Women and Buddhism in Playwriting: Two Theatre Scripts by Orada Lelanuja, BA, MA A Dissertation In FINE ARTS (THEATRE) Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved Norman A. Bert Chair of Committee Dorothy Chansky Dennis Fehr Jonathan Marks Mark Webb Peggy Gordon Miller Dean of the Graduate School August, 2011 Copyright 2011, Orada Lelanuja Texas Tech University, Orada Lelanuja, May 2011 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the following people for assisting and supporting me in my studies and in this project: Texas Tech University and the Department of Theatre and Dance for giving me the opportunity to complete this project. Dr. Norman A. Bert for being my academic advisor, playwriting mentor, and dissertation chair. Dr. Dorothy Chansky, Dr. Dennis Fehr, Dr. Jonathan Marks, and Dr. Mark Webb for reading my dissertation, being part of the committee, and giving comments and suggestions. Dr. Narissra Carter for helping me with the communication theories and the presentation of the results of the survey of the audience‘s responses to the production of Arya. Arya’s production team, cast, and crew for making my script come to life. Dr. Howard Blanning for introducing me to playwriting and always supporting me in this artistic career. All my professors, friends, and colleagues at Texas Tech University and elsewhere for all your support and encouragement. ii Texas Tech University, Orada Lelanuja, May 2011 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................. ii ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................. iv I. INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................1 II. WOMEN AND BUDDHISM IN PLAYWRITING: AN UNCOMMON PRACTICE ........8 III. ARYA AND UNDER A SORROWLESS TREE: THE WRITING PROCESS ..............55 IV. LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION, PHYSICALITY, AND AMBUGUITY IN THE PRODUCTION OF ARYA ...........................................................................................69 V. CONCLUSION .....................................................................................................85 WORKS CITED .....................................................................................................110 APPENDICES .........................................................................................................101 A. The Script of Arya .......................................................................................115 B. The Script of Under A Sorrowless Tree ......................................................220 C. Arya’s Program ...........................................................................................318 D. The Survey of the Audience‘s Responses to the Production of Arya .........321 iii Texas Tech University, Orada Lelanuja, May 2011 ABSTRACT Since the time of Buddhism‘s inception, women have occupied an ambiguous position in the religion, partially because Buddhist arts and literature are almost always created and written by men. The professional problem in playwriting for this project is, therefore, to write two theatre scripts that present certain Buddhist teachings while at the same time emphasizing female characters and their experiences. One of the scripts is an original and the other is an adaptation from a novel. Arya, the original script, tells the story of a spirit and her three different past lives. The adaptation, Under A Sorrowless Tree, focuses on the journey Vasitthi, a character from Karl Gjellerup‘s The Pilgrim Kamanita, takes toward the Buddhist enlightenment. Upon completing this project, I hope to contribute works that bring focus to the role of women and Buddhism in the field of contemporary playwriting. The dissertation is divided into five chapters, with the two scripts included as appendices. Chapter I introduces my background and my approach to the scripts and the dissertation. Chapter II surveys selected Buddhist-related dramas in certain countries in Asia and discusses how this project fits into these historical practices. Chapter III relates the details of the writing processes of the two scripts. Chapter IV contains the account of the production of Arya, which was presented at Texas Tech University in November of 2009. Chapter V displays the results of the survey of the audience‘s responses to the production of Arya and the analysis of the survey, with an emphasis on the audience‘s reception of the Buddhist content in the script. iv Texas Tech University, Orada Lelanuja, August 2011 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Since the time of Buddhism‘s inception, women have occupied an ambiguous position in the religion, partially because Buddhist arts and literature are almost always created and written by men. As a devout Buddhist and a female playwright, I decided that the professional problem for this project was to write two theatre scripts that focused on certain Buddhist teachings while at the same time emphasizing female characters and their experiences. Buddhism is often regarded as a male-dominated religion, and in Thailand, which is my native country, Buddhism is often blamed for gender inequality and for providing a moral framework for male domination (Kislenko 130). Nevertheless, Buddhist teaching itself makes no distinction between men and women, which means that they both can equally attain the goal of Buddhism, widely known as enlightenment or Nirvana. Furthermore, in Buddhist cosmology, sexual identity is not fixed, which also means that a man can be born as a woman in his next life and vice versa. Yet, very few Buddhist arts depict a woman‘s story. I personally became interested in women and Buddhism as a topic in theatre when I took up playwriting as my major area of specialization. I was interested in creating thought-provoking theatre that could offer both spirituality and entertainment. Therefore, I decided to incorporate some Buddhist thoughts and elements in my plays. The school of Buddhism with which I grew up is called Theravada Buddhism, which is based on the ancient Pali canon. However, even though I practice Theravada, I am interested in 1 Texas Tech University, Orada Lelanuja, August 2011 Buddhism in general and have also been influenced by Zen Buddhism. For that reason, the Buddhist elements in my writing can vary; I do not intend to focus on the teaching of a specific sect of Buddhism. I am interested in the teaching of the Buddha as a whole, as well as the spiritual aspect of Buddhism in general. As a female playwright, I personally believe that one can write better when she is writing about the subjects that she knows or has experienced; consequently, most of my plays focus primarily on female characters and their experiences. For this professional problem in playwriting, I decided to combine and emphasize two of the most important aspects about myself as a writer and as a person: femaleness and Buddhism. My primary goal for this project was thus quite personal: I wanted to develop and polish my skills as a playwright in the topic of women and Buddhism, as well as further educate myself about women and Buddhism. Because I set out to write plays about women and Buddhism, I needed to somehow evaluate whether I succeeded or not. In addition, because I write in order to be produced, I needed to know if what I set out to do is comprehensible to the target audience, which was the Lubbock residents and the students, faculty, and staff at Texas Tech University. My secondary goal for this project, therefore, was to successfully convey the thoughts imbedded in my plays to the general or the target audiences. To put it bluntly, I would like to create theatre that has meaning to me, and hopefully, it will have some meaning to audience members as well. Even though women have not been widely portrayed in plays influenced by Buddhism, there have been traditions of Buddhist-related dramas in certain countries in Asia, including Thailand, China, India, and Japan. Most of these Buddhist-related plays 2 Texas Tech University, Orada Lelanuja, August 2011 have been written by male playwrights and focus on male characters or different male incarnations of the Buddha. However, some plays from these countries also concentrate on female characters, especially the Woman Plays in the Noh theatre of Japan and the Buddhist plays by Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel Prize laureate from India. Therefore, the second chapter of this dissertation will discuss the role of women in Buddhism in general, some selected Buddhist dramas with an emphasis on the works that give more attention to their female characters, and how my project fits into these practices. One of my scripts written for this project is an original, and the other is an adaptation from a novel. The first script, Arya, is about a female spirit who is prompted to tell the stories of her past incarnations in order for her to peacefully move on to her next life. The title of the script, Arya, is a Sanskrit word meaning noble. The play is directly influenced by the Four Noble Truths, which is one of the core teachings in Buddhism that emphasizes the existence of suffering and the way to end suffering. The word ―arya‖ is taken from the Sanskrit term for the Four Noble Truths (Catvari Aryasatyani). According to Buddhist thoughts, suffering is considered noble because it can lead one to the path that ends