Remembering TARTUFFE

I directed a production of TARTUFFE myself in November of 2004, with my own son playing the title character! Reading over the note I wrote for the program, I see we chose to use the subtitle "The Imposter" rather than "The Hypocrite." It seems that "I found the play to be very apt given the overheated atmosphere of [that year's] election season" (President Bush vs. Senator Kerry, you may recall). My note concludes, "The play may be about an imposter, but it is also about family and friends whose true loyalty and love prove to be greater than the hypocrisy of one who tries to destroy them. Truth trumps fiction. It must."

Status in TARTUFFE

Adapted from CREATING TARTUFFE: AN ACTOR’S APPROACH by Jeffrey Stewart Scott, B.A.

(Thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF FINE ARTS)

“Acquaintances become friends

when they agree to play status games together”

(Johnstone 37).

Keith Johnstone developed his form of improvisation

during his tenure at the Royal Court Theatre as a method of actor training.

Eventually, he began to practice improvisation as a theatrical form in and of itself,

with the establishment of Theatresports.

While the main focus of Theatresports is improvisational performances,

A director may use many of Johnstone’s acting techniques during rehearsals.

One element of Johnstone’s approach that is often used is the concept of status,

which I have continuously used in many of my directing roles, including TARTUFFE.

Status is defined by the OED as

“the relative social, professional, or other standing of someone or something.”

Johnstone developed his ideas of playing status

as a technique for actors to make scenes more realistic.

He first noticed the lack of status as a problem when

“actors couldn’t reproduce ‘ordinary’ conversation” (Johnstone 33).

While he was experimenting with ways of infusing action into scenes

that lacked any true physical action,

he saw the Moscow Art Theatre’s production of The Cherry Orchard.

Johnstone writes,

“Everyone on stage seemed to have chosen

the strongest possible motives for each action…

The effect was ‘theatrical’ but not like life as I knew it.

I asked myself for the first time what were the weakest possible motives,

the motives that the characters I was watching might really have had” (Johnstone 33).

When Johnstone directed his actors to raise or lower their status by only a minimal amount,

he discovered that scenes became subsequently more realistic.

For Johnstone, status is not simply inherent, it’s “something one does” (Johnstone 36).

Johnstone found that major changes in status proved to be effective for comedy.

A man slipping on a banana peel is comedic

“if he loses status, and we don’t have any sympathy for him” (Johnstone 40).

However,

“if my poor old blind grandfather falls over I’ll rush up and help him to his feet.

If he’s really hurt I may be appalled” (Johnstone 40).

“Status specialists” are people that are either compulsively high or low status as being

“Status experts” are able to raise or lower their status depending on the situation (Johnstone 35-36).

For the actor, playing status then becomes a tactic to be used in pursuit of the objective or goal.

This becomes apparent when one considers Johnstone’s seesaw principle, which holds that

within the context of a particular relationship,

if one person raises or lowers his or her own status

then the status of the others involved will react in the opposite manner (Johnstone 37).

There is a physical component involved in playing status.

High status players typically

move more smoothly, with greater confidence and with a minimum of extraneous gestures.

They are more inclined to hold eye contact with another, and

they keep their head still when speaking; that in turn leads to a more upright posture.

It is important to understand the difference between control and tension

in terms of physical status.

A high status player is very much in control of his or her body,

but there is a relaxed quality that seems effortless,

due in part to his/her own assuredness of his/her high status position.

If the muscles are tense in an effort to hold the body still,

the rigidity could come across as being defensive.

The result may be interpreted as

a person who is naturally low status trying to affect high status.

Converse to the relaxed stillness of a high status player,

the low status player avoids eye contact, is jerky in movement,

uses extraneous gestures and often has a stammering quality in speech.

There is often a nervous quality to such people (Johnstone 42-43).

Status is a tool that can help an actor

understand the relationships between characters

and explore new avenues of interpretation.

When added to a character that has already been developed by the actor,

status becomes an effective tactic to be used in pursuit of an objective.

Small changes in status can help make a scene more realistic;

larger changes can help portray comedy and tragedy.

Since playing status is a natural activity that humans engage in,

it is important for the actor to understand exactly what playing status entails

so as to be able to convincingly represent

the transactions between characters before an audience.

