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Folk Play
Folk Play, rough-and-ready dramatic entertainments given at village festivals by the villagers themselves. They were derived from the dramatic tendencies inherent in primitive folk festivals, and were given on May-Day, at Harvest Home, or at Christmas, when to the central theme of a symbolic death and resurrection, which comes from remotest antiquity, were added the names and feats of local worthies. Later, though not before 1596, these were replaced by the Seven Champions of Christendom or other heroes, probably under the influence of the village schoolmaster (cf. Holofernes in Love's Labour's Lost). As patron saint of England, St George may have figured among them from the earliest times. With some dramatic action went a good deal of song and dance. Practically no written records of the folk play survive, and it contributed very little to the main current of modern drama, but its early influence should not on that account be entirely disregarded.
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Cite this article
PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Folk Play." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. 31 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Folk Play." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. (May 31, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-FolkPlay.html PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Folk Play." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Retrieved May 31, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-FolkPlay.html |
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