Roman Mimes Roman Mimes are performers who first appeared in the fifth century. They used alluring dance, speech, and song, as well as general stock characters, like those seen in Commedia dell’arte, during their performances. [Haase]
Miming quickly became popular due to Titus Plautus, a playwright that combined the use of Old Comedy and New Comedy in his acts. Mimes, which fall under New Comedy, “often centered on melodramatic or unrealistic situations.” [Godfrey][Haase] By including Mimes and varying different types of Comedy, Plautus “wrote for a broad audience,” which allowed the Roman Mimes to gain popularity quickly. [Godfrey]
Rise of Roman Mimes
There wasn’t a lot of original drama during the Roman era. [Barker] A lot of Roman theatre “had never been much more than a plagiarism of Greek tragedy and comedy.” [Barker] This called for a stronger role to captivate the audience, which is a role that was taken on by the Roman Mimes.
Many of the cities where theatre was developing had a large slave population. [Barker] Despite playwrights, like Plautus, who wrote for a wide variety of crowds, “the [attendees] showed a distinct lack of interest in the literary theatre. For this reason ‘something cruder developed.’” [Barker] This could be one reason for the development of Roman Mimes. The slaves and peasants had no interest in the art form or style of the previous theatre that had been popular, like that in Old Comedy. [Chambers]
Mimes during this time revolved their acts around sex and murder, and it quickly evolved into a form even more vile than this. [Barker] Sex became a prominent form of acting on stage, and through mimes, a new limit was set for grotesqueness and debauchery. [Barker]
A Peak and Struggle in Performances
What quickly rose in popularity among the peasants also rose in denunciation for the people in power. “The common people of Rome embraced mimes, and the emperors had to tolerate them as a part of their ‘bread and circus’ program for social complacency.” [Barker] Due to the greater population of peasants verses the nobility, miming continued to grow, as well as the vulgarity involved. “Christians saw the support of theatre by the rulers and by the general population as proof of moral collapse.” [Beacham] By now, the theatre revolved around this offensiveness, to which led for a further divide and demise between the Church and the mimes.
As the Mimes continued to rise in popularity, the Church realized their influence on people began to slip. This would be from how Mimes made fun of Church leaders in their performances rather than enhancing the influence of them. After the Church a continued to see a rise in popularity of theatre and its moral corruptness, their representatives began taking action. Excommunication threats were given out to clergymen and other church representatives who showed support for the theatre, and this pattern, and this pattern quickly spread to laymen and other Church legislatures. [Chambers]
In 395 AD, a law was created that made citizens convert to Christianity from Paganism. This added to the constant war between the theatre and the church.[Beacham] Laws continued to be passed and “it was impossible for actors to fight these laws” due to their low status. [Barker] Attendees fell from the performances and, in 400 AD, performances were completely banned during Holy Week. [Chambers] This was just one step closer towards banning the theatre all together.
Demise of Miming
As mimes continued to mock the church in their performances, which included vile reenactments of priests, religious figures, and baptisms, the Church became even more distressed about losing fellowship amongst their followers. [Boyd] “The Christian church was a force dedicated to the destruction of the Roman theatre.” [Barker] Churches began shutting down any vulgarity or anti-religious theatrical hits towards the Church. [Boyd] Feeling threatened, the Church started to excommunicate and place bans on any miming or theatrical acts that weren’t put on by the Church.
The Church ended the vile theatre in 692 AD. “By combining secular and sacred power, the Church finally succeeded in using the perceived ‘immorality’ of the Roman mime to discredit and destroy the great and ancient institution of the theatre.” [McDonald] Mimes were still banned well beyond the return of theatre. [McDonald]
References
Barker, Anne "Speculations of the Death of Roman Theatre" 1996. Print.
Beacham, Richard C. The Roman Theatre and its Audience. Harvard University Press. Cambridge, MA. 1992. Print.
