2006: Thought -- Theatre was a replacement of church, especially, in Russia of 19th century. More so, in the 20th century (reaction to Communists, read Berdyev). "Theatre as Church" or "Theatre as Religion" -- not the same.
Historical Note: so-called "Dark Ages" -- the time, when theatre re-entered church and lived with in. Theatre was born from the religious festivals and never lost its religious connections.
new: 2003 *
Summary
Corinthians 9:19-24:
"Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.
To the Jews, I became like the Jews, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law, I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak.
I have become all things to all men so that by all means possible I might save some. I all this for the sake of the gospel, that I make share it its blessings."
Questions
To begin to answer medieval objections against drama, theorists and poets such as Petrarch (1304-1374), Boccaccio (1313-1375), and Dante (1265-1321) developed allegory as the method to interpret drama. They based their method on the writings of Stoic philosophers who introduced allegory as a method of interpretation. Characters came to symbolize or represent a concept of an ideal. For instance, instead of merely being brute conquerors of monsters and giants, characters such as Hercules and Ulysses were regarded as symbols combating the vices and passions of mankind. In time, such characters became types of pagan saints.(13)
... While regarding allegory as the "warp and woof" of drama, Petrarch and Boccaccio further modified the medieval point of view by arguing that theology is a form of poetry. That is, theology is the poetry of God.(14) However, while perhaps justifying drama from the standpoint of ethics and divinity, allegory allows drama no place as an independent art. Drama merely became a popularized form of theology.
Christianity and reincarnation
by Rudolf Frieling
Edinburgh : Floris Books, 1977.
ISBN: 0903540053
* 118 pages
Publisher: Floris Books (October 1, 1996)
[ also, Christianity and Islam: A battle for the true image of man + New Testament Studies
by Rudolf Frieling, et al (Hardcover - 1994) and The Essence of Christianity (Paperback - October 1996) ]
January 18, 2006
SFMOMA ANNOUNCES APPOINTMENT OF RUDOLF FRIELING AS CURATOR OF MEDIA ARTS [?]
pomo.vtheatre.net
In The Art of English Poesy, George Puttenham (c. 1529-1590) tried to tie the innate knowledge of God's law to a playwright's God-like gift in order to offer a defense. However, his defense is extremist; he relates playwrights to creators and tries to endow them with the same kind of authority and prestige reserved for the elite Puritans. To Puttenham, a playwright or poet is a creator like God who forms a world out of nothing. Playwrights and poets were the first priests, prophets, legislators, philosophers, scientists, orators, historians, and musicians of the world. From the beginning, they have been held in the highest esteem by great men, and the nobility, antiquity, and universality of their art prove its preeminence and worth. With such a history and such a nature, it is sacrilege to debase drama or to use it on any unworthy subject or for ignoble purposes.(25)
In Biomechanics I write about "acting space and time" -- I speak about "chronotope" (space=time) in Theatre Theory, but I can't get to "energy, mass, depth" of dramatic event... because the "gravity" of performance is a spiritual matter... Perhaps I have to do it on "theology of theatre" pages. The only problem I do not have them, such pages.
There are some texts in Russian; I write about this subject on Antohins 100, family pages, not theatre. NTL, to understand this new world, we have the leave the field of "theatre" -- we have to speak about the live this new theatre creates...
Yes, reflects too. But it is secondary.
The function of the theatre ahead is a creation of life...
You see, I told you that this conversation is premature.
Did you notice that I do not have "images" for this page?
It's a problem. You see?
2006. new:
Cathedral and Palace, as "Cathedral-Palace"
Christ as Second Adam: King, Prophet, Priest
Actors as Everyman (Adam)
3 faces, three functions (conflict between them)
2007 notes:
... vtheatre pages (technology and theatre) = future
The End of History and the Postmodern Era have many practical and serious concequences for theatre. Beckett wrote: "The End of Theatre"! I would say it's the true beginning, when everything becomes theatre ("Society of Spectacle"). Foucault introduced the concept of Panopticum, when everything is transparent."The world is a stage"? Consider the old Christian concept that God sees everything -- now replace God with the human race. This is where we are going. "Private in Public" -- this is how Stanislavsky defined the essence of Method Acting...