Status transactions were an important part of the portrayal of Tartuffe.

Tartuffe is high status by nature, even though he is an expert in that he can lower his status when need be.

The final scene of Tartuffe is a big proverbial banana peel.

Tartuffe has raised himself to a position of ultimate status by lowering all those around him.

When the officer arrests him, his status is instantly deprived, much to the audience’s delight,

because there is no sympathy for him.

The actor in the role of Tartuffe continue to play the remnants of high status even after the arrest

because the audience should not have any sympathy for the character.

Had Tartuffe actually felt the pain of his loss of status,

then the audience might have felt some measure of sympathy, despite his vile nature,

and the comedy would have been lost.

Tartuffe may play low status in relation to Orgon in order to raise Orgon’s status,

and stay in his good graces.

Conversely, Tartuffe may play high status with Dorine

to place her in a lower position where she may be more easily dominated.

In some instances the seesaw principle does not hold true.

When Tartuffe confronts Dorine about her excessive cleavage,

she responds by trying to raise her status above his,

an illustration of the conflictive nature of their relationship;

there is distaste between the two, and so neither is willing to lose status to the other.

The intimacy between Orgon and Tartuffe and the strife between Tartuffe and Dorine and the rest of the household

can be understood in terms of status.

A particularly interesting status transaction occurs when

Orgon, who has been hiding under the table, discovers Tartuffe with Elmire.

At this point in the play Tartuffe’s high status is absolute;

he has gained the inheritance of Orgon

as well as discovered a secret that could result in Orgon’s imprisonment.

In spite of this, the dialogue puts Tartuffe in a low status position when Orgon intercepts him.

Stammering, Tartuffe tries to explain the situation, only to have Orgon cast him out.

It is then that Tartuffe plays high status once more, asserting his dominance before exiting.

The reason for Tartuffe’s initial low status was because

he was unprepared to deal with a confrontation with Orgon and was caught off his guard.

The scene mirrors the earlier confrontation with Damis

in that an unseen party catches Tartuffe in an awkward situation.

In the first encounter, Tartuffe is able to successful play low status in order to escape punishment.

The basic tactic behind this status transaction is that by lowering his own status,

Tartuffe raises Damis and makes him out to be the unjust villain.

Tartuffe also appears to be the victim in his low status position,

which compels Orgon to pity him and rebuke Damis for being apparently tyrannical.

The physical embodiment of high status corresponds with Tartuffe’s movements.

There is a graceful quality to him because he believes himself to be invincible.

When Tartuffe plays lower status as a tactic, as in the confrontation with Damis,

the physicality becomes extreme to the point of falling on his knees before Damis

with arms outstretched as if waiting for the executioner’s blade.

It is totally logical then that when caught off-guard in a similar situation,

Tartuffe would instinctively try to employ the same low status tactics that saved him previously.

The confrontation between Tartuffe, Orgon, and Damis

The following excerpt illustrates the use of status as a tactic

(status transactions are labeled in italics):

TARTUFFE.

(lowering himself)

Yes, Brother, I’m a wicked man, I fear:

A wretched sinner, all depraved and twisted,

The greatest villain that has ever existed.

My life’s one heap of crimes,

which grows each minute;

There’s not but foulness and corruption in it;

And I perceive that Heaven, outraged by me,

Has chose this occasion to mortify me.

Charge me with any deed you wish to name;

I’ll not defend myself but take the blame.

Believe what you are told, and drive Tartuffe

Like some base criminal

from beneath your roof;

Yes, drive me hence, and with a parting curse:

I shan’t protest, for I deserve far worse.

ORGON

(lowering Damis).

Ah, you deceitful boy, how dare you try

To stain his purity with so foul a lie?

DAMIS.

What! Are you taken in by such a bluff?

Did you not hear…?

ORGON.

Enough, you rogue, enough!

TARTUFFE

(raising Damis to lower himself further)

Ah, Brother, let him speak: you’re being unjust.

Believe his story; the boy deserves your trust.

Why, after all, should you have faith in me?

How can you know what I might do, or be?

Is it on my good actions that you base

Your favor? Do you trust my pious face?

