Didactic Drama: ‘Everyman’ and other Morality Plays

Abstract

The first records of Morality plays, of which the most widely known is Everyman, occur at around the same time as the Mystery Cycles were being performed by the trade guilds. It is at first easier to see the differences between the two types of play rather than their similarities. The Morality is not concerned with Bible history and is not cyclical in form. Nevertheless, both forms are unashamedly didactic drama and both are deeply concerned for the spiritual welfare of man. Because the Morality was not tied to the static theology of the scriptures which shaped the Mystery play, it is in many ways a more flexible dramatic form. The driving force behind any Morality play was to teach — but the personal views of the author (most usually an unknown writer) towards social, political, religious or moral matters were incorporated into a set of conventions which that writer in turn both inherited and expanded. For this reason there is no such thing as a ‘typical’ Morality play — a fact which is at the same time both exhilarating and exasperating.