''In Extremis: The Story of Abelard & Heloise'' is a play by
Howard Brenton
Howard John Brenton FRSL (born 13 December 1942) is an English playwright and screenwriter, often ranked alongside contemporaries such as Edward Bond, Caryl Churchill, and David Hare.
Early years
Brenton was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, so ...
on the story of
Heloise and
Abelard
Peter Abelard (12 February 1079 – 21 April 1142) was a medieval French scholastic philosopher, leading logician, theologian, teacher, musician, composer, and poet. This source has a detailed description of his philosophical work.
In philo ...
, which premiered at
Shakespeare's Globe
Shakespeare's Globe is a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse first built in 1599 for which William Shakespeare wrote his plays. Like the original, it is located on the south bank of the River Thames, in Southwark, Lon ...
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
Sir William Lyons"Sir William Lyons – The Official Biography" by Philip Porter & Paul Skilleter, Haynes Publishing (4 September 1901 – 8 February 1985), known as "Mr. Jaguar", was with fellow motorcycle enthusiast William Walmsley, the c ...
. It was revived for a two-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
Sarah Pia Anderson (born 1952) is an English born television and theatre director, and Professor of Cinema and Digital Media at University of California, Davis. directing).
[
]
Synopsis
In twelfth century Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, 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 start 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 Champeaux, sets up a new, dialectic
Dialectic (; ), also known as the dialectical method, refers originally to dialogue between people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to arrive at the truth through reasoned argument. Dialectic resembles debate, but the ...
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
Revelation, or divine revelation, is the disclosing of some form of truth or knowledge through communication with a deity (god) or other supernatural entity or entities in the view of religion and theology.
Types Individual revelation
Thomas A ...
to reason
Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing valid conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, religion, scien ...
and may thus destroy the Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
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. However, Bernard will not accept this and refuses to accept Abelard's challenge to dispute with him publicly, as Bernard dogma
Dogma, in its broadest sense, is any belief held definitively and without the possibility of reform. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, or Islam ...
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 or Canons may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Canon (fiction), the material accepted as officially written by an author or an ascribed author
* Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture
** Western canon, th ...
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 Brittany, 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 a nunnery 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 is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses use of the testicles: the male gonad. Surgical castration is bilateral orchiectomy (excision of both testicles), while chemical castration uses pharmaceutical ...
by Fulbert's cousins in Fulbert's presence, and both he and Heloise 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
A show trial is a public trial in which the guilt (law), guilt or innocence of the defendant has already been determined. The purpose of holding a show trial is to present both accusation and verdict to the public, serving as an example and a d ...
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 burns all of Abelard's heretical works and thus thinks he has won the struggle with him. He then 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
Penguins are a group of aquatic flightless birds from the family Spheniscidae () of the order Sphenisciformes (). They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere. Only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is equatorial, with a sm ...
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 Boot
*Heloise - Sally Bretton
Sally Davis (born 23 April 1980), known professionally as Sally Bretton, is an English actress. She is best known for appearing as Lucy Adams in the long-running BBC television sitcom ''Not Going Out'' since 2007, and as Martha Lloyd in the BBC ...
*Bernard of Clairvaux
Bernard of Clairvaux, Cistercians, O.Cist. (; 109020 August 1153), venerated as Saint Bernard, was an abbot, Mysticism, mystic, co-founder of the Knights Templar, and a major leader in the reform of the Benedictines through the nascent Cistercia ...
- Jack Laskey
*Fulbert, Heloise's uncle - Fred Ridgeway (2006)/ Paul Copley
Paul Mackriell Copley (born 25 November 1944) is an English actor and voice over artist. From 2011 to 2015 he appeared as Mr. Mason, father of William Mason, in 16 episodes of ''Downton Abbey'', and from 2020 to 2021, he appeared in the ITV s ...
(2007)
*Denise, Abelard's sister - Pascale Burgess
* William of Champeaux - John Bett
* Louis VI - Colin Hurley
* Alberic* - Patrick Brennan (2006) / Michael Gould (2007)
*Lotholf* - William Mannering
*Helene, abbess / working woman 1 - Sheila Reid (2006) / Eleanor Bron
Eleanor Bron (born 14 March 1938) is an English stage, film and television actress, and an author. Her film roles include Ahme in the Beatles musical ''Help!'' (1965), the Doctor in '' Alfie'' (1966), Margaret Spencer in '' Bedazzled'' (1967) an ...
(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)
* - Described in the programme by Brenton as "a kind of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are characters in William Shakespeare's tragedy ''Hamlet''. They are childhood friends of Hamlet, summoned by King Claudius to distract the prince from his apparent madness and if possible to ascertain the cause of ...
double act", comic relief from the main themes.
Reviews
2006
The Stage
*
Times
*
References
{{Howard Brenton
Plays by Howard Brenton
2006 plays
Plays set in the 12th century
Plays based on actual events
Plays set in France