Ah, no, don’t be deceived by hollow shows;

I’m far, alas, from being what men suppose;

Though the world takes me for a man of worth.

I’m truly the most wretched man on earth.

(To Damis, apparently lowering himself

but actually raising his status)

Yes, my dear son, speak out now:

call me the chief

Of sinners, a wretch, a murderer, a thief;

Load me with all the names men most abhor;

I’ll not complain; I’ve earned them all,

and more;

(falling on his knees,

extremely lowering himself)

I’ll kneel here while you pour them on my head

As a just punishment for the life I’ve led.

THE HYPOCRITE on campus

Given that Moliere's TARTUFFE is subtitled THE HYPOCRITE, I thought it amusing to title this post as I did. The campus in question is that of Valley Forge Christian College, an institution with which my family has a very long and complex history. The play was produced by Curtain Call, the "college-approved" student theatre troupe, "created in 2003 by a group of students who felt a need on campus for artistic expression in the theatre arts" (this was a few years after VFCC and I parted ways). Those students "sought out faculty members who were like-minded," one of whom directed this production of TARTUFFE, Kristin Mathias.

In her director's note, she commented that when TARTUFFE was first performed in 1664, "it met with great opposition from the religious establishment of its time." She then wisely included what Moliere himself wrote in response to contemporary criticism of his play:

"If the function of comedy is to correct men's vices, I do not see why any should be exempt. Such a condition in our society would be much more dangerous than the thing itself; and we have seen that the theater is admirably suited to provide correction. The most forceful lines of a serious moral statement are usually less powerful than those of satire; and nothing will reform most men better than the depiction of their faults. It is a vigorous blow to vices to expose them to laughter."

Reading this, I just had to wonder how these same words would be read by any college personnel who happened to find it worthwhile to attend one of the performances. Satire does not sit well with some "saints" who sincerely have too strong a sense of what is supposedly sacred while being themselves less competent when it comes to having spiritually significant self-discernment. Such people are found in abundance, even if not especially on the campus of Valley Forge Christian College. One will hope that THE HYPOCRITE might spur certain other hypocrites to reconsider their own hypocrisy.

COTTON PATCH GOSPEL & Tom Key

Cotton Patch Gospel premiered at the Lamb's Theater in New York City on October 21, 1981.

Written by Tom Key and Russell Treyz, and with music and lyrics by Harry Chapin, Cotton Patch Gospel adapted Clarence Jordan's "Cotton Patch" versions of the gospels for the stage.

... “Cotton Patch” is a boisterously timed comedic hootenanny that succeeds as a crowd-pleasing entertainment for people of all faiths. Essentially a one-man gag in which Key acts out all the parts surrounded by a two-person chorus and a five-man acoustic ensemble, it’s a high-spirited, toe-tapping deglamorization of the most familiar Sunday school lesson of all, from the Nativity to the Crucifixion.

Part of the thrill of this show is the speed and economy of Key’s transitions —- from Matthew (the narrator) to Christ to Herod and so on. With the energy of a man 20 years younger, he hops on crates, trolleys and other shaky-looking props with a gymnast’s precision. His familiarity with the cadences of Southern speech comes through in his barnstorming portrayal of John the Baptist and his goofus interpretation of Lyman Lovejoy, the farmer who witnessed the virgin birth. Key fairly mocks the angel of the Lord by investing him with a faux-Brit accent and some serious wing-flapping affectations.

The curious thing about this show ... is that it portrays Christ not so much as a victim as an instigator. Was he a fraud, a madman or the son of God? That’s tricky, and the fascinating thing is that “Cotton Patch” doesn’t really give you a clear answer, unless you want it to. This isn’t heresy, but testimony to the rigor of the spiritual debate.

Ultimately, what impresses about “Cotton Patch” is the way it ponders the state of the world today, with all its terror, fear, hate, war, catastrophe and shortages. The teachings of “Cotton Patch” author Jordan —- who espoused a philosophy of love over violence, shared possessions and a conservation of natural resources —- ring true like never before. The error of persecuting and indicting out of ignorance is unequivocal, because innocent people can and do get hurt.

