Dramaphileo: Good Phobius! Just the man I was looking for! It was only today that I finished reading the Ochlophobist's post on drama. I've been walking around thinking about it all afternoon. That may be why I feel so dizzy. Do you mind if we sit down and talk a while?
Phobius: By all means, my dear Dramaphileo! Let's step into this non-chain, family-run coffee shop and get some fair trade dark roast!
Dramaphileo: A splendid suggestion! I assume you've read, understood, and agreed with all that your favorite blogger had to say on the subject of the dramatic arts.
Phobius: I have read it all, to be sure. And as far as I can tell, I understand what he is trying to say. Having understood him, I agree with him wholeheartedly. I am Orthodox after all!
Dramaphileo: I'm glad you were smiling when you said that. As we both know, the Ochlophobist is a humble writer of theologumenoi, or however you say it. So, what do you think he means when he says that the liturgy does not dramatize?
Phobius: I believe the good Ochlophobist would not object to the following assertion: A well performed liturgy should be free from the affectation that usually goes along with the dramatic arts. The priest, though he icons Christ, is not acting out the role of Christ in the way that a stage actor would act out the role of Hamlet. While the priest might say what Christ said, and walk through the crowd while people touch his robe, just as Christ did, he's not trying to make us believe that he actually is Christ. The priest is a window to Christ simply by virtue of his being a priest. He doesn't need to try to convince us of his iconic function by being theatrical. To do so would be manipulative and would be an attempt to play upon our emotions in an unconstructive, possibly a destructive, way. The liturgy, my dear drama lover, is not a passion play.
Dramaphileo: But isn't the priest actively trying to make us believe that we're in the presence of Christ?
Phobius: Of course.
Drama: And isn't that the same thing an actor does when he is on stage: make us believe we are in the presence of Hamlet or whatever character he is playing?
Phobius: The priest isn't trying to make us believe that he actually is Christ. An actor, on the other hand, is trying to make us believe that he is Hamlet.
Dramaphileo: That doesn't seem to me to be a fair characterization of actors. Only an insane actor would completely identify himself with his character to the point of saying that his goal is to make the audience believe that he actually is Hamlet. Wouldn't an actor be more likely to say that he is trying to make the audience forget about the actor himself and help them concentrate on the presence of the character he is trying to embody?
Phobius: Yes, and that's where the priest's role, I mean the priest's normative function, is different. He doesn't need to try and make the worshippers forget about him and feel the presence of Christ: that would be an affectation. The liturgy is not where we go to escape ourselves, it's where we go to see ourselves as we truly are.
Dramaphileo: But what about laying aside our earthly cares? Is there not even a little room in our worship for refuge, I wouldn't say permanent escape, but temporary refuge from the demands and limitations of our worldly persona?
Phobius: In Christ, your worldly persona has been reconciled to God. It's enough to fast, to go to church, to read the Bible, to remember God, to say your prayers, and to acknowlege your sin. Because of the incarnation, there is not a tension between man and God, and therefore, there is nothing to take refuge from.
Dramaphileo: I would agree that all has been reconciled to God, which is a fine point of view to have. And it's the only point of view you need to have, if you actually are God, looking down and seeing creation in all it's glory. But, I would assert that those of us who are just starting out on the long road to sanctity might benefit from some more bottom-up thinking, in addition to the top-down perspective. When I look into the disorder that afflicts my soul, I can't help but wonder what it might mean to say that there is no tension between man and God: it certainly feels like tension; it also feels like worry, insecurity, lust, anger. It's a mess in there, and quite frankly, if I don't have a little break from it all, I begin to lose what little faith I can muster! Now you tell me I should feel bad for taking refuge for a bit in church!
Phobius: I'm not telling you to feel anything! But while we're on the subject, don't you think it's childish of you to worry so much about feelings? I mean, I understand why you might be susceptible to such a thing, given all the plays you read. Maybe you should take a break from Shakespeare and read some of those books I got you for Christmas, I mean Nativity. That Hart book is the perfect cure for the overly-excited soul.
Dramaphileo: You know I can't stomach so much scholarship! And as for being childish: I suppose I'm guilty of it. That's what can happen when you miss the mark of being child-like! But whatever might be your experience of drama, I can assure you that plays actually calm me down. Perhaps if I were a better scholar, I would be able to see, as you and the Ochlophobist do, that the Katharsis of the Hesychasts is different in kind from the Katharsis that Aristotle felt, and that I feel, when I read or watch a good play. But, now it's my turn to ask you about being childish. Do you actually agree with Och that Brechtian plays can be fairly characterized as "childlike"? If I saw a child undermining the very form of expression that he had chosen to use, my first impulse would not be to admire his playful innocence. Rather, I would wonder whether the child had suffered a hurt that makes him hide behind a self-defeating means of expression. On the other hand, if I saw a child acting out the role of a king in a game with his friends, I would be inclined to think that I was witness to the acts of the rightful heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven!
