1

Historical Intersections
Between Religion And Theatre

The historical intersection between Christianity and Theatre has had a somewhat "checkered" career. Christianity has, over the 2000 years of her existence, waged an ongoing "conflict," if not outright war at times with theatre. Christianity is also credited with providing for the rebirth of Theatre in the western world in the very bosom of the church – in the sanctuary itself -- as a part of the Mass. The interactions with her "wayward" child since that rebirth have provided sanctions and affirmations, attacks and praise, fear and "use," – from both sides of the relationship, depending on the historical period. At times these opposite tendencies occur at the same time within the church. At all times the relationship has had difficulties associated with their differing goals and understandings of roles in the lives of their constituencies.

Debra Bruch, Ph.D.
Michigan Technological University

The Prejudice Against Theatre

[pages 1 - 18]

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Dr. Debra Bruch is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Michigan Technological University, and has served the Religion and Theatre Focus Group in a variety of positions for numerous years. Currently [2001] she is the Conference Planner for Religion and Theatre Focus Group and serves on its Executive Committee.

Dr. Bruch’s paper explores the significance of Christian prejudice in the shaping of theatre theory and practice during the Medieval and Renaissance ages in an attempt to explain basic world-views and reasons beneath the arguments. Roman theatre practices influenced the concern for theatre as affect and the Church’s highly negative regard for theatre in society. The medieval scholars justified early attitudes by developing a belief system that emphasized behavior, a dualistic world-view, and the criteria of reality, morality, and utility. Italian Renaissance scholars answered according to medieval criteria. And the Puritans stimulated and justified prejudice by following medieval standards and focusing on authority to point their arguments.

Mark C. Pilkinton, Ph.D.
University of Notre Dame

From Picture to Word to Picture in Tudor and Stuart England:
Getting to the Word

[pages 19 - 23]

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Mark C. Pilkinton, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Film, Television, & Theatre at the University of Notre Dame. He has presented several papers for the Religion and Theatre Focus Group over numerous years. During that time he has shared his significant scholarship as well as his deep understandings of the need for good process in the theatrical enterprise to protect us all from "The Theatre of Human Sacrifice."

This paper is dedicated to Glynne William Gladstone Wickham, who was Mark’s tutor at Bristol where he completed his Ph.D., and "were it not for him, I probably would have gone a very different route." (Gladstone was Glynne Wickham’s grandfather’s name. Catherine Glynne was his grandmother’s name before she married William, hence his full name. Perhaps unfortunately, most theatre people only remember the shortened version of Glynne Wickham, but remember that much we must, because of his significant contribution to the study of theatre history.)

The broad scope in time and space presented in Dr. Bruch’s paper narrows in focus in Dr. Pilkinton’s research to cover major shifts in Tudor and Stuart England. In the "picture to word to picture" process Mark also notes the religious controversies that raged during this period, and significantly affected the theatre of its day.

2

Integrating Spirituality And Faith Into The Theatrical Process

When considering the integration of spirituality, faith, or religion into theatre many people, practitioners and public alike tend to consider only the product of theatre: the play in performance.

Too often the only considerations certain audience members make regarding a production’s "integration of faith" are the obvious ones that identify violations, or affirmations, of the corporately held "standards," or mores of acceptable behavior (Did the actors smoke, drink, use unacceptable language, or show certain body parts in an unseemly manner? Did they give verbal testimony to the strongly held beliefs of the community?)

Once one gets beyond those issues, the most often considered ways audiences understand issues of integration of faith in the theatre, are the thematic concerns of the playwright, or the production. (Did the play support or attack, agree or disagree with the corporately held beliefs of the community?)

Too often, when considering integrating "spirituality and faith" in the theatre the process necessary to arriving at the product has been neglected, considered less important, or even considered irrelevant to the discussion by both practitioner and public. When that is the case unfortunate things happen in the process of "getting there."

The three papers that follow suggest the relevance and importance of paying attention to the integrating spirituality and faith in the process of training and doing theatre.