From 2005 THEATER REVIEW by Wendell Brock (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution) at http://www.accessatlanta.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/accessatlanta/reviews/entries/2005/10/06/cotton_patch_at.html

TURN IT AROUND

They tell you an eye for an eye. They tell you a tooth for a tooth. Then they say, "It's God's way."

But I'm here to tell you the truth.

When somebody looks at you in anger And whomps you on the side of your head?

Do you go whack? Do you hit 'em back? No, don't fight 'em, invite 'em,To whomp the other side instead.

Turn it around, turn it around, Surprise 'em a little, start shiftin' the ground,

To get rightside-up, turn upside down Now is the time to turn it around!

They tell you to worry 'bout yourself, Before you help somebody else.

"Look out for number one," that's what they say, But I've got a far better way.

When someone asks you for a ride to the bus-stop, I say "Well, don't let 'em down."

Take 'em with a smile, go the extra mile. Don't drop 'em at the bus stop, Drive 'em all the way to town!

Turn it around, turn it around, Surprise 'em a little, start shiftin' the ground,

To get rightside-up, turn upside down Now is the time to turn it around!

They tell you "Hold on to what you got." They say "Possession's nine-tenths of the law."

And when they're talking money, that's not funny, They'll tell you it's worth dying for.

I say when someone steals your shirt, Let 'em go, say "Take it if you please!"

Don't let 'em down, just turn it around, Say "Take my shoes, take my pants!" "Take my B.V.D.s!"

Turn it around, turn it around, Surprise 'em a little, start shiftin' the ground,

To get rightside-up, turn upside down Now is the time to turn it around!

Turn it around, Turn it around Surprise 'em a little, start shiftin' the ground,

To get rightside-up, turn upside down Now is the time to turn it around! Now is the time to turn it around!

The "Cotton Patch" Gospel is a colloquial translation of most of the New Testament

by Southern Baptist minister Clarence Jordan.

(Jordan also founded the Christian community Koinonia Farm, in Sumter County, near Americus.)

http://www.briarsdocumentary.com/filmclips.html

Between 1968 and 1973 Jordan published four Cotton Patch volumes:

The Cotton Patch Version of Paul's Epistles,

The Cotton Patch Version of Luke and Acts: Jesus' Doings and the Happenings,

The Cotton Patch Version of Matthew and John:

Including the Gospel of Matthew ^{(except for the "Begat" Verses)} and the First Eight Chapters of the Gospel of John,

and The Cotton Patch Version of Hebrews and the General Epistles.

Jordan's goal was to communicate the New Testament in the idiom of the South so that "plain folks" could better understand it.

He did not attempt a translation of Revelation.

Jordan, who worked from Greek texts, changed both the setting and the language of the New Testament.

For example, Jesus makes such statements as

"Come to me, all of you who are frustrated and have had a bellyful, and I will give you zest"

(as opposed to the Matthew 11:28 verse, traditionally translated from the Greek as "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest").

The following excerpt is another interesting example of the provocative way the Cotton Patch Version presents Scripture:

http://rockhay.tripod.com/cottonpatch/corinth-1.htm#chapter12

Don’t make an ass of yourself.

Such shoddy thinking destroys decent conduct.

Sober up and quit your sinning.

I'm ashamed to say it to your face,

but some of you have an abysmal ignorance of God!

MAKING THEATRE by Tom Key

2007 Keynote Address, Atlanta, GA at http://www.setc.org/indexKey.php

In college, back in 1979, I was at one of Tom's first performances of the prototype of this show (I recall stage managing for him, but, given my present advanced age, my memory may be somewhat faulty). I consider Tom Key as one of the greatest influences on me in regard to the theology of theatre.

The following is excerpted from Tom Key's keynote address

I want to make a comment on what I personally believe is our greatest challenge, not as thespians, but as human beings.

At present, I think our greatest challenge is to learn to live with one another and the planet, or perish. That is, we are going to have to evolve from tribes to a world community. ... We are going to have to make a transition from the endless entropic tragic cycle of revenge and retribution to the creative healing process of understanding, respect and reconciliation. It’s interesting to me that the word “agape” is not used by Plato, Aristotle or Sophocles. It’s a Greek word that means “love,” and it means “love” in the context that Dr. Martin Luther King, Ghandi, what Christ meant when he said, “There’s no gain in loving those who love you, it’s when you love your enemies.” That’s “agape.” It’s what Abraham Lincoln meant when he said, “Do we not destroy our enemy when we convert them into our friends?”

