"The Latin Passion Play:

Its Origins and Development"

Written by Sandro Sticca


A book report by

Desi Moreno-Penson


Wednesday, October 27, 1999


Professor Benito Ortolani

Theater History


Introduction:


The Latin Passion Play: Its Origins and Development by Professor Sandro Sticca (State University of New York Press, 1970) is an engaging account which examines the medieval liturgical ceremonies observing the events in Christ's Passion and traces their continuous change in character from the contemplative and thoughtful to the dramatic. Professor Sticca manages to present in this comprehensive body of work some important points. The first point being Christ's Passion becoming an ever-widening and intensive motif as one of the sacred mysteries beginning in the tenth century. Also, there were many new constraints, which allowed a more stylish and expressive form of visualization and description of Christ's Anguish, which would appear in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

In the course of this investigation, Professor Sticca cites many varied examples from the treatises and works of many other important and influential historians. These works include: The History of the Greek and Roman Theatre by Margaret Bieber, The Irresistible Theatre by W. Bridges-Adams, and The Drama of the Medieval Church by Karl Young, among many others. I will, in all likelihood, make use of one or more of their axioms and premeditated conjectures in order to present a more sound conspectus of Professor Sticca's disquisition.

According to Professor Sticca, the origin of the medieval drama was in religion. From the epoch of the early centuries, the church held an extremely stern and forbidding view of theatrical presentations, which was broadly considered to be licentious representations of decadent paganism. But once this "immoral" theatre had disappeared, at least according to the dictates of the time, the Church allowed and itself contributed to the gradual development of a new drama, which in their view, was not only...