Volume 2.1: Faith, Violence and Performance
Letter from the Editor
Editorial: Holy War Theatres
Mark Pizzato
Abstract:"Every since 9/11..." This notion has come to dominate or current consciousness. Perhaps future historians will call this period not to the postmodern or postmodern, but the "millennial period." This editorial considers the performative dimensions of war as well as theatre about war, and interrogates the place of faith in violent conflict. But why are ‘religious' villains so popular in our theatres of war and mass media? Historically, the Western idea of theatre emerged and reemerged through the melodramatic rites of good and evil forces, human and divine, demanding forces. Pizzato emphasizes the tendency of people to gravitate towards evil as an explanation and asks, particularly, what did the performances of 9/11 mean? Has the art of theatre been outmoded not only by cinema and television, but also by the reality show of live terrorist spectacles in the mass media or their threat to strike again, anywhere any time? Sacrifices are made, in all historical periods, to incarnate the others existence. In this way, theatre, from stage to screen, might change the melodramatic "war on terror" toward a tragic realization of American hubris. Conflict has been at the heart of theatre, religion, and human evolution for many millennia. If terrorism is theatre, then there is too much of it in the world today, especially religious, political, and mass-media melodrama.
Feature: Staging Terezfn: A Performance-Based Research Project
Lisa Peschel & Alan Sikes
Abstract: The article details the efforts of the authors to stage two productions that examined the history of Terezín, an eighteenth-century garrison town located in the present-day Czech Republic and used by the Nazis as a concentration camp during the Second World War. Terezín was employed to spread disinformation about the supposed relocation of Jews to new settlements within Eastern Europe. The Jewish prisoners of Terezin faced overcrowding, disease, and the constant threat of transport to the death camps. However, in order to facilitate the Nazi disinformation project, the inmates were forced to live a facsimile of a "normal" village life. This confluence of "reality" and "imitation" experienced by the inmates lends itself to exploration in theatrical performance, which also, and inevitable grapples with a similar confluence. Working together, the authors created two workshop performances-a first 2003 production in Minneapolis, MN, and a second 2004 production in Tallahassee, FL-that drew upon the doubled nature of theatre in order to examine life within the camp. Intent upon exploring the complexities of camp experience, the authors sought to produce not a transparent repersentation of life in Terezín, but instead an exploration of the difficulties involved in the act of representation itself.
Feature: "Great mowrning and mone": Modeled Spectatorship in the Towneley Scourging
David Eshelman
Abstract: In the Towneley Scourging, spectators are shown not only the horrific spectacle of Jesus's physical suffering, but also the spectacle of his mother's psychological suffering, signified by her weeping. The internal, dramatic structures of the Towneley play-most especially, plot and character-encourage audience identification, not with Christ, but with the Virgin Mary. In the play, characters can be divided into three groups: 1. those who perpetrate the violence (Pilate, the Consulti, the Torturers); 2. the victim of the violence (Jesus); 3. those who watch the violence (the Apostle John, the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, etc). Like the medieval audience, the spectator-actors are neither physically causing Christ's suffering, nor are they experiencing it. In contrast to Jesus and his killers, the spectator-actors stand apart from the action, functioning as a kind of Greek Chorus. Of these spectators, the Virgin Mary is most freely able to express her sorrow, making her chief among the weepers and therefore positioned as the character ripest for audience identification. Through her, spectators learn how to view the play unfolding before them. The larger implication of Mary's role lie in the potential for spectators not only to use the Scourging model as a way to deal with the play, but also as a model for dealing with the injustices of the world at large. Mary's actions (or lack thereof) function as a potential didactic tool, providing a model for the viewing of public executions in general. By modeling a spiritual response to the physical suffering of Jesus, Mary teaches audience members to engage in devotional practices that fulfill the need to act yet in no way to help correct the injustice.