It’s interesting to me that there came a time when this word showed up in human language. I would submit, if it is going to be accomplished that we will transition in the centuries to come to a global community, it’s going to be accomplished through the theatre. I would go further to say that America would not be America if it were not for the theatre, because I don’t believe the same ancient culture that gave us the idea by which we govern ourselves in this experiment called America, that’s relatively young, would have been able to have given us that idea unless they had also been the same ancient culture that gave us the theatre as we know it. Why? Because this is the art form of language. It is the only time in our human experience, that we gather in large numbers, and language is center stage, with no other purpose than to convince the audience that what they witness on stage is true. It might be a musical, it might be a farce, tragedy, epic, satire, but it’s true.

…

I learned a great life lesson that I can’t judge a character as good or bad, and play him at the same time. And this has prevented in my life, a lot of needless judging.

When I was at the University of Tennessee, as an undergraduate, taking an American Theatre course, I really embarrassed myself and kept on asking questions, trying to manipulate the meaning of the plays into something that had meaning to me in my own personal perspective. And the teacher again was very patient with me, and took me aside, and with no shame in his voice, said, “You obviously have some strong religious convictions,” to which I proudly said, “Yes.” And this is very embarrassing to share this, but he said, “So you would like for people to hear how it is that you believe and what you think is important in life,” and I said, “Well, yes, I would.” And he said, “Well, why don’t you give others that opportunity? Why don’t you listen to others? Because if you judge a play as right or wrong, before you even see it, before you even give the playwright a chance to convince you of the truth of the situation, aren’t you asking … isn’t that….” He was so kind in the way that he did this, but I was destroyed. I got the message. And so I stopped asking all these questions and I realized… He said, “If there is something that is going to challenge your point of view, then this will just be an opportunity to strengthen it, but it might be a chance to enhance it.”

... together we can symbolize, together we can understand what it is to be human.

Philadelphia Theatre Symposium

Although I ended up not presenting a paper, I thoroughly enjoyed my experience attending the Philadelphia Theatre Symposium (http://www.villanova.edu/artsci/theatre/academics/symposium/) at which Richard Schechner gave the keynote presentation. I hope to jot down my thoughts in regard to that experience in future posts.

The following phrases taken from my notes give some indication of what was discussed in the many presentations given at the symposium:

• wandering performance before ambiguous audience
• valid experience of peformance?
• display of hospitality
• open performance aesthetic
• comfort of actors and audience
• fear of dislocation
• homeless condition of postmodernism
• performative "home" ----------> "historical squatting"
• wandering culture
• longing for "cosmopolitan" prosperity
• question of propriety
• competing meaning systems
• question of minority status
• audience perception ... actor self-perception
• putting on costume identifies character ... "putting on Christ"
• deterratorialization = performance without regard for effect on the "audience" but the "'actor"
• "work on given role calls peformer to presence"
• "the theatre community of the actor is often other than the social community of the audience"
• living is doing
• theatre becomes filter for analysis
• your idea of life is not for me
• desiring dominance yet resisting submission
• idea of oneself formed by insight, reflection, and relationship
• conflict of voices
• I "see what I wanna see"
• relieve Christ of Biblical connotation?
• "experience achieves value through the primordial sense of community [Body of Christ?]"
• "explore masculine gender identity& performance through the lense of violence, war & power"
• can time be performed?
• music suspends time
• the specious present is not an Augustinian knife-edge, but a saddle-back upon which one may perceive what just passed and what is about to come
• remembrance ... restored behavior
• believing performer makes aesthetic choices to preserve "sacred" from "profane" performance
• theatre paradigm implicates profane intentions
• hallowed moments are framed by divine intention
• sublime acts of terror ... designed to be visible (spectacular)
• maximum effect achieved for greatest audience
• walls between real and virtual have crumbled
• U.S. military strategy of 'shock and awe' answered spectacle with spectacle
• there is no group of people that is absolutely other
• museum art vs. real-life art
• Kant's notion of "sublime" as "negative pleasure ... outrage of the imagination"
• Burke's "sublime and the beautiful" - delight in seeing things we would not like to be done
• fright is the chili pepper of imagination
• aesthetic vs anesthetic
• fear of God is the beginning of wisdom
• can we forgive is we are merely an audience?
• parabolic demand for response
• an ethics of witness
• distance from "Ground Zero"
• How can I be saved?
• Richard Schechner's grandfather told him, "My afterlife is you."

