage from town government to produce the increasingly spectacular cycle, mystery, and morality plays.

Mansions, either stationary or moveable, represented a wide variety of locations such as the House of Adam, the Temple, the Garden of Gethsemane, and Mount Olivet, and were often lavishly decorated to add to the spectacle of the performance. In the mystery play at Mons, France in 1501, five painters were hired to paint the 67 mansion stages with various pigments as well as varnish, gold leaf, and silver powder. They were also responsible for painting the backdrops, the furniture and other set pieces, and imitation draperies. It is likely that because of the limited amount of total stage space, many of the mansion stages doubled for one another or were changed in between scenes. Flying machines, trapdoors, rope-and-pulley systems, and special effects such as a dragon that spit fire, light shining from the manger in the Nativity and torrential rain for the creation of the world were popular. Machinery or hidden sections such as Heaven would often be concealed with drapery or painted clouds, as was done in the Mons production.

A great number of people were employed in the production of these mansions, from Jehan de Dours, cabinetmaker, paid 48 sols for “making castles and turrets”, to Pierart Viscave, tinker, for installing sheets of metal to be used to create thunder effects, to Jehan du Fayt and seventeen assistants for working as stage hands for the nine-day performance. Both the production period and the performance of the outdoor vernacular medieval drama were extensive, with the 22 mansions for a production in Rouen prepared over 18 years. These medieval spectacles laid the foundation for the flourishing of drama in the Renaissance of later centuries.