Highlight: Interview with Eve Ensler
Highlight: The Interminable War? Cycles of Violence in Helen Edmundson's The Clearing
K. Sarah-Jane Murray
Highlight: "The Troubles of Romeo and Juliet"
Crystal Brian
Profile: Elfriede Jelinek
Jennifer L. Good
Book & Performance Reviews:
- Peter Novak- Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints, Theresa Coletti
- Heather Beasley-Drama Education in the Lives of Girls: Imagining Possibilities, Kathleen Gallagher
- Christine Boyko-Head-This is My Body: Representational Practices in the Early Middle Ages, Michal Kobialka
- Debra Charlton- "Tamar's Revenge" at the Royal Shakespeare Company, London, UK
- Steven Pounders-"Marisol" at Risk Theatre Initiative, Dallas, Tx
Volume 2.2: Comedy and the Spirit
Letter from Editor
Editorial: The Spirit of Comedy
Gary Maciag
Abstract: It might seem odd at first to consider the comic and the spirit having any relationship at all in an era when religion and its practices have become deadly serious. Still, luckily, laughter has not been banished from our world. People laugh in the face of danger, even if that simply means not changing one's behavior in the vague, ghostly presence of dire threats – perhaps not a particularly moving expression of heroism but maybe at least a small triumph of the will. Can religion and the life of the spirit be the bases of comic relief – in the sense of liberation – as much as, if not more so, than terror and suspicion?
Feature: The Power of the Carnival Satirist: Taking Laughter Seriously
David Charles
Feature: Wickedly Devotional Comedy in the York Temptation of Christ
Christopher Crane
Abstract: Satan opens the York Temptation of Christ pageant by employing a complex and subtle rhetorical comedy aimed at moving fifteenth-century spectators toward lives of greater devotion. Although this pageant employs carnivalesque comedy that violates the boundary between stage and spectator and appears subversive of orthodox teaching, the comedy ultimately invites audience members to recognize evil in themselves, a necessary step to repentance and obedience. This rhetorical tactic serves the York cycles broader religious aims of reinforcing orthodox doctrine and encouraging devotion in the audience. The effect of this identification is not as clear, however, when a character appears attractive to the audience through his comically transgressive words and actions. Characters in the cycle plays, like the York Satan, appear to threaten the orthodox message by entertaining the audience, yet the spirit of misrule they cultivate becomes itself part of that message when the characters-and the spectators identifying with them-are set in opposition to God and Christ. The orthodox aim of what may at first appear to be subversive comedy depends on the common faith of the medieval audience. Such drama points to a faith that not only gave freedom to laugh, but a faith strengthened through the comedy, which reminded spectators of their own fallibility and made the forgiveness and grace at the center of that faith more inviting.
Highlight: Questioning Caste: Performance, Parody and the Political Economy of a Hindu State. An Interview with Sunil Pohkarel
Mark West
Profile: Rising Image Productions & Target Practice
W. Barrett Huddleston
Abstract: The article describes the project of Rising Image Productions, the largest theatre company exclusively devoted to staging C.S. Lewis theatre adaptations in the United States. The writing provides specific insight into the company's adaptation of the Screwtape Letters, Target Practice, and attempts to critically analyze the process of translating Lewis's work into a humorous musical performance. Further analysis compares Rising Image's adaptation choices to Commedia Del Arte' tropes, with special emphasis on the resemblance between the play's central characters and Arlecchino and Pantalone.
Book & Performance Reviews:
- Victor Emeljanow-Theatre and Social Change, Alisa Solomon (Ed.)
- James M. Brandon-Staging the Savage God, Ralf Remshardt
- Peter Senkbeil-Performance Theory, Richard Schechner
- Jill Stevenson-"Altar Boyz" at Dodger Stages, Brooklyn, NY
- Jamie Gianoutsos-"The Magic Flute" at Baylor University, Waco, Tx
- Daniel Inouye-"Spamalot" at the Schubert Theatre, New York, NY
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