PERFECT PERFORMANCE

The following is a draft of something I am trying to develop into a paper to be presented to the Philadelphia Theatre Research Symposium at Villanova in January. I really do not intend to be preachy, so I am trying to edit it to make it more presentable to a wider audience. Your comments are welcome.

Performance reveals relationship. All acting is “acting with” another. The solo performer may seem alone on stage, but remains in the presence of others who see and hear and respond as they will. The ensemble is always present in the context of some greater assembly gathered beyond the parameters of that particular troupe of actors. Humanity is always being with others in some way – presence and absence collapse into one another.

We are called to become imitators, mimetai, of God (Ephesians 5:1). Not only that but to be coimitators, summimetai, followers together with others (cf. Philippians 3:17). Such imitatio dei is contrasted with hypocrisy - we are to “take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them” (Matthew 6:1).

Our performance, time and time again, is less than perfect, inhibited by “all manner of concupiscence” (Romans 7:8, KJV). How, then, are we to perform that which is good?

We must recognize that we have not already become perfect, but are being perfected in living as we live in Love. Perfection brings something or someone to completion, allowing that one to be finished according to some appropriate end. Humanity is perfected in love, joining together in becoming imitators of God.

Faith begins in one’s imagination. Consciously conforming one’s conscience, not to concupiscience, but toTruth renews our minds (much more than mere mental manipulation) so that we may prove that which is the good and acceptable. All human action takes place in the context of some relationship and every human act is held to the standard of loving others as one loves oneself. Love never happens in isolation; in fact, isolation is a rejection of love.

What is Love like? Love is revealed through face-to-face interaction. We see in our meeting with others a reflection of God's presence, seeing in another's face "the face of God" (cf. Jacob before his brother Esau in Genesis 33:10). A hypocrite deliberately tries to deceive people; such a performance relies on pretence rather than presence.

Like an actor, the hypocrite is pretending; what the “audience” sees is not the actor’s person but some persona being portrayed by the actor. Pious practice becomes performative pretense. Such a theatrical display before an audience is done for the applause of other people rather than the affirmation of Love.

The problem with hypocrisy is that it deforms one’s conscience, which sits in judgment over our will. The conscience is not the means by which we tell what is right and what is wrong; training teaches us what is right or wrong. Our conscience insists that we do what we think is right and avoid what we think is wrong. This very important distinction needs to be remain clear. Conscience, not a safe guide by itself, can be very mistaken. Conscience merely gives approval or disapproval whenever we fulfill or fail whatever standard we have, whether or not that standard is right or wrong. Conscience can either prod or punish – it acts both before and after the fact.

Hypocrisy performs against the dictates of one’s conscience. The hypocrite then comes to possess a seared conscience. “Speaking lies in hypocrisy, some have their conscience seared with a hot iron.” (I Tim. 4: 2). This reference to a "seared conscience" is a metaphor that comes from the cauterizing of a wound. Like the skin of a cauterized wound, one's conscience can become insensible. Much is done with the intention to please God, yet one is left with no full sense of having pleased God in the doing them. Instead, the nagging sense that one has not done enough to please God remains. People goaded by an uneasy conscience can try to put their conscience to rest by religious activity. Such frenzy is ultimately unsatisfying for it certainly does not impress God.

Whose performance is it anyhow?

Crucial to understanding Christian performance is that the Christian Actor, one abiding in Christ, becomes Christ in the world through the transformative work of the Holy Spirit. This Actor is not some single embodied soul standing alone on stage, but a full member of the Body of Christ, a corporation of caring characters who together comprise one whole Person, that is Jesus Christ.