Phobius: I don't think you have to agree with what the Ochlophobist says about Brecht to see the fundamental truth of his post. Epic is simply a superior literary form to drama. A child's game is not an affected pretense, but that's what role-playing becomes when grown men continue to pretend that they're someone they're not. An epic doesn't ask it's audience to join in on the pretense like a play does. It gives us more direct contact with the meaning of God's creation than drama does.
Dramaphileo: It's true that I find it easier to get absorbed in Dante or Homer, and even in Tolkein than I do in the best play, but I wonder whether that's because I'm failing to be childlike. A child doesn't need a grand story, a courageous hero, and a believable epic world, to understand that he's witnessing co-creation. Babies are fascinated with simple things like doorknobs and bugs-they wonder what dirt tastes like! It's understandable, once you've eaten enough dirt, that you look for healthier ways to love God's world. But I don't see why plays can't be one of those ways. I love those moments when I watch a play like a child does, when I'm so absorbed in the action, that I don't have the inclination to ask whether what I'm watching is "real" or not, when I actually feel, and not just feel, but intuit that I'm in the presence, the physical presence, of momentous events and great-souled people. An epic can't give you that, unless Homer himself, or someone of his stature, was reciting it for you.
Phobius: The liturgy brings you into contact with the greatness of Christ, which, if you think about it, is really the only greatness there is. And the liturgy does not dramatize!
Dramaphileo: And what if, for one Sunday, your church decided to take the liturgy as seriously as actors take a play? Your priest will have been spending weeks memorizing or interiorizing his prayers, making them come from his deeper heart, making them not only sound more believable to the laity, but making them sound more believable to himself. "This is my body which is broken for you!" The parishoners will have been imagining what it might be like to actually encounter the presence of Christ in the person of their priest. They will have thought about how they will react when they see the priest raising the gifts, not to predetermine their bows, but to get to truer bows than they usually muster. Would all that zeal really be going to waste?
Phobius: My dear Dramaphileo, you're getting far too worked up for your own good. Maybe you should switch to decaf. The liturgy is not a play. When the priest says "this is my body which is broken for you" he is recounting Christ's words. In fact, he notes that these are the words of Christ, just before he says them. He is telling us of the ultimate epic or lyric saga, not performing a drama! If you would take the time to learn some theology, you might come to understand that we do not learn about God in the first instance through actions, through drama. Rather, we learn about the Trinity through Christ. Once you have learned about the Trinity, you come to learn about the universe, once you have learned about the universe and it's Trinitarian cadences, then you know how to act. You don't just come up with a way to worship like an actor builds a character!
Dramaphileo: And I'm wondering why not. You can't dispense with theology, but having a reasonable view of God is a far cry from being a saint. I remember reading some monkly advice somewhere that when you pray the Psalms you should strive to make the words and emotions your own. How this is different from what a good actor does, I have no idea! And by the way, if we're waiting to understand God and the universe before we know how to act, let's just admit we'll not quite know how to act this side of heaven! And in that case, we have a wee bit of room to improvise-if not in the outward forms of our worship, at least in our relation to those forms. You are right, though, I need to switch to decaf.
Phobius: Well, sir, you raise some good points. Maybe you should write the Ochlophobist and get a response.
Dramaphileo: I'm afraid of what he might say!
Phobius: You probably should be!
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12 comments:
Perfect art is Christ, God living as Man. Our efforts will forever be a flawed emulation. We were gifted the free will to objectively ignore misdirection in artful expression, in order to embrace the guidance of the truth(Trinitarian cadences) within.
Can art forms be wholly discarded or held superior if they are infinite means for recognition of the Divine? Directness and clarity are shapes of, rather than successful results of expression. Likewise, to follow the grace of God to the Wealth of Heaven, you may have to search for a penny in a muddy puddle.
Drama does not endanger the liturgy, the failing is in the subjective interpretation of art and Divinity.
Anonymous,
Thank you for reading my long post and for leaving a provocative comment. Consider me provoked.
