Here are the titles of two books that I'm going to write:
Beautiful Questions: Religion and Spirituality in Theatre
The Altar and the Stage: A History of the Evolving Relationship Between Theatre and the Church
I'm going to be looking at Angels in America (of course) and Sarah Ruhl's Passion Play and plenty of Medieval plays and I know there are some plays by Latino writers that have a heavy religious influence in them...
Anyone have any sources? Theologians? Favorite plays that might speak to this?
[UPDATE: 5:42 pm]
Updated titles and more about the books:
Beautiful Questions: Essays on Religion and Spirituality in Theatre. This is going to be my Empty Space. I envision it as a topic by topic look at plays, traditions, and theories based around religion in plays. It's more personal.
The Altar and the Stage: A Survey of the Relationship of the Church and the Theatre. This book gives a general view of the way that the Church (particularly focusing on the Christian faith) has influenced, denounced, supported, created, and emboldened theatre through history, culminating in an investigation on what the Chruch's relationship with theatre should be in our time.
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3 comments:
Hey Chris:
I saw "Passion Play" in Chicago last fall, and there were some really intriguing things going on. I thought the middle act, which is set in Germany at the start of WWII, was the most effective of the three and really pretty fantastic. The whole piece is pretty sprawling in scope, but the plays within a play really present some interesting insight into how drama does (or does not) effect an individual's religious inclination. For me, personally, it's important that religion is treated with as much respect onstage as sexual preference; religious characters tend to fall into one of two categories: nutcase or boringly perfect. And this has turned out to be a very long comment on a relatively short post, so I will go away... Hope all is well with you...
Mel,
All is well with me, thank you!
I agree with your point of respect when dealing with religion onstage. However, I feel that respect that trivializes or infringes upon Truth is not helpful to theatre, nor to the Church at large. Sometimes it is in the seemingly damaging representations that speaks to something deeper in the Church that might need to change.
I do agree that representing "religious characters" is difficult onstage and that many fail in this regard, creating "nutcase[s]" or characters who are "boringly perfect." I think these types of representations are bred in characters who are not complex, whose faith defines their entire character. This is not helpful, especially on the stage. No one likes one-dimensionality. I don't believe that any person of faith would like to be defined solely on their faith, just as a person who is homosexual would desire to be defined solely by his/her sexual preference. It all comes down to representing full humans, flaws and all, on the stage.
Yes, exactly! Flawed, real human beings, that's what I want to see on stage, no matter their denomination. Have you read "Marisol"? I enjoyed it a great deal; angels and apocalypse and human compassion. Good times.
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