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The Staging of a New Year's Play at Presov (Eperies) in Eastern Slovakia in 1651

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

Milena Cesnaková-Michalcová
Milena Cesnaková-Michalcová
Affiliation:
Bratislava.
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Extract

In the seventeenth century, school plays were performed in practically all schools in Slovakia, which was then part of Hungary. The first teacher to stage plays with his pupils was Leonard Stöckel in Bardejov (Bartfeld) in the second half of the sixteenth century. After Stöckel's death, plays continued to be performed in Bardejov, but—thanks to a body of teachers who took Jan Amos Comenius as their model in the field of dramatic art—it was the neighbouring town of Presov (Eperies) which became the centre of Protestant school theatre in Slovakia in the seventeenth century. Comenius was active in the years 1650–4 in nearby Sárospatak, in present-day Hungary, and it was there that he wrote his Schola Ludus and performed it with his pupils.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1993 , pp. 161 - 172
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1993

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References

Notes

1. Ein zwiefacher Poetischer Act und geistliches Spiel von den dreyen Gaben der Weysen auss Morgenlande. Der Erste: Zum schuldigen Opffer und Ehren-preyss dem lieben Jesulein. Der Andere: Zum Geschenck, und Newen-Jahres Wuntsch, den dreyen Ständen der Königlichen Frey-Stadt Epperiesin Ober-Ungern. Daselbst gehalten und vorgestellet von acht kleinen Jungfräwlein/und zween Knaben/im Jahre Christi 1651. Printed in Bardejov by Jacob Klöss the Younger on forty octavo pages. Anno 1652. 8°. A8-E8 ( = XL) pages + 12 engravings. Engraved frontispiece. Copies: Budapest, Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Könyvtára, Shelf Mark R 672 (not complete); Országos Széchényi Könyvtar, Shelf Mark RMK II. 765 (not complete); University Library, Shelf Mark RMK II. 118/a (with all engravings).

2. Telari were tapestries hung up at both sides of the stage. It was from these that the wings were later developed.

3. The same mechanism has been preserved in the famous castle theatre at Cesky Krumlov (Böhmisch Krummau) in Southern Bohemia. This theatre, which dates from the second half of the eighteenth century, has no flies.

4. Eight years after Eisenberg's production, in 1659, fan Amos Comenius published a completely different view of the stage in his textbook Orbis pictus.