HISTRIO-MASTIX

The players scourge, or, actors tragædie, divided into two parts.

http://history.wisc.edu/sommerville/367/Prynne.htm

William Prynne (1600-1669)

Wherein it is largely evidenced, by divers arguments, by the concurring authorities and resolutions of sundry texts of Scripture, That popular stage-playes are sinfull, heathenish, lewde, ungodly spectacles, and most pernicious corruptions; condemned in all ages, as intolerable mischiefes to churches, to republickes, to the manners, mindes, and soules of men.

And that the profession of play-poets, of stage-players; together with the penning, acting, and frequenting of stage-playes, are unlawfull, infamous and misbeseeming Christians. All pretences to the contrary are here likewise fully answered; and the unlawfulnes of acting, of beholding academicall enterludes, briefly discussed; besides sundry other particulars concerning dancing, dicing, health-drinking, &c. of which the table will informe you.

THE PROLOGUE

Such hath always been, and yet is, the perverse and wretched condition of sinful man, the cogitations of whose heart are evil and only evil before God, and that continually: that it is far more easy to estrange him from his best, and chiefest joys; than to divorce him from his truest misery, the pleasures of sin, which are but for a season, yet set in endless grief. Man always hugs his pleasurable sins so fast, out of a preposterous and misguided love, which makes his reformation desperate, that if any soul-compassionating Christians attempt to wrest them from him, he forthwith takes up arms against them, returning them no other answer, then that of Ruth to Naomi, in a far better case: The Lord doe so to me, and more also, if ought but death part them and me: where they dye, I will dye, and there will I bee buried. And thus alas he lives, nay, dies and lies (as too, too many daily do) entombed both with and in his darling crimes.

How naturally prone men are to cleave to worldly pleasures and delights of sin, in despite of all those powerful attractives which might withdraw them from them; to omit all other particular instances, we may behold a real and lively experiment of it in profane and poisonous STAGE-PLAYS, the common idol and prevailing evil of our dissolute and degenerous Age. Which though they had their rise from hell, yea, their birth, and pedigree from the very Devil himself, to whose honour and service they were at first devoted. Though they have been oft condemned and quite exploded by the whole Primitive Church, both under the Law and Gospel, by the unanimous vote of all the Fathers, and sundry Councils from age to age, by modern divines, and Christian authors of all sorts, by divers heathen states, and emperors, and by whole Grand Juries of profane writers (as well historians and poets as philosophers) as the incendiaries and common nurseries of all villainy and wickedness, the bane and overthrow of all grace and goodness, the very poison and corruption of men's minds and manners, the very fatal plagues and overtures of those states and kingdoms where they are once tolerated, as I shall prove anon.

Yet we, we miserable and graceless wretches, after so many sentences of condemnation passed upon them, after so many judgments already inflicted on and yet threatened to us for them, after so many years and jubilees of the glorious Gospel-sun-shine which teacheth us to deny ungodliness and all worldly lusts and to live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world, looking for the coming, and appearance of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ. Yea, after our very vow and sacred covenant in Baptism, which binds us to forsake the Devil and all his works, the pomps and vanities of this wicked world and all the sinful lusts of the flesh, of which these Stage-Plays are the chief. As if we were quite degenerated, not only from the grace and holinesses of Christians, but even from the natural goodness and morality of pagans in former ages, do now, even now, in the midst of all our fears at home and the miserable desolations of God's Church abroad (the very thoughts of which should cause our hearts to bleed, and souls to mourn; much more our hellish jollity, and mirth to cease): as if we had made a covenant with hell, and sworn allegiance to the Devil himself, enthrall, and sell ourselves to these diabolical, and hellish interludes, notwithstanding all that God or man have said against them. And would rather part with Christ, religion, God, or heaven, than with them. Yea, so far are many men's affections wedded to these profane and heathenish vanities, that as it was in Saint Augustine's time, even so it is now, whosoever is but displeased and offended with them, is presently reputed for a common enemy.