Boyd, John D. The Function of Mimesis and Its Decline. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1968. Print.
Chambers, E. K. The Mediaeval Stage. Vol 1. Oxford University Press. New York. 1967. Print.
Godfrey, Aaron W. "Plautus's Clowns." Fools and Jesters in Literature, Art, and History: A Bio-bibliographical Sourcebook. By Vicki K. Janik. Westport: Greenwood, 1998. 343-49. Print.
Haase, Donald. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales: Q-Z. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2008. Print.
Kipnis, Claude. The Mime Book. New York: Harper & Row, 1974. Print.
McDonald, Marianne, and J. Michael Walton. The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007. Print.
Roman Mimes are performers who first appeared in the fifth century. They used alluring dance, speech, and song, as well as general stock characters, like those seen in Commedia dell’arte, during their performances. [Haase]
Rise of Roman Mimes
There wasn’t a lot of original drama during the Roman era. [Barker] A lot of Roman theatre “had never been much more than a plagiarism of Greek tragedy and comedy.” [Barker] This called for a stronger role to captivate the audience, which is a role that was taken on by the Roman Mimes.Many of the cities where theatre was developing had a large slave population. [Barker] Despite playwrights, like Plautus, who wrote for a wide variety of crowds, “the [attendees] showed a distinct lack of interest in the literary theatre. For this reason ‘something cruder developed.’” [Barker] This could be one reason for the development of Roman Mimes. The slaves and peasants had no interest in the art form or style of the previous theatre that had been popular, like that in Old Comedy. [Chambers]
Mimes during this time revolved their acts around sex and murder, and it quickly evolved into a form even more vile than this. [Barker] Sex became a prominent form of acting on stage, and through mimes, a new limit was set for grotesqueness and debauchery. [Barker]
A Peak and Struggle in Performances
What quickly rose in popularity among the peasants also rose in denunciation for the people in power. “The common people of Rome embraced mimes, and the emperors had to tolerate them as a part of their ‘bread and circus’ program for social complacency.” [Barker] Due to the greater population of peasants verses the nobility, miming continued to grow, as well as the vulgarity involved. “Christians saw the support of theatre by the rulers and by the general population as proof of moral collapse.” [Beacham] By now, the theatre revolved around this offensiveness, to which led for a further divide and demise between the Church and the mimes.As the Mimes continued to rise in popularity, the Church realized their influence on people began to slip. This would be from how Mimes made fun of Church leaders in their performances rather than enhancing the influence of them. After the Church a continued to see a rise in popularity of theatre and its moral corruptness, their representatives began taking action. Excommunication threats were given out to clergymen and other church representatives who showed support for the theatre, and this pattern, and this pattern quickly spread to laymen and other Church legislatures. [Chambers]
In 395 AD, a law was created that made citizens convert to Christianity from Paganism. This added to the constant war between the theatre and the church.[Beacham] Laws continued to be passed and “it was impossible for actors to fight these laws” due to their low status. [Barker] Attendees fell from the performances and, in 400 AD, performances were completely banned during Holy Week. [Chambers] This was just one step closer towards banning the theatre all together.
Demise of Miming
As mimes continued to mock the church in their performances, which included vile reenactments of priests, religious figures, and baptisms, the Church became evenmore distressed about losing fellowship amongst their followers. [Boyd] “The Christian church was a force dedicated to the destruction of the Roman theatre.”
[Barker] Churches began shutting down any vulgarity or anti-religious theatrical hits towards the Church. [Boyd] Feeling threatened, the Church started to excommunicate and place bans on any miming or theatrical acts that weren’t put on by the Church.
The Church ended the vile theatre in 692 AD. “By combining secular and sacred power, the Church finally succeeded in using the perceived ‘immorality’ of the Roman mime to discredit and destroy the great and ancient institution of the theatre.” [McDonald] Mimes were still banned well beyond the return of theatre. [McDonald]
References