After reading your comment three times I begin to understand what you mean about searching for a penny in a muddy puddle. One question for you, though I may have more later: Would you be so kind as to expand on what you mean by "the failing is in the subjective interpretation of art and Divinity"? I'm not trying to trick you into sounding stupid. It's just that that last sentence struck a nerve, but I'm not sure quite what you mean by it.
The dialogue is helpful, in a number of ways. Dramaphileo poses very worthwhile questions and comments. It causes me to again realize the problem I see in dramaphilia, and the sense that once one embraces it is then only a matter of time before one theologizes the dramaturgic, a process, which is inevitably bottom-up.
First. No saint achieves or maintains sanctity through bottom-up theology. In every instance of the Church's hagiography, the saint's sanctity is measured by his or her embrace of the lack of tension of which I speak. Name one instance of a saint who through meditating upon the "mess" of human life thereby achieves sanctity, or, worse, name one saint who derives theological truth from the muddy puddle of the mess. All Orthodox theologizing starts with Christ and works down from there (with regard to theological cosmologies and anthropologies). No Orthodox theologizing begins with material or anthropological phenomenon and works up to Christ or the Holy Trinity from there.
The priest/Christ/Hamlet analogy is off. The priest does not come to liturgy to act his role as priest in the manner that an actor acts the role of Hamlet. There is a reason that Orthodox are very leery of cult followings of priests due to liturgical or speaking gifts (cults due to sanctity are another matter). We do not (rightly) say that Fr. Brown played the part of priest superbly last Sunday at DL, in the manner that we say that Laurence Olivier played Hamlet in such and such a fashion and then get into the nuances of how that actor acts that part. An actor, despite certain popular schools of acting, never ontologically becomes Hamlet, while a priest is, ontologically, a priest. But, there is not the divorce between action and being that is suggested in the dialogue. We learn a great deal from Christ's actions, and a great deal from the christocentric action of the Liturgy. But these acts are ontologically rooted. Thus, again, when the worshippers on Holy Saturday bow before and kiss the icon of the dead Christ, they are not acting a part, they are worshipping, in ontological wholeness, Christ God Who is in their midst. If priest and parish were to prepare for the Liturgy in the manner that they might prepare for a drama, thereby expecting their actions and mental reflections to "sound more believable," they would be working toward Christ from the vantage point of technique or something which begins with our actions. This is not how Orthodox view pious activity. Our actions do not stem from a sense of "what can we do which can present Christ in the most believable fashion, to make Christ most present, as it were" but rather, "Christ is in our midst, and this is how one acts when that is the case." Pious activity is not a working up or working toward Christ, it is the right response to the Christ Who has already made Himself present. This corresponds to belief. In Orthodoxy, in a certain sense, there is nothing that can be done to have DL be more believable. It is a maximalist expression of belief. Orthodox liturgical practice is the fullness of belief, and the activities associated with it flow from that belief at the core. It is not a paradigm of worship which acknowledges a method of doubt or skepticism within it. Again, we see here a top-down approach. When one reads the liturgical texts of the Church, this is made clear over and over. Individual human doubt and sin is acknowledged and dealt with, but it has not proper place in the Church as a root or core of perception or communion, and it has no effect of theologizing and certainly not Liturgy. [One might consider here that in Church we are a group of sinners seeking God’s healing together, but as such it is not our sin, per se, that we have in common, there is no real commonality in sin, sin is isolation, rather it is our repentance which we have in common.]
It is this presence of Christ, and the role this plays in recapitulation (as opposed to mere drama) that Dramaphileo misses. When I read the Psalter I am reading (per Fr. Reardon's wonderful book) a christocentric text. Insofar as I rightly appropriate the text and accept it, I do not begin to play Christ, instead, in a sense, I begin, as an act of the will, to let Christ play me. In recapitulation I come to recognize that I have lived the life of Israel, and that history must be re-written in Christ. He makes straight the crooked paths, He sets my life in cruciform direction, my activity is to accept this and conform my will synergistically to this process. For the record, in much of the monastic literature I am familiar with, the very opposite of "strive to make the words and emotions your own" (in a literal sense) is what is taught. We are to read the words, more often than not, as Christ's words, and we read them as such in order that Christ might be speaking within us, and we seek dispassion and sobriety in the text, perhaps a subtle sadness, but not the riling of emotions.
