“Le Jeu d’Adam,” or “Le Mystere d’Adam,” was written in the decades before 1200 in Norman French. It’s a transition between liturgical drama in church and the later secular plays. It is important for study since it captures this halfway point.
“Adam” was probably staged on the church porch. In some churches, this was a fairly large stage…Cathedral de Rouen, for example. Some action might have spilled into the square in front of the church, and certainly that’s where the audience stood.
The clue for this is that stage directions are given in Latin, suggesting that monks were doing the primary production. And yet the play had devils cavorting around, too, so it almost certainly was not inside the cathedral. It’s also unlikely that monks played the dancing demons. As a second clue, the play had spots for the choir to sing in Latin, suggesting that the cathedral choir was employed.
So it was probably produced in the space halfway between church and world, produced by the clergy but also acted by minstrels. Later plays produced just for secular use gave stage directions in the local language, not in Latin.
The central Place, where the action would take place, had two “mansions”: Paradise and Hell. Paradise was supposed to be raised up higher on a platform, but it was also swathed in silk curtains so that anyone walking there could be seen only from the shoulders. Peeping out of the curtains, there were to be flowers and trees. The stage may have used real flowers and branches to achieve this effect. Of course, some trees—and one tree in particular—needed to have real fruit hanging on the branches.
The other mansion was the mouth of Hell, which the many devils in the play would use as a hang-out. They could range out of it, toward Paradise, gesturing and calling to Adam and Eve, and the rest of the stage Place was also theirs. At times, directions call for them to dance, while other directions wanted smoke and the clangor of pots and pans being banged inside Hell. Moreover, Hell needed to have an offstage component. While only the main Devil would be onstage to talk to Eve, after the spiritual Fall, devils were to come pouring out of Hell to cheer and dance.
The play’s stage directions are detailed: When God stands with the couple, pointing out the forbidden tree, Eve is directed to stand and move in a way that shows she is insufficiently humble. The devils are to point and laugh, beckoning to them to come to the forbidden tree. And after the apple has been eaten, Adam is to shake his fist at Eve for the trouble she has caused. Much of the play’s action is Adam’s lament for the loss of Paradise, which of course could still be seen.
The medieval drama didn’t try to make Adam and Eve naked, but instead dressed Adam symbolically in red, and Eve in white for her innocence. But after they eat the apple, they do a quick costume change and reappear in poor men’s clothes, ragged and appearing to be made of leaves. God wore priest’s robes when He strolled in the Garden, and it’s worth noting that God only became a character played by an actor when drama went outside the church.
We don’t know what the Devil wore, but it’s likely that it was something like what we’d imagine: ugly masks perhaps, bright colors for sin and temptation, or black and gray for evil and Hell’s smoky fires. The main Devil probably looked fashionable, while his minions had simpler outfits.
with thanks for all this information to John Wesley Harris, Medieval Theatre in Context.