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PASADENA, Calif. - Just when you think society can’t get much worse - oooops, it does. And so it goes throughout time. One of the darkest periods in history was the after the fall of the Roman Empire when an impenetrable shadow fell over mankind for nearly 600 years resulting in what we call the Dark Ages.
It was the time when order, learning, documentation, cultivation and civilization seemed to disappear and an era fascinating to us because we know so little about it. On March 4 the History Channel will try to rectify that with its two-hour special, “The Dark Ages,” which describes this barbaric period characterized by anarchy, bloodshed, pestilence and poverty. It chronicles that time through accurate re-creations and several erudite narrators.
“The causes are fundamental,” says Tomas R. Martin, professor of classics at Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., and a featured expert on the show.
“When your economy declines and your population declines and you don’t have any security, when people can come over the horizon and take everything that you have, then the technology - of which writing is one - and speaking publicly and communicating across distances gets lost. That’s how culture, which is the basis of civilization, struggles. And there’s less written down, there’s less said, so we know less,” he said at a press gathering in Pasadena.
There were small oases in that parched world where knowledge was preserved, adds Brett Whalen, assistant professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Among those preservationists were the Catholic monks who cloistered themselves in their dank monasteries copying the holy manuscripts and the Arabs who lived beyond the boundaries of lawless Europe.
The First Crusade marked the beginning of the end of this bleak time. “Although the Crusades were really a very turbulent period and very violent much like the earlier Dark Ages, in some ways the Crusades seemed to play a hand in pulling Europe out of that dark age,” says Christopher Cassel, the show’s producer-writer-director. “When the soldiers came back from the Holy Land, they would bring back the technology of Arabia that had endured through the Dark Ages: medicine, books, Aristotle, the classics, stone architecture, all kinds of things that they were exposed to once they broke out of this dark cloud that, was sort of over them in Europe.”
While the church tried to exercise sovereignty over the population during this anarchy, it proved fruitless, says Martin. “Decentralization was really the name of the game. No matter how much the church or the emperor wanted to exercise control over everybody, it simply was impossible because of distances.”
“... The church as an institution of the Roman church and the various Christian churches were ... critical in providing the only sort of infrastructure that was left in Europe at that time,” says Whalen, who’s also one of the “talking heads” on the show.
“Through the establishment of monasteries, through the preservation of learning, the church represented order, the only sort of order that was going on at that point, in many ways.”
The conditions were perfect for this implosion, adds Martin. “If you have a combination of bad leadership, bad finances and bad luck, that perfect storm can bring down even the mightiest of civilizations.”
The Dark Ages were really part of what historians call the Middle Ages, says Whalen. “The early Middle Ages, from around 500 to 1000, the period where you do have this sort of decline, the population going down, cities are stagnating. You have political fragmentation. Then you get from 1000 to 1300 you call that the High Middle Ages. That’s when you have Gothic cathedrals being built, universities being founded, strong kings rising up. Then you have ... the late Middle Ages. That’s when you have the black plague. That’s when you have the Hundred Years War. And there’s a sense of decline which lays the groundwork for the emergence of a new, modern age.”
Things began to change by the smallest of increments, says Whalen. “In the late 800s and the 900s you start to see population growth. People debate why and how this happened. But when the chaos had reached a certain point, it’s almost like there was nowhere to go but up. And you start to see forests being cleared, swamps being drained and out of these very humble beginnings, you see a population boom. The economy starts to pick up again. And that’s when you get to the 11th century. You start to see cities coming back. You start to see commerce revitalizing. Kings can start raising taxes, bringing in money. They can start to establish better control. Learning takes off. Universities start to be founded. But it seems to start from these humble farmers chopping down the trees somewhere.”
The rebirth of civilization was a combination of luck, initiative and a change in the weather, says Martin. “And people, individuals whose names we don’t know, are willing to take risks and come out of the safety of anonymity and hiding in the forest to move to cities to try to build international commerce and to take the kinds of risks that are necessary for change.”
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Disney’s “High School Musical” was such a humongous success that the cable network is following up with a full-fledged theatrical movie, “Haunted High School Musical,” to be released next year and “High School Musical 2,” due at the Disney Channel this summer, featuring the same cast and director.
Choreographer-director Kenny Ortega has worked with teenagers before when he did the TV series “Hull House” some years ago. But his career really took off when he choreographed “Xanadu” in 1980 with Olivia Newton-John. Gene Kelly joined the cast and Ortega remembers their initial meeting. “It was my first movie and I was completely intimidated, a complete basket case and couldn’t breathe, my heart was in my throat.
“We went into this room and didn’t come out for 2 ½ hours and he was doing these great tap dances and it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me.”
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One of the casualties of last fall’s TV season was NBC’s “Kidnapped,” a polished, intense and suspenseful series that fell by the wayside when it was overshadowed by some of the more ostentatious shows. Not to worry, “Kidnapped” will be resuscitated via DVD come April 24. The three-disc DVD features all 13 episodes so viewers can trace the storyline about a curious well-do-do family whose son is kidnapped. The bonus features include a behind-the-scenes featurette containing interviews with the cast, which includes Dana Delany, Timothy Hutton and Jeremy Sisto.
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Now that Sting will be touring with the Police again, his newfound passion for the Renaissance music of John Dowland will probably be relegated to the wings. But before it does, TV viewers will have the chance to hear Sting as troubadour of the 1600s when “Great Performances” offers, “Songs of the Labyrinth” on PBS Feb. 26 (check local listings.) Sting says he worked hard creating this sound. “I spent a lot of time studying and researching and took a lot of advice from people who had been in this realm for many years,” he says.
“And it was done with great respect. Normally, the repertoire is done by operatic singers, by trained voices, very, very wonderful. I can’t do that. I’m a pop singer, but I have - you know, I sing in tune and true to the notes that are written. Also, the songs were written 100 years before bel canto was invented. So bel canto was invented to fill huge opera houses or music halls. These songs are designed to be sung in a small room. ... So perhaps my way of singing is not so inauthentic. There’s a debate. It’s an interesting debate. But I’m one end of the spectrum. But I studied hard. It’s difficult. There’s a lot of breath control and to stay concentrated. It’s like tightrope walking. I’m sweating.”