Lastly, drama as a good. Roman Catholics went from hating many aspects of modern intellectual and "high" culture (broadly speaking) to embracing them from the 19th century to the mid-20th. Evangelicals, according to Mars Hill Audio host Ken Myers, embraced (largely through Francis Schaeffer) intellectual and high culture right as it was going down the toilet. Today, both JPII Catholics and Evangelical intellectuals repeat as mantra the notion that we should not neglect or disdain any of the wonderful goods God has given us, that all have their place in the Kingdom, God's saving order, the movement of grace in the world, etc. This posture is so young and painfully simplistic your Ochlophobist must grimace when he encounters it. Augustine, following Plato, advanced serious reasons in his On Music for why it is that instrumental music was deleterious to the human soul. One might agree with him, one might not, but his argument is careful and articulate and worthy of due consideration. When one reads the fathers with some breadth one encounters again and again reflection upon various goods and material/social phenomenon and their right place in created and human orders. God's good creation is ordered, and it is ordered in hierarchy with man as mediator and ruler over the order. In a certain respect, feces is a good, and one might build a beautiful sandcastle with feces, but in the event this becomes popular one might give an argument as to why it is that this is not the best use of human creativity, and indeed, is a misuse of it. To say that drama is a good does not place it. We do not live in a universe of egalitarian goods. We live in a postlapsarian universe with a hierarchy of goods, and the appearance of the privation of goods, with the study of latter is always complex because in the end one is thus dealing with non-reality. I would be interested to read Dramaphileo's apology for drama as a good. As stated above, I am not convinced that he has found a true mimesis between drama and Orthodox Liturgy. But he need not, as I state in my post, to defend drama as a good in its own right.
I will answer a question on my own blog regarding affectation tomorrow, as God allows and I have time.
Thank you.
Dear Och,
Thank you for reading my dialogue and for leaving a long, thought-provoking comment. Your zeal for rhetoric (I'm not using the word pejoratively) is impressive and inspiring. It may take me a few days to absorb the substance of your comment and write a response. My first order of business will be to take some deep breaths to still the whirlwind of thoughts that you've stirred up. Tip to my readers: if you want to become a praying man, have an exchange with the Ochlophobist! Happy blogging and God bless!
Sincerely,
Matt
Though God has become Man in the person of Christ, there is still an aspect of God hidden even to the eyes of angels;to say there is no tension between Man and God seems a little to much like the Evangelical "Me and my good buddy Jesus". Some Fathers say there will be repentance even in Heaven; I think this means that we will always be in need of a spirit of reverential awe before the terrible face of the Maker.
Maxim,
There is no tension between man and God in Jesus Christ. And as our theological anthropology must follow our christology, we can say that there is no necessary or even real tension between man and God.
It is true that many fathers teach as you state. I happen to believe this myself. But repentance need not involve divine/human tension. Repentence is the postlapsarian human mimesis of divine kenosis, or is at very least the early stages of such.
I guess maybe I don't know what you mean by tension; I know it is a great mystery, how we can be reconciled to a God who so completely transcends every category of our existence, but I agree that such a reconciliation has taken place. I just think that sometimes, as modern people, we tend to deemphasize the distinction between God and Man a wee bit too much.
It is one thing to say that in Christ, there is no tension between God and Man - this is true, it is a dogma of the Church. How we understand this "lack of tension" in relation to our relation to Christ is perhaps what is fuzzy. We are baptized into Christ- thus we are baptized into this un-tension. But our baptisms are seeds implanted, needing to grow, and there is a life of faith - believing in the person and work of the God-Man, that will finally bring about (God willing) the existential experience of this peace with God - which we call holiness, or deification. It is ongoing faith that in Christ this tension is un-done and freely given that brings about the fruition of the seed of baptism, which is perfect union with Christ, in life, death, and resurrection, right? This is how I understand it at least. Now, how do we explain the ending of the tension between God and Man in relation to those "outside" of Christ? I do not know. In light of their being human, and in light of the nature of God's incarnation in Jesus, we cannot say that they are somehow free of the benefits of this act of God. But without being baptized into the faith of this Jesus, do they also know freedom from the tension with God? I have no idea.
Dear Och,
I'm going to need more time. Be assured I'm still working on my response.
PM3000
As a side note, dear PoemMaster, why do you have that idiotic unmitigatednonsense blogsite still linked to your otherwise sensible sight? Being that it has (thankfully) ceased to exist, and being that even the memory of that drivel is a blight on your blog, can we not remove it completely?
Dear Ben,
These days I'm slow to usher away fond memories. But your wish, dear sir, is my command.
PM3000
Take your time, I certainly do.
I have responded to your question in the thread of the post in question. See:
http://ochlophobist.blogspot.com/2008/02/addendum-to-catharsis-sex-aside.html#links
Thanks.
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