James Forsythe
Brandon University

Spirituality and Actor Training

[pages 24 - 36]

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James Forsythe is currently [2001] Professor and Program Head of Drama at Brandon University in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada. A professional actor before entering academe, he has appeared on stages across Canada and continues to work as a theatre artist. He has been a member of ACTRA and Canadian Actor’s Equity since 1977. Although primarily a practitioner, Professor Forsythe is in high demand as a workshop facilitator and festival adjudicator. His research interests center on the methodology of actor training. He has been published in a variety of journals ranging from Theatre Research in Canada to Nurse Educator Today. He is currently [2001] co-authoring an article based on his own Department’s work in creating a First Nations based approach to Actor training. In the fall of 2001 he will perform in the premiere of an adaptation of Edith Wharton’s Madame des Treymes. He received his training at the Universities of Alberta and Victoria.

Professor Forsythe’s thesis is that elements of the spiritual practices of other cultures, specifically Taoism and Zen Buddhism, are being employed in ‘Western’ conservatory acting schools. He will examine the context of the relationship between spirituality and actor training by discussing areas of commonality with examples from the techniques of specific teachers working in the field.

James would like to acknowledge the Brandon University Research Council for kindly funding his research.

Michael Stauffer, M.F.A.
Wheaton College

Building Character while Developing a Character:
An Investigation of the Integration of Faith and Theater

[pages 37 - 60]

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Michael Stauffer has taught theatre at Wheaton College for [25] years. During that time he has directed and designed regularly for the Arena Theater. He is currently [2001] director of theatre and serves as coordinator of the directing and design program. Michael has designed professionally throughout the Chicago area. After studying in Europe this past fall, he is currently exploring an integrative program of religion and theater with a more European model. Michael believes the nonlinear, visual experience seems to have great potential for developing a model for the religious theater exploration in America. This is now an ongoing area of academic and practical research and experimentation for Michael. It is a major thrust in the Church and Theater class that he teaches at Wheaton.

John Steven Paul, Ph.D.
Valparaiso University

He to Pray, I to Create:
The Concept of Kenosis and the Stanislavski System

[pages 61 - 69]

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John Steven Paul is Associate Professor of Theatre and Television Arts, and Chair of the department at Valparaiso University. He joined the faculty at Valparaiso after completing his doctorate in Theatre and Drama at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981. Professor Paul teaches dramatic literature, play directing, and playwriting, and directs plays for the University Theatre. He is also the director of the liturgical drama troupe Soul Purpose that he founded in 1987. His writing has appeared in The Cresset, The Christian Century, Liberal Education, ARTS, and the Chicago Tribune. Professor Paul also serves as a mentor in the Lilly Fellows Program in the Humanities and the Arts at Valparaiso University.

Dr. Paul states that

"I have been blessed by more than one mentor, but the one who kept me mindful of the intellectual, physical, and spiritual phases of the journey was Prof. William R. Elwood. . . . Bill might be surprised to hear me name him as a mentor, but as I look back he was the one who led us to an understanding of the fullness of life in all its joy and pain and challenges and satisfactions."

The following paper, therefore, is dedicated to Professor William R. Elwood, formerly Professor of Theatre and Drama at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Dean of the Graduate School at Emerson College, Boston, and now chair of the Department of Theatre at Southern Connecticut State University.

3

Vision, Form, And Lessons In Dramatic Metaphor

Dr. Daniel Larner is Professor Theatre at Fairhaven College, Western Washington University. He has been teaching at Western Washington University since 1968. He is a playwright whose play, The Death Of Christopher Marlowe, was recently produced by Cyprus Radio. He has also been commissioned to write a new play on the battle for civil liberties in America. He is a widely published scholar in dramatic theory and criticism, particularly in the areas of justice and drama, and the development of tragedy, comedy, and tragi-comedy. He is at work on a book on the American playwright Barrie Stavis.

