Gegen Heiden, Papst und Mittelalter

Abstract

In carnival 1527, the former Franciscan and fervent Lutheran Burkard Waldis staged his Parable of the Prodigal Son in Riga, Livonia, a place of fierce struggles for religious hegemony between the archbishopric and the Protestant citizenship. The printed play text takes an emphatic position against moral decline in Rome, the Papal church and the ‘dark’ medieval times associated with religious medieval plays. This article traces the theatrical profile of the Parable in contrast to these older theatrical traditions. Whilst Easter or Passion plays typically aim for the audience’s immersion in order to make the truth of salvation evident,Waldis, in accordance with Lutheran theological and didactical positions, calls for a hermeneutical attitude to ensure the correct understanding of what is shown on stage. Even when the carefully structured levels of fictionality blur, the audience is called to take a position between the Catholic and the Lutheran doctrine of salvation from a rational distance.