In the primite's universe everything is holy (we are toming to this type of existance), everything is an act of communication, action and reaction to the entire world. This is why the social position of actors are on the top today (instead of the bottom, as it was not so long ago). It's not "real" acting, we all know that celebraties are not actors, there are no actors in social rituals. So, what is this "ritual acting"?
"15 minutes of fame"? How about the old principle that every life must be celebrated? How about expression the old notion that every man is a universe? Should I add that every moment of every life is divine? But who and how could watch every minute of every life? All and nobody -- ritual has no public, all are participents...
What kind of theatre is that? I call it Virtual Theatre (VT). But how to act, how to direct in this vTheatre?
I do not think that I will get to it, here are my notes for myself...
There are many under-developed pages under the name "Theory" in different directories, as if I hope that they could bring the answers to other topics and issues...
Theatre of the Mind... Theatre of Thought... Theatre without Theatre...
THEOLOGY OF THEATRE
I do not like this page. I do not like new "theories"... I have to do some writing on my non-fiction pages first, I must make this topic personal...
The less public our sense of God becomes, the more personal it gets. Less defined, less understood. Almost as if in pre-cultural times, gods of animals. More and more important...
In poetry the audience isn't essential. There's another
sender/receiver: god.
(Poetics in drama)
Theatre of One always has Another, super-me, super-human,
silent, unknown. Revelations, messages from god and to god.
Vertical drama. In pm world it has to be my individual line.
Prime public and the source of stories -- gods. Audience
communicates with another world through stage (art, culture --
for people), stage -- through audience. I need them (public) to
be heard, to get god's attention, to increase the size of the
event (my payers).
The only place where religion (many) is still alive --
theatre (any performance, including tv?).
In order for them to be performers, they have to experience
drama. God reads their hearts, they're the senders. Art doesn't
deal with what we know, only with what we don't know.
The past and the future are not control by me; they are
super-natural entities. The chance, the accident -- too many
elements of my life are out off my control. Never I'll be in
total control.
Communication with our own models, "imaginary" addresses.
Magic is in transforming the public into performers. Since god's
response isn't requested (we are answering), there's no need in
two-way communication. The story as a message to us, and from us
(when the first and when is the second?)
PLAY & GAME: RESURRECTION
Resurrection is never original; life as art (second living),
angelical world.
Play Idea:
Life processed and organized by my conscience. New origins
of resurrected life.
Resurrection uses the original life as a material, includes
it in its product.
Specifics of theatre mode of resurrection that it has no
copies -- it's live!
PM in theatre (performance ideas), immediate quotations from
the original. Presence of resurrection (potential) in raw life
-- it exists, it has time in it.
Virtual reality technology works to bring theatre arts into
light again. Technological revolution of modernity in theatre
gave a birth to a director. Future electronic technology would
redesign the theatre space: Spectator Directs!
SPECTATOR'S DRAMA (dramatic theory)
1. The Conflict
"I as a situation." I bring my conflict with me anywhere I
go. My conflict is composed of two positions/situations: I-Past
and I-Future. Present is always drama. Time makes everything
dramatic, because time is life = process, changes. My inner
conflict (my situation) is me, my character. When I meet Other
(that is an event in old Newtonian theatre theory), my conflict
(character) becomes visible. The Other is another situation
which becomes mine too. Since a character is a "moving
conflict," placed into a new situation, I react -- this is a plot
event. (my thought or feeling is an event in my inner situation).
Awareness of time makes a character into a hero. We are
made of what we have and what we want (which is a part of what we
are). Hopes and desires make my situation dynamic. Time brings
changes even if I don't ask for them. To resist this power of
time is my ontological instinct (Foucault). Even a stone
resists; in physics they call it "inertia.' My past is a
remembered time; it's full of conflicts too. My future is a
field of potential resolutions. My conflicts lead "I" into more
conflicts in order to solve my conflicts. The only cure for a
conflict is another conflict.
Actualization of conflict -- conflict in space, the act.
Conflict is a dialogue between two realities: the actuality
and the desire. Actuality disciplines my expectations. I am a
battlefield of two powers: myself and the world.
2.
I'm the birthplace of the Gaze and the Panopticon. I watch
life and I'm an "involved observer." Two natures in "I" force
"Me" into a conflict: life and conscience. I'm not simply live,
I know that I live. I'm not only see life, I seek to control it.
Since my conscience is nothing but knowledge, it's a power.
Power breads expressions.