Daniel states that the first of the following papers

"came about as an effort to talk about enduring values and eternal verities in the theatre. I had in mind a paper that would examine a few key works of those playwrights – you know who – whose drama is perennially of interest to broad audiences. The task would be to find those actions and themes, those characters and characteristics, which seem to be most prevalent in them, then look for those among the Contemporary dramatists of our time. In the library I realized quickly that this was an old task, done many times, with results that were shockingly predictable and soporific. Having just spent three months in the Spring of 1995 carrying coals to Newcastle by teaching the ancient Greek drama in Athens, it occurred to me that the enduring values and eternal verities in the theatre might be found by looking in a different way for how the theatre becomes an important part of our lives. What follows is that effort."

What followed was not one, but three papers. What follows here are those three papers. They represent a small, but significant, part of the continuing contribution he has made to the Religion and Theatre Focus Group over many years, and to the annual panel of Senior Scholars in Religion and Theatre. In this trilogy of related papers Daniel explores some of those "enduring values and eternal verities in the theatre" by way of inter-relationships between the "trucking" systems of metaphor and drama: its vision, form, and lessons.

Daniel Larner, Ph.D.
Western Washington University

Trucking Systems From Greece To America:
Metaphorai, The Bacchai, and the Problem of Vision in the Contemporary Theatre

[pages 70 - 85]

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Daniel Larner, Ph.D.
Western Washington University

Metaphor II:
Understanding Dramatic Form In The Transportation Systems Of Metaphor

[pages 86 - 98]

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Daniel Larner, Ph.D.
Western Washington University

Comic Ritual in a Tragic World:
Lessons in the Metaphor of Drama

[pages 99 - 110]

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4

Contemporary Interpretations Of Historical Religious Texts

The tradition of interpreting earlier religious texts is as old as the Greeks and Western theatre itself. As we move to the resurrection of Western theatre in the Christian church, the contemporary interpretation of earlier religious texts formed its basis, and the basis of much of the medieval theatre that followed. We in turn write, arrange, and produce contemporary interpretations of earlier religious texts to "speak to our era" the observations and truths of an earlier age. In these re-interpretations we find power often lingers about the edges, and bursts upon modern audiences with fresh strength, vision, and understanding.

Andrew D. Ryder, Ph.D.
Seattle Pacific University

Translating a Medieval Religious Text Into a Contemporary Theatrical Experience

[pages 111 - 134]

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Dr. Andrew Ryder is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Seattle Pacific University. He completed his Doctoral work at Bowling Green University. Andrew has presented several papers at ATHE conferences, some of which have been on panels for the Religion and Theatre Focus Group.

While doing his Master’s degree Dr. Ryder produced a performance of the N-town Passion sequence as part of his Master’s thesis research. He had an eye to understanding something about the possible salutary relationship between religion (specifically Christianity) and theatre. The production was staged in a Presbyterian church in Lansing, Michigan, for what he expected to be an audience composed of three groups: interested Medievalists; church members; and family of the cast. The fact that the play was being produced during the Lenten season provided some immediacy that would have been lacking at any other time of year. The following paper suggests some of the process and results of that venture in providing a "contemporary interpretation of an historical religious text."

Mark C. Pilkinton, Ph.D.
University of Notre Dame

The True Temptation of Christ:
"To Suffyr temptacion it is grett peyn"

[pages 135 - 141]

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George A. Scranton, Ph.D.
Seattle Pacific University

RENT:
Reinterpreting The Gospel of Mark At the Close of the Millennium

[pages 142 - 150]

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Dr. George A. Scranton is a Professor of Theatre at Seattle Pacific University, where he has been since 1970. He has worked with the Religion and Theatre Focus Group since before ATHE was founded (under AETA and ATA). More recently George has served as the Conference Planner for Religion and Theatre, and currently [2001] is in his second term as Focus Group Representative for the Religion and Theatre Focus Group of ATHE.

