Acting in the Mediaeval Play, "Ye Good Old Bard"

This is a medieval stage play that tells a story of a squire who went on an adventure to fulfill the quest from the king on rescuing the queen, and eventually became a knight after the story with a series of characters: a troll (my priority role), a fairy and finally the dragon, and discovering the truth behind the disappearance of the queen. The structure of the plot follows the classic principle of a stage play and is divided into 6 acts, each act has a different progression of the story and introduces new characters as it goes on, and each of the characters has its own uniqueness and presents a different variety of experiences, as well as showing off different messages. The play is the combined work of 11 people who all have their unique roles: writers, directors, stage managers, actors, stagehands and designers for costumes, makeup, special effects, hair and sets. During this play, our goal was not only to put all our effort to build it as entertaining as possible but also tried to explore various topics related to the course through the play, such as how the plays like this become the reflection of people’s lives during medieval era by representing the numerous elements of culture in the play, such as different costumes for different roles, the recreation of settings such as castle, tavern, bridge etc.; we also explored the aspects of gender roles during that period, with how differently genders were treated and positioned when trying to play in a same role, in this case, how differently it would be if a female squire trying to become a knight.

Mingyuan Kang