Dame Sirith  –  Poculi Ludique Societas

Fabliaux are short comic verse tales popular in France in the 12th and 13th centuries. Dame Sirith is the earliest known fabliau in English, and the only one not written by Chaucer. Dame Sirith tells the story of a love-lorn clerk, the married woman he yearns after, and the clever old woman who helps him get what he wants. PLS Artistic Director Linda Phillips directs this silly, bawdy tale using a “lightly modernized” version of the 13th century text.

The Nun’s Priest’s Tale  –  Pneuma Ensemble

The earliest surviving “Rooster and Fox” fable is a short but ornate poem by Alcuin of York, court Latinist for Charlemagne. Centuries later, Marie de France wrote her own version, in anglo-norman, possibly for the court of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Centuries after that, Chaucer took the simple plot and spun it into the “Nun’s Priest’s Tale”, the most flamboyantly rhetorical and allusive of all his Canterbury Tales, a “merry tale.” Pneuma Ensemble, known for their interpretations of medieval performance works, present their “director’s cut” of Chaucer’s tale, a dramatic interpretation of all three, in original languages, with period musical accompaniment.

Dates:

• Friday, July 20:  8 pm
• Saturday July 21:  2 pm and 8 pm

Venue:

Majlis Art Garden, 163 Walnut Avenue

Tickets:

$15 / $10 senior & student. Cash only at the gate.