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In Extremis (play)
Encyclopedia
In Extremis: The Story of Abelard & Heloise is a play by Howard Brenton
on the story of Heloise and Abelard, which premiered at the Globe Theatre
on 27 August 2006 with a 15 performance run. The play was directed by John Dove with design by Michael Taylor, and music by William Lyons. It was revived for a 2 week run from 15 May 2007 with the same director and most of the same cast.
An early draft of the play was written in 1997 at the University of California at Davis during Brenton's term as its Granada Fellow, and performed by MFA
students of its Drama Department (with Sarah Pia Anderson directing).
, a new spirit of philosophical and religious enquiry is growing. Within its vanguard is Peter Abelard, a man of great learning, independence of mind, and sensuality. When he enters into an affair with his equally brilliant but disastrously connected student Heloise, his more conservative enemies find just the pretext they need to discredit him and in so doing starts a war of ideas. Through the joy and suffering exhibited in this love story set in the Middle Ages, Brenton explores the relationships between logic and religion, humanism and fundamentalism, and faith and power, and projects modern debates on fundamentalism, the Enlightenment and feminism back on this historical situation.
, sets up a new, dialectic
philosophical school of his own, which proves popular and is even fashionable at the royal court of France. One of his followers is Heloise, with whom he also starts a sexual affair, under the guise of private tuition. His school's success worries Bernard of Clairvaux, who feels it is subjecting divine revelation to reason
and may thus destroy the Roman Catholic Church
and Christianity itself, but for now he merely subjects Abelard to surveillance rather than opposition. Bernard and Abelard do meet, briefly, at the court when Bernard goes there to force the king to give back lands he had seized illegally from a French bishop. Abelard tries to explain that he is not trying to destroy religion but to better understand it through reason using the brain and intellect that God has given him, but Bernard will not accept this and refuses to accept Abelard's challenge to dispute with him publicly, as Bernard dogma
tically feels he is right and Abelard is wrong and so there is nothing to dispute.
Bernard's agents Alberic and Lotholf reveal the affair to Heloise's uncle and surrogate father Fulbert, a canon
of Notre Dame
, and he is disgusted by it. Abelard offers to marry Heloise to resolve the situation and remove the disgrace, but she refuses, wanting to be his lover rather than conform to the oppressive norm of medieval marriage. She is smuggled out of Paris to Abelard's sister Denise in Britanny, where she gives birth to their child and waits until two years later Abelard arrives. They return to Paris and get married secretly in Fulbert's garden, but he then refuses to accept a secret marriage and they flee together to the nunnery led by Helene, where Heloise was taught as a girl. There they are kept apart in separate rooms, but secretly consummate their marriage on the altar of the monastery chapel. Abelard is then hunted down and castrated
by Fulbert's cousins in Fulbert's presence, and both he and Abelard are forced to enter monasteries.
Bernard at last accepts the challenge to publicly dispute with Abelard before the king and bishops of France, but this turns into a show trial
when Bernard immediately lists 12 points on which Abelard is heretical and Abelard refuses to answer them, maintaining a complete dignified silence and thus forcing his chief supporter the king to back Bernard and declare Abelard a heretic. Abelard and Bernard meet, and fail to make a reconciliation, and then Heloise attends Abelard on his deathbed. After Abelard's death, Bernard - having burned all of Abelard's heretical works, and thinking he has won the struggle with him - goes to Heloise to affect a reconciliation, but this also fails. The play then ends abruptly with Heloise anachronistically showing Bernard a 20th century, Penguin copy of the couple's letters, to prove that he has not erased Abelard and Heloise from history as effectively as he thought.
* - Described in the programme by Brenton as "a kind of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
double act", comic relief from the main themes.
