Jesuit Theatre on the Islands of the Aegean Sea

A missing link between Cretan Renaissance theatre and modern Greek drama was found with the recent discovery of Jesuit plays and performances on the islands of the Aegean—especially the island of Chios and the Cycladic islands. This article discusses the discovery of ten previously unknown plays written in the Modern Greek vernacular in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It also examines performance conditions for these plays and focuses on five of them— namely, The Presentation of Holy Mary in the Temple (ca. 1642), The Passion and Resurrection of Christ, The Martyrdom of Eleazar and the Seven Maccabean Boys, Gregory Kontaratos's The Three Children in the Fiery Furnace, The Tragedy of the Born-Blind, and David. It also discusses The Tragedy of St. Demetrius and its performance in 1723.