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Performing the Passion of Christ in Postmodernity: American Passion/passion Plays as Ritual and Postmodern Theatre
Choi, Seokhun
Choi, Seokhun
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Abstract
The dissertation investigates American theatrical performances based on the Passion of Christ as related in the Four Gospels of the New Testament. I compare three Midwestern Passion plays, The New Great Passion Play (Eureka Springs, AR), The Promise (Glen Rose, TX) and The Man Who Ran (Disney, OK) to four notable adaptations of the Passion narrative written by contemporary mainstream American playwrights, Adrienne Kennedy's Motherhood 2000 (1994), Terrence McNally's Corpus Christi (1997), Sarah Ruhl's Passion Play: A Cycle (2004) and Stephen Adly Guirgis' Our Lady of 120th Street (2004) in order to examine their theatrical and ritualistic aspects, as well as their social, cultural and political functions and problems. For analytical purposes, I distinguish the two groups by calling the former, which are performed in the mode of belief, "Passion plays" and the latter, which are performed in the mode of critique, "passion plays." As the major theoretical framework, I adopt the theories of ritual studies represented by anthropologists Victor Turner, David Kertzer, Clifford Geertz and Catherine Bell, and the discourse of postmodernism as defined by French philosophers Jean-François Lyotard and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. These interdisciplinary case studies on American Passion/passion plays as both ritual and theatre demonstrate the viability, rather than the demise, of the metanarrative of the Passion, which is transformed into small narratives in postmodernity. Additionally, the case studies highlight the multifaceted nature of performance, which attests to the necessity of an interdisciplinary approach to performances in general. The comparative analysis between the Passion plays and the passion plays is also intended as a showcase of difficult dialogues between the conservative and the liberal.
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Date
2012-05-31
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University of Kansas
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Keywords
Theater, Performing arts, Religion, Jesus, Passion, Passion play, Postmodernism, Religious theatre, Ritual