The argument made by George is that Jonathon Larson’s musical Rent owes at least as much to the historically religious (scriptural) text of the Gospel of Mark (and Luke), probably by way of Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell, as it does to La Boheme, as is usually claimed. From this ancient "Ur" text, he surmises, Rent gathers a good deal of its plot, characters, understandings, interest and power. With this line of reasoning he suggests that Larson’s musical reinterprets the Gospel of Mark to the contemporary world at the close of the second millennium after the text was written.

5

Theological Analysis:
Viewing The Oeuvre Of A Playwright’s Work

To some a "viewing of the body" is redolent of morbidity, to others it is a chance to celebrate the totality of a life. To an undertaker there is "work to be done." It must be carefully and thoughtfully accomplished, but it is work on a corpse. To a pastor or priest there is both "work to be done" and a "standing in the presence" of the spirit that the body represents. These tasks must also take careful and thoughtful work, but they are somewhat different. There is both a solemnity and a celebration in their work. If the body is of a parishioner who was also a friend that "presence" may become palpable. In the thoughtful recognition and consideration of "the body," and in the presence of that "palpable" spirit that the body represents there may come the time when the moment becomes "holy." The meaning of "the body" expands, and in order more adequately to deal with the totality of the event, the priest or pastor must move into theological realms and language.

In "viewing the body of work" of these two playwrights, who perhaps are not often thought of in "religious or theological" terms, the two scholars are responding more like the pastor or priest than the undertaker. Viewing the "body of work" of Brian Friel and Jean Baptiste Poquelin (Moliere) Dan and George stand in the presence of admired "friends." To do the work of the undertaker they need good scholar’s tools. To do the work of a priest they must also resort to theological analysis and understandings to more fully explain, or represent, the fuller life their "bodies of work" represent. The work is done carefully and thoughtfully, and they hope with celebration, honesty, and a care for their spirits that the bodies represent.

Dan Cawthon, Ph. D.
Saint Mary’s College

Images Of Transcendence
In The Plays of Brian Friel

[pages 151 - 160]

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Dr. Dan Cawthon is a Professor of Theatre at Saint Mary's College in Moraga, California where he has taught since 1980. Along with his teaching, directing and administrative duties at Saint Mary's, Dan directs and acts at theatres in the San Francisco Bay Area. His one-man show, DAMIAN, celebrating the life of the Leper Priest of Molokai, toured extensively in 1989, including the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Dan is also Program Director for the Eugene O'Neill Foundation at Tao House in Danville, California.

It is the thesis of this paper that the unseen reality that haunts the plays of Eugene O’Neill is to be discerned, as well, in the plays of Irish playwright Brian Friel. Like O’Neill, Friel has struggled to image-forth that reality which lies behind, shapes, and drives human action. In his plays, with very few exceptions, he treads on to that slippery territory where the human and transcendent "otherness" intersect.

George A. Scranton, Ph. D.
Seattle Pacific University

Love And Lovers:
Mutuality, Sin, Grace And The Future In Moliere's Vision Of Comedy

[pages 161 - 189]

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Mentoring has been a critical issue throughout my life. I have had many important mentors in my life, without whom, I would be not only be a different person, I would be a much poorer person. It is the contention of the "Senior Scholars’" panel that this is true of many of us in Academic Theatre.

James L. Chapman, the person to whom I wish to dedicate this paper has mentored me for thirty-six years, which is three years longer than my wife has mentored me. He was my mentor in my undergraduate years at Seattle Pacific College, my mentor through my first Master’s degree in Biblical Literature also at S.P.C., my colleague and mentor during my second Master’s degree at the University of Washington in Theatre History and Criticism, my mentor and colleague during my Doctoral years at the Graduate Theological Union and Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, and he continues to mentor me as a colleague at Seattle Pacific University (even now that he has retired). [Since the publication of Theatre and Religion 4, James L. Chapman has passed away. -- Debra Bruch]

I will not blame Jim for anything I have written in this paper, but he is always there in subtle, and not so subtle ways, nonetheless. Thank you Jim for all thirty-six years.