Howard Brenton
-Early years:Brenton was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, son of Methodist minister Donald Henry Brenton and his wife Rose Lilian . He was educated at Chichester High School For Boys and read English Literature at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. In 1964 he was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal...
on the story of Heloise and Abelard, which premiered at the Globe Theatre
Globe Theatre
The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613...
on 27 August 2006 with a 15 performance run. The play was directed by John Dove with design by Michael Taylor, and music by William Lyons. It was revived for a 2 week run from 15 May 2007 with the same director and most of the same cast.
An early draft of the play was written in 1997 at the University of California at Davis during Brenton's term as its Granada Fellow, and performed by MFA
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
students of its Drama Department (with Sarah Pia Anderson directing).
Synopsis
In twelfth century ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, a new spirit of philosophical and religious enquiry is growing. Within its vanguard is Peter Abelard, a man of great learning, independence of mind, and sensuality. When he enters into an affair with his equally brilliant but disastrously connected student Heloise, his more conservative enemies find just the pretext they need to discredit him and in so doing starts a war of ideas. Through the joy and suffering exhibited in this love story set in the Middle Ages, Brenton explores the relationships between logic and religion, humanism and fundamentalism, and faith and power, and projects modern debates on fundamentalism, the Enlightenment and feminism back on this historical situation.
Plot
Abelard, arguing with his teacher William of ChampeauxWilliam of Champeaux
Guillaume de Champeaux , also known as William of Champeaux or Guglielmus de Campellis , was a French philosopher and theologian.He was born at Champeaux near Melun...
, sets up a new, dialectic
Dialectic
Dialectic is a method of argument for resolving disagreement that has been central to Indic and European philosophy since antiquity. The word dialectic originated in Ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato in the Socratic dialogues...
philosophical school of his own, which proves popular and is even fashionable at the royal court of France. One of his followers is Heloise, with whom he also starts a sexual affair, under the guise of private tuition. His school's success worries Bernard of Clairvaux, who feels it is subjecting divine revelation to reason
Rationalism
In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...
and may thus destroy the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
and Christianity itself, but for now he merely subjects Abelard to surveillance rather than opposition. Bernard and Abelard do meet, briefly, at the court when Bernard goes there to force the king to give back lands he had seized illegally from a French bishop. Abelard tries to explain that he is not trying to destroy religion but to better understand it through reason using the brain and intellect that God has given him, but Bernard will not accept this and refuses to accept Abelard's challenge to dispute with him publicly, as Bernard dogma
Dogma
Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, or a particular group or organization. It is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted, or diverged from, by the practitioners or believers...
tically feels he is right and Abelard is wrong and so there is nothing to dispute.
Bernard's agents Alberic and Lotholf reveal the affair to Heloise's uncle and surrogate father Fulbert, a canon
Canon (priest)
A canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....
of Notre Dame
Notre Dame de Paris
Notre Dame de Paris , also known as Notre Dame Cathedral, is a Gothic, Roman Catholic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, France. It is the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Paris: that is, it is the church that contains the cathedra of...
, and he is disgusted by it. Abelard offers to marry Heloise to resolve the situation and remove the disgrace, but she refuses, wanting to be his lover rather than conform to the oppressive norm of medieval marriage. She is smuggled out of Paris to Abelard's sister Denise in Britanny, where she gives birth to their child and waits until two years later Abelard arrives. They return to Paris and get married secretly in Fulbert's garden, but he then refuses to accept a secret marriage and they flee together to the nunnery led by Helene, where Heloise was taught as a girl. There they are kept apart in separate rooms, but secretly consummate their marriage on the altar of the monastery chapel. Abelard is then hunted down and castrated
Castration
Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses the functions of the testicles or a female loses the functions of the ovaries.-Humans:...
by Fulbert's cousins in Fulbert's presence, and both he and Abelard are forced to enter monasteries.
