WISDOM: COMMENTARY
Medieval Aesthetics and Modern Social Justice
It may seem strange to think that plays written six centuries ago have something to say to the pressing social and cultural issues of the present day. It may seem even stranger to think that these medieval plays offer resources and strategies for addressing those issues with surprising energy. Yet, as the essays below contend, medieval drama has the capacity not just to comment on but also to intervene in contemporary social justice struggles—not just because of historical parallels, but also (and perhaps more powerfully) because of historical difference between then and now.
Booty Shorts, in My Good Christian Play?!: Designing Wisdom’s Postmodern Aesthetic
by Alesha Kilayko
At St. Paul’s Between Two and Three: Locality, Cultural Context, and Wisdom’s Sexual Ethics
by Savannah McClendon
Our Wise Ass Show: Turning Christian Teaching to Societal Critique
by Allison Sorbara
The Social Satire of Wisdom as Adult Cartoon
by Sharon Shimonova
How to Become a Medieval Audience
We have learned how to be proper modern audience members: sit in one seat, unwrap your lozenge before curtain, keep silent during the performance, hold your applause until curtain. We also enter into an audience with certain expectations: that the show is about to begin when the lights go down, that we will see without obstruction a company of highly trained actors performing by the book, that we will share more or less the same theatrical experience as others seated elsewhere in the theater. The essays below explore how medieval drama demands the dismantling of these expectations, and how FMD’s production of Wisdom drew its audience to see the play like medieval spectators.
Giving Wisdom’s Audience a Medieval Experience
by Elizabeth Cini
“I Am Called Everlasting Wisding… Wisdom… ah, sh*t”: Giving Up the Script for Our Medieval Audience
by Genevieve O’Brien
Wisdom in Performance: Comparing Modern and Medieval Enactment
by Kass D’Aniello
Wisdom and Its Audience, Outside the Fourth Wall
by Charles Laboy Jr.
On Passersby: Medieval Mindsets and Transatlantic Audiences
by Savanah Manos
Connections across Time
With so many plays one could possibly perform, why should we want to stage medieval drama? Certainly, historical curiosity is one answer, and a good one: the global West designates the Middle Ages as a wellspring of origin (specious though its narratives of origin tend to be), and if the gleeful medievalism of our popular culture is any indicator, we show little sign of losing interest in the period. Behind this curiosity lies an oscillating fascination with the sameness and difference of the Middle Ages: medieval people and practices are similar enough for us to feel a kind of kinship, strange enough for us to measure ourselves against their otherness. These essays hover in the middle space of this historical relationship, attentive to how the Middle Ages reach forward to us and how we reach back to the Middle Ages through the adaptation of medieval plays for modern performance.
Why We Perform Medieval Drama
by Katie Kudcey
From Beards to Bandanas: Adaptation Theory and Wisdom’s Costumes in the Twenty-First Century
by Lara Tan
The Bond between Wisdom’s Medieval and Modern Players
by Peri Rohl
Dispositions of Space
Words, costumes, movement, objects, music: these are some of the primary ingredients that go into the making of a performance. None of these ingredients, though, can combine to make a meaningful drama without a space in which to gather. Space functions not just as the container of dramatic enactment but as an active participant in that enactment, a feature readily suppressed by the customary architecture of the theater. Medieval drama, however, had no such architecture to rely upon and made active use of the varied and variable spaces in which it was staged. As the essays below reveal, performing medieval drama in the twenty-first century—and recording those performances for future audiences—still demands active engagement with a dynamic space that modern theater buildings simply cannot contain.
A Modern Day Pageant Wagon: How Fordham’s Street Level Entrance Became Our Ideal Set
by Lindsay Jorgensen
The Wisdom of Cameras: Planning and Recording the Experience of Wisdom
by Phillip Kim
Wisdom Onscreen: Capturing the Dynamism of Medieval Drama on Film
by Kevin Christopher Robles
CAST | |
Wisdom | Genevieve O’Brien |
Anima | Peri Rohl |
Lucifer | Katie Kudcey |
The Faculties |
|
Mind | Eleanor Vaughan |
Understanding | Kass D’aniello |
Will | Savanah Manos |
The Vices |
|
Corruption | Charles Laboy |
Perjury | Alesha Kilayko |
Lechery | Elizabeth Cini |
Five Senses/Demons |
|
Sight | Savannah McClendon |
Hearing | Lyra Tan |
Smell | Sharon Shimonova |
Taste | Allie Sorbara |
Touch | Lindsay Jorgensen |
Camera | Kevin Christopher Robles Phillip Kim |
WISDOM: MEDIA
Students Build a Play with the Pros
Fordham English Connect
April 23, 2019
wisdom aka morality whomst??
Spotify playlist
Alesha Kilayko
April 16, 2019
Wisdom Event Page
Wisdom Media Group
April 12, 2019
Wisdom Twitter campaign
Anima · Wisdom
· Lucifer
· Mind
· Understanding
· Will
· Corruption
· Perjury
· Lechery
Wisdom Media Group
April 9, 2019
Costume Vision Board
Wisdom Design Group
March 29, 2019
WISDOM: PHOTO GALLERIES
Credits: Lauren Frazier, Alesha Kilayko, Savanah Manos, Nicole McCurnin, Corey McEleney, Susan Nakley, Rosie Rizzo, Sasha Zamler-Carhart