ABOUT THIS BOOK

The notion of the sacred has long informed the work of British dramatists like Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard. Ralph Yarrow’s Sacred Theatre is the first book to examine the role of the sacred in the practice, process, and performance of drama. While leaving enough room for the personal and experiential, Yarrow draws on concepts from sociology, anthropology, and critical theory as well as analytical readings of plays and performance events to examine how theater interacts with the otherworldly. This volume is essential reading for anyone intrigued by the intersection of drama and consciousness.

“This book takes on the enormous task of identifying not only the sacred in theatre but also questions ideas of sacred across the spectrum. It offers a great deal of material for discussion within performance and theatre theory courses.”—Jade Rosina McCutcheon, Department of Theatre and Dance, University of California, Davis

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Ralph Yarrow is professor of drama at the University of East Anglia, United Kingdom. He also works as a writer and director. He is the author of Consciousness, Literature and Theatre and Improvisation in Drama.

REVIEWS

“This book takes on the enormous task of identifying not only the sacred in theatre but also questions ideas of sacred across the spectrum. It offers a great deal of material for discussion within performance and theatre theory courses.”

— Jade Rosina McCutcheon, Department of Theatre and Dance, University of California, Davis

"For the academics or general readers, Sacred Theatre is an invaluable source on the sacred and its relation to the theatre. . . . It is valuable and accessible to all readers, since it provides explanations for the structural understanding and function of the sacred in theatre with multidisciplinary approaches, and it offers incitement for discussion within performance and theatre teaching."– Aylin Atilla, Interactions

— Interactions

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements
Note
Preface

Part 1: Basic Questions

Chapter 1: What Is the Sacred?

(i) Overture

(ii) Writing the Sacred

(iii) Where to Begin with Sacred Theatre?

(iv) Performance and Knowing

Chapter 2: Terminologies and Categorizations of the Sacred

(i) Modern Views of the Sacred

(ii) Giorgio Agamben and the Politics of the Sacred

(iii) Ritual

(iv) The Sacred, Drama, Ritual and the Ancient Mystery Religions

(v) Space

(vi) Time

(vii) Performance Factors

(viii) Aesthetics

(ix) The Absurd

Part 2: Text and Performance

Chapter 3: The Phenomenology of Nonidentity: Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

(i) Introduction

(ii) Liminality and Subjectivity in Theatrical Space

(iii) Intersubjectivity in Stoppard’s Theatre

(iv) Rosencrantz: A Void in Thought

(v) Rosencrantz: Social Mirrors and Stage Mirrors

Chapter 4: Between the Opposites: Gender Games

1.1 Caryl Churchill: Cloud Nine

(i) Introduction

(ii) Cloud Nine: Player/Role

(iii) Identity and Gender

(iv) Mindfulness

(v) Are We Really Free?

1.2 M. Butterfly: The Phenomenology of Nonidentity and Theatrical Presence

(i) Introduction

(ii) Concept of Self vs. Pure Consciousness

(iii) Theatrical Gaps

(iv) Identity: Machine or Witness

(v) The Actor’s Double Entry

(vi) Changelessness and Presence

(vii) False Reversals

(viii) Theatre and Metanarrative

Chapter 5: Ionesco

1.1 Rhinoceros

(i) Riding on the Back of Rhinos

1.2 The Chairs

(i) The Play’s the Thing

(ii) Ionesco’s Working Methods

(iii) The Chairs

Chapter 6: Pinter

1.1 The Birthday Party

6.2 Ashes to Ashes

(i) Pinter’s Working Methods

(ii) Ashes to Ashes

Chapter 7: Genet

7.1 Genet’s Sacred Theatre: Practices and Politics

(i) Introduction

(ii) Bataille and the A/theological Sacred

(iii) Genet and A/theology

(iv) Genet’s Theory of Sacred Theatre

(v) Sacred Politics/Sacred Theatre

(vi) Sacred Politics in the Trilogy

(vii) Conclusion

7.2 Deconstructive Acting: Genet, Beckett, the Absurd

(i) Genet

(ii) Beckett

Part 3: Processes and Directions

Chapter 8: Processes

(i) Transitional Moments

(ii) Absurd Leap

(iii) Actor-training

(iv) Physiologies

(v) Desiring the Other

Chapter 9: Places, Spaces and Generative Directions; A Symposium

(i) Liminal or Liminoid? Turner and Grotowski

(ii) With Rena Mirecka (1)

(iii) Meeting Gardzienice

(iv) Nicolás Núñez and the Taller Investigación Teatral (1)

(v) With Rena Mirecka (2): Sardinia

(vi) Nicolás Núñez and the Taller Investigación Teatral (2): Cura de Espantos

(vii) The Dog’s Moments

(viii) Performance and Sacred Space: A Polemic

(ix) Theatre and the Wound

(x) Facing Death

(xi) One Rock

(xii) Wondering

(xiii) Full Stops to Full Stocks

(xiv) Coda

Bibliography
The Authors

Index