He that speaks against them or comes not at them, is forthwith branded for a schismatical or factious Puritan. And if any one assay to alter or suppress them, he becomes so odious unto many, that did not the fear of punishment restrain their malice, they would not only scorn and disgrace but even stone or rent him all to pieces, as a man unworthy for to live on earth. Whereas such who further these delights of sin are highly magnified, as the chief contrivers of the public happiness. There was once a time (if Tertullian, with some other ancient Fathers may be credited) when as it was the chiefest badge and character of a Christian, to refrain from Stage-Plays: yea, this was one great crime which the pagans did object against the Christians in the Primitive Church, that they came not to their interludes. But now (as if Stage-Plays were our Creed and Gospel, or the truest emblem of our Christian profession) those are not worthy of the name of Christians - they must be Puritans and Precisians; not Protestants, who dislike them.

Heu quantum mutatus ab illo?

Alas, how far are Christians now degenerated from what they were in ancient times; when as that which was their badge and honour heretofore is now become their brand and shame? Quantus in Christiano populo honor Christi est, vbi religio ignobilem facit? How little doe we Christians honour Christ, when as the ancient character; and practical power, of religion (I mean the abandoning, and renouncing of sin-fomenting Stage-Plays) subject men unto the highest censure, and disgrace?

Conquerar? an taceam?

This being the dissolute and unhappy constitution of our depraved times, it put me at the first to this dilemma, whether to sit mute and silent still and mourn in secret for these overspreading abominations (which have got such head of late among us, that many who visit the Church scarce once a week, frequent the Playhouse once a day). Or whether I should lift up my voice like a trumpet and cry against them to my power? If I should bend my tongue or pen against them (as I have done against some other sinful and unchristian vanities), my thoughts informed me that I might with the unfortunate Disciples, fish all night, and catch just nothing at the last but the reproach and scorn of the histrionicall and profaner sort, whose tongues are set on fire of hell against all such as dare affront their hellish practices. And so my hopes and travail would bee wrecked at once. If I should on the other side, neglect to doe my uttermost to extirpate or withstand these dangerous spectacles, or to withdraw such persons from them as my pains and brief collections in this subject might reclaim, when God had put this opportunity into my hand and will into my heart to do it, my conscience then persuaded me, that my negligence and slackness in this kind might make me guilty of the death of all such ignorant, and seduced souls, which these my poor endeavors might rescue from these chains of hell, and cords of sin, and interest me in all the evil which they might suppress.

Whereupon I resolved with myself at last, to endure the cross and despise the hate and shame, which the publishing of this HISTRIO-MASTIX might procure me, and to assuage (at least in my endeavors, if not otherwise,) these inveterate, and festered ulcers (which may endanger Church, and State at once) by applying some speedy corrosives and emplaisters to them, and ripping up their noxious and infectious nature, on the public theater in these ensuingActs and Scenes. Which I thought good to style, The Players' or Actors' Tragedy - not so much for the style or method of it (for alas, here is neither tragic style, nor poetical strains, nor rare invention, nor clown, nor actor in it, but only bare, and naked truth which needs no Eloquence nor strain of wit for to adorn or plead its cause) - as for the good effects I hope it may and will produce, to the suppression and extirpation, at least the restraint and diminution` both of plays, and common actors, and all those several mischievous and pestiferous fruits of hellish wickednesses that issue from them. Which much desired success, and reformation, if I could but live to see; I should deem myself an happy man, and think my labour richly recompensed.

---

[Spelling and punctuation modernized]

Ruth 1: 17 - Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.

attractives = attractions

degenerous = degenerate

Isaiah 28:15 - "Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement".

schismatical = The most extreme English puritans separated themselves from the English Church, refusing to attend its worship; they were accused of the sin of schism - a deliberate and unwarranted break with the church.

Precisians = Puritans were regarded as being to rigidly precise in their insistence on proper religious forms and so were detractingly called precisians, e.g. Drayton (1612) "Like our Precisians. Who for some cross or saint they in the window see will pluck down all the church."

Heu "quantum mutatus ab illo [Hectore]" = Vergil, Aeneid, II 274-275 Alas "how changed from that earlier Hector"

"Conquerar, an taceam?" = "Complaint or silence?" Ovid, Ex ponto, IV.iii (To a faithless friend).

histrionicall = histrionic, i.e. theatrical, dramatic.

John 21,1-4.

emplaisters = plasters, a substance spread on a wound to close it.