THEATRE SPACE
Subject and Object of Action
From a spectator to an actor:
Theatre is the extremist expression of panopticism. The
space designed for action to be seen, and for me not to be
noticed. What makes the prison idea so entertaining in theatre?
The three parts of the theatre space: the house, the stage
and the backstage.[1]
The backstage transforms the viewer into being manipulated.
I don't see everything (as in life). What I don't see makes
theatrical narrative so dynamic. (As in movies, most of the time
I don't see the action.)
To compress the time I have to edit the space. More time
condensation -- more drama (action movies). I cut space out and
the omitted spaces (what I don't see) make the control over me
possible., The story is always a balance between what I know and
what I don't. (Very much a symbol of life). We organize the
theatre space in the three unequal in principle zones to simulate
life itself.
The audience = no-space space. Stage = the empty space;
visible, watchable "space of space." BS = unknown, the "other"
space.
Aristotle about imitation: theatre is a negation of world.
De-constructed, transformed, processed, reconstructed, etc.
"Natural" links are removed, matter is surpassed. Theatre isn't
real in the same sense as my perception of the world (my mind) is
a phantom (reflections, another life of reality). Everything is
translated in signs, messages, knowledge. Character's body is a
resurrected actor's body (and should be treated this way
--training). The theatre machine make it possible. Resurrection
is a collaborative effort, acting is a top of the pyramid of
resurrection process. In paradise (or hell = Judgement Day as a
meeting of paradise and hell) everything is meaningful. The
crude life has to be cleaned throughout, everything accidental,
non-essential, unimportant is out!
"И Слово (Logos) стало плотию (sarx)" (Ин. 1:14). Перефразируя книгу Бытия (3:22), можно было бы сказать: "Вот, Бог стал как один из нас". То, что Христос действительно вступил в форму бытия тленного, обреченного смерти, земного человеческого тела, дают отчетливо почувствовать все Евангелия. Как человек из плоти и крови, Христос устает (Ин. 4:6), спит (Мф. 8:24), испытывает голод (Мф. 4:2; 21:18) и жажду (Ин. 4:7; 19:28), он плачет (Лк. 19:41; Ин. 11:35), он "скорбит смертельно" (Мф. 26:38); в "агонии" тела, которому в, Гефсиманском саду грозит преждевременная смерть, он исходит кровавым потом (Лк. 22:44).
Part II -- Many, our New Church (popculture and "pop-art"). Religious experience & miracles.
[ St John's words are just as applicable to theatre as to the story of Christianity: "In the beginning was the Word..." ]
Рудольф Фрилинг. Христианство и перевоплощение http://lib.ru/HRISTIAN/friling.txt [ on reincarnation ] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation
Христианский богослов и священник Р. Фрилинг, исследуя Священное Писание и историко-философские материалы, полемизирует с распространенным учением, отрицающим существование души с момента смерти человека до Страшного суда (AA),
делает определенные выводы о влиянии идеи реинкарнации на повседневную жизнь и нравственное сознание людей.
"... "Христос не учитель, как обыкновенно говорят, Христос не основоположник, Христос -- само содержание христианства". Эти слова Шеллинга из 25-й лекции его "Философии Откровения" вправе служить классическим выражением того, что можно назвать самоосмыслением христианства."
Становление Христова начала в человеке: "...Будьте совершенны, как совершен Отец ваш Небесный" (Мф. 5:48).
Paul: "Ибо в вас должны быть те же чувствования, какие и во Христе Иисусе" (Фил. 2:5).
"Как Он может дать нам есть Плоть Свою?" (Ин. 6:52) Method Acting Identification (ID)
[ p.48 = То, что душа еще перед смертью способна более или менее освободиться от земного тела, человечество издревле знает по
опыту. На подобную ситуацию указывает, например, слово "экстаз" ("ис-хождение" и "вне себя нахождение"). Extacy -- Individual "death" of actor before the character is born. "Being outside of your body" -- "Я был в духе" (Откр. 1:10; 4:2). Remember, Plato -- идея Предсуществования, the idea of "pre-existence" (character) ]
* Role? ... апостол Павел употребляет слово "athanasia" и для грядущего тела воскресения, которое должно обрести ее через великое преображение (1 Кор. 15:53, 54). [ Total Identification = Life After Death ]
... http://www.blavatsky.net/quotes/karma/karma-extended.htm and Stanislavsky [ where? ]
