What is Dulcitus?
The show opens on June 18 at the library here, and runs Thursdays, Fridays and at Saturdays at 8pm, with 2pm Saturday matinees until June 27.
Dulcitus is a boisterous farce, written by the world’s first known woman playwright, the abbess Hroswitha, of Gandersheim, in or around 960AD. It concerns the fate of three Christian martyrs at the hands of a comically inept Roman prefect named Dulcitus.
Besides being remarkable as the first female dramatist people know of, Hroswitha’s work is also remarkable in that it provides a rare glimpse into the world of medieval drama – after the fall of the Roman Empire but before the start of the Renaissance.
She wrote in Latin, and copies the styles and conventions of the Roman playwright, Terrence, in whose works she saw the talent but lamented the waywardness, and sought to use his accessible format to promote her Christian ideals.
Unwittingly or not, Hroswitha also seems to have been a very early feminist, portraying women characters as strong and intelligent, in contrast with the often weak and stereotypical depictions of Roman comedies.
Dulcitus, quite probably, is the only one of her seven plays that seems to be designed with audience laughter in mind. There are a lot of very funny situations, and plenty of slapstick humour, especially when Dulcitus, blind with passion, lusts after the pots in the kitchen as if they were the martyrs.
In the end the Christians meet their deaths, but even in that there is comedy, for while they have been saved Dulcitus has not, and he is doomed to continue his own bungling for a little while more.
Tickets are $15 each, and are available by calling 519-780-7593 or online at www.grinderproductions.org.
