Donnalee Dox

The Willing Sustenance of Belief: Religiosity and Mode of Performance

[pages 20 - 47]

Read This Article

An inquiry into Living Nativity scenes suggests that a specific understanding of theatrical realism and embodiment grounds the mode of performance. I suggest that this understanding of realism and embodiment, while drawing on conventions of western realistic theatre and subject to semiotic analysis, is inextricable from the Christian belief in a deity’s incarnation in human form at a specific moment in history.  Realism, in this performance practice, is understood as re-representation of sacred imagery and also as reconstitution of a historical moment; embodiment is understood as living in the imagery as if witnessing the historical moment. Realism and embodiment both function as hermeneutic strategies .The reciprocity between belief in an incarnate deity and a realistic mode of representation is examined here in three ways: how embodied realism emerges as a hermeneutic practice in the thirteenth century, how the Nativity imagery takes on the status of the real within the belief system, and how religious belief defines a mode of performance. I suggest that the heightened emphasis on realistic re-representation in Christian Living Nativity tableaux goes beyond a tacit acceptance of the conventions of modern theatrical realism to become its own modality. If taken seriously, the effort to extend analyses of representation in this way offers some  challenges to current performance theory.

Thomas Fish

Sister Aimee’s Dutch Swan Song: A Study of the Illustrated Sermon

[pages 48 - 71]

Read This Article

“Sister Aimee,” as she was fondly referred to by her adoring fans, was without a doubt one of the most influential preachers in the development of modern-day evangelism. Working tirelessly through the inter-war years, she founded the Foursquare Church, ushering the Pentecostal movement into America. Her innovative use of various media outlets, including her widespread radio broadcasts and her own monthly magazine publications, helped to spur her wide reception and popularity. Ironically, McPherson became a symbol for the modernity she so strongly protested, as she incorporated contemporary technologies into her sermons, and utilized state-of-the-art mass media to convey her messages. Surprisingly the theatrical tools of McPherson’s Sunday evening services have been under-researched within the field of popular entertainment. Although they have been documented within theological and religious discourse, they have not been the focus of much detailed study. McPherson’s inclusion within the canon of popular entertainment seems well-deserved, and not at all to discredit the weight of her importance within theological/religious discourse.

Robert J. Hubbard

Theatres for Shalom: Community-based Drama as Kingdom Work 

[pages 72 - 91]

Read This Article

If carefully devised, ethnographic performances such as community-based drama, applied theatre, and/or theatre of the oppressed conform and conflate with a theological mandate of Kingdom work. To illustrate this bond, I have divided this essay into three sections. First, I strive toward a working definition of Kingdom work. Second, I identify and examine shared goals between Kingdom work and the community-based drama. The third element of this study consists of stories that weave in and out of an otherwise traditional essay structure. These first-person ethnographic accounts appear in order to exemplify community-based drama as Kingdom work. My study operates on the premise that participation in ethnographic forms of performance empowers Christian theatre artists to engage in Kingdom work. Moreover, this Kingdom work, while valuable to distinct Christian communities, potentially addresses needs within the larger, pluralistic human family.

Matt Saltzberg

Sacred Theatre: An Exploration of Suzuki/Viewpoints and Composition in Directing
John Pielmeier’s Agnes of God

[pages 92 - 110]

Read This Article

In December of last year, I directed John Pielmeier’s Agnes of God as part of the University of Missouri-Columbia’s academic year season. I took this opportunity to seize the moment and, through intense actor training and an auteur directorial approach, to develop a performative manifesto that sought no less than the revitalization of the live theatrical event. My production asked, and attempted to answer the following: What is the sacred? Can it be (re)created in theatrical time and space? If so, how? And finally: What is the experience that sacred theatre can deliver to performers and spectators alike? To this end, I incorporated intense Suzuki/Viewpoints and Composition training into our rehearsal process. For my Agnes of God collaborators and I, this thinking and acting necessitated the full-scale conjuration of the sacred, a return to the ancient inspiring forces of the theatre that tempts, through equal parts tenacity, diligence, and a belief in the miraculous, to resituate the live theatrical event in a place of prominence within the cultural economy.