Bernard at last accepts the challenge to publicly dispute with Abelard before the king and bishops of France, but this turns into a show trial
Show trial
The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as...
when Bernard immediately lists 12 points on which Abelard is heretical and Abelard refuses to answer them, maintaining a complete dignified silence and thus forcing his chief supporter the king to back Bernard and declare Abelard a heretic. Abelard and Bernard meet, and fail to make a reconciliation, and then Heloise attends Abelard on his deathbed. After Abelard's death, Bernard - having burned all of Abelard's heretical works, and thinking he has won the struggle with him - goes to Heloise to affect a reconciliation, but this also fails. The play then ends abruptly with Heloise anachronistically showing Bernard a 20th century, Penguin copy of the couple's letters, to prove that he has not erased Abelard and Heloise from history as effectively as he thought.
Cast of Globe productions
- Abelard - Oliver BootOliver BootOliver Boot is an English actor. He trained at the RADA, and has appeared on both stage and screen. His theatre credits include Antony and Cleopatra, In Extremis , Three Musketeers, Hayfever, Tartuffe, Jamaica Inn and an award winning world tour of Othello with Cheek by Jowl...
- Heloise - Sally BrettonSally BrettonSally Bretton is an English actress best known for appearing in television sitcoms including the BBC's Absolute Power, Channel 4's Green Wing, the BBC's The Office, and, most recently, the BBC's Not Going Out....
- Bernard of ClairvauxBernard of ClairvauxBernard of Clairvaux, O.Cist was a French abbot and the primary builder of the reforming Cistercian order.After the death of his mother, Bernard sought admission into the Cistercian order. Three years later, he was sent to found a new abbey at an isolated clearing in a glen known as the Val...
- Jack LaskeyJack LaskeyJack Laskey is an English actor. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art , and has appeared on both stage and screen.At Shakespeare's Globe Laskey played Bernard of Clairvaux in Howard Brenton's critically acclaimed In Extremis and Octavius Caesar in Antony and Cleopatra... - Fulbert, Heloise's uncle - Fred Ridgeway (2006)/ Paul CopleyPaul CopleyPaul Mackriell Copley is an award-winning English actor and voice-over artist.-Early life:Copley was born in Denby Dale, West Yorkshire, and grew up beside a dairy farm there. His father, Harold, was involved with local amateur dramatic productions, as were the rest of his family...
(2007) - Denise, Abelard's sister - Pascale Burgess
- William of ChampeauxWilliam of ChampeauxGuillaume de Champeaux , also known as William of Champeaux or Guglielmus de Campellis , was a French philosopher and theologian.He was born at Champeaux near Melun...
- John Bett - Louis VILouis VI of FranceLouis VI , called the Fat , was King of France from 1108 until his death . Chronicles called him "roi de Saint-Denis".-Reign:...
- Colin Hurley - Alberic* - Patrick Brennan (2006) / Michael GouldMichael Gould (actor)Michael Gould is a British actor.-Stage:*Kathryn Hunter's 2009 touring Royal Shakespeare Company production of Othello as Iago.*In Extremis...
(2007) - Lotholf* - William Mannering
- Helene, abbess / working woman 1 - Sheila Reid (2006) / Eleanor BronEleanor BronEleanor Bron is an English stage, film and television actress and author.-Early life and family:Bron was born in 1938 in Stanmore, Middlesex, to a Jewish family of Eastern European origin...
(2007) - Student / Courtier / Bishop / Monk - Tas Emiabata
- Berthode - Niamh McCann
- Cousin 1 / Company - Andrew Vincent
- Cousin 2 / Company - Simon Muller
- Francine/Franny - Rhiannon Oliver
- Student / Courtier / Bishop / Monk - Alex Kerr
- Student / Chamberlain / Bishop / Monk - Paul Rainbow
- Marie / Courtier / Nun / Company - Frances Thorburn (2006)/ Jenni Maitland (2007)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are characters in William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet. They are courtiers who are set by the king to spy on Hamlet, using their claimed friendship with him to gain his confidence. The characters were revived in W. S...
double act", comic relief from the main themes.