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Ann Arbor, MI 48106 PLAYING GOD IN LIVE THEATRE; THE POLITICS OF REPRESENTATION DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Kathleen Colligan Cleary, B.A., M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 1994 Dissertation Committee: Approved by S. Constantinidis E.R. Gilbert Stratos cinstantinidis J. Reilly Department of Theatre To my husband, Greg 11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my appreciation to Dr. Stratos Constantinidis for his strong and conscientious guidance throughout my research. I also want to thank the other members of my advisory committee, Drs. E. Reid Gilbert and Joy Harriman Reilly, for their suggestions and comments. I am grateful to Dr. Marsha Bordner for her steadfast support and to Nancy Schwerner and Steven Weiss for their technical assistance. I would also like to thank Professor John Elliott, Jr. who provided me with his files on American passion plays. I am indebted to my parents, Harold and Marjorie Colligan, and to my husband's parents, Frank and Ellen Cleary, for their constant support and encouragement. To my husband, Greg, I offer my deepest thanks. I l l VITA November 17, 1964 .............. Born - Buffalo, New York 1986 ....................... B.A., Franciscan University of Steubenville, Steubenville, Ohio 1988... ....................... M.À., The State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, New York 1988 - 1992.................... Graduation Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1992 ....................... Lecturer, The Ohio State University at Marion, Marion, Ohio 1993 - P r e s e n t ...............Instructor of Theatre, Clark State Community College, Springfield, Ohio FIELD OF STUDY Major Field: Theatre IV TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION .............................................. Ü ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS......................................... Ü i VITA ......................................................iv CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION ..................................... 1 II. MARK CONNELLY'S THE GREEN PASTURES..................37 Introduction ................................ 37 The Role of God in the T e x t ................... 60 The Role of God in Performance................. 71 III. ARTHUR MILLER'S CREATION OF THE WORLD AND OTHER BUSINESS AND UP FROM PA R A D I S E ..................... 86 Introduction ................................ 86 The Role of God in the T e x t .................. 106 The Role of God in Performance................ 117 IV. TONY HARRISON'S THE MYSTERIES: THE NATIVITY AND BERNARD SAHLINS'S THE MYSTERIES: CREATION ....... 128 Introduction ................................ 128 The Role of God in the T e x t .................. 142 The Role of God in Performance................ 147 V. CONCLUSION........................................ 174 APPENDIX................................................. 191 LIST OF REFERENCES....................................... 195 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Playing the Christian God (the Father, not Jesus Christ) in the theatre has been a controversial undertaking for several centuries, and few actors have been given the opportunity to perform this role in the contemporary theatre. There are several reasons, political and religious as well as pragmatic, which have led to the dearth of appearances of God in the theatre. This study examines some of these reasons, such as the difficulty of portraying the role, the effect of censorship, and the mistrust of images; and, then, discusses the theatrical character of God in five twentieth century plays; Marc Connelly's The Green Pastures; Arthur Miller's The Creation of the World and Other Business and Up From Paradise; and finally Tony Harrison's The Mysteries: The Nativity which Bernard Sahlins adapted and retitled The Mysteries: Creation for the American stage. One of the arguments that has been freguently made against the physical representation of God is the 2 biblical verse, "You shall not make yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. In citing this quote, Clyde Holbrook argues that God was to be imageless so that his transcendence to all earthly and finite realities would be clear. Furthermore, it is futile to try to represent a spiritual nature in a physical form since "Nothing from this world could adequately represent him or be substituted for his invisible nature. When considering the physical representation of God on the stage, the production staff must face this issue from a practical as well as theoretical point of view. Decisions must be made as to how an actor will give a physical representation of what is for many a spiritual being, regardless of the ideological reasons supporting the portrayal, many of which will be discussed in detail throughout the following chapters. As was the case with the medieval mysteries, actors must treat the role of ^ Exodus 20; 4. ^ Clyde Holbrook, The Iconoclastic Deity: Biblical Images of God (Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 1984) 9. 3 God as a character type, rather than placing too much emphasis on motivation or "living the part." The five plays listed above have been included in this study primarily because they are, to the best of my knowledge, the only twentieth-century American or British plays where the Christian God is listed as a central character. Since my focus is on the representation of God, I am not including plays with allegorical representations of the deity, nor those whose central character is Jesus. The reasons for the relatively few number of portrayals of the Judeo-Christian God on the British and American stage can be traced directly to two major factors: the years of legislation banning them and a deeply rooted mistrust of physical images of God. Historically, God's theatrical representations have been a point of great controversy and legal debate in England since the sixteenth century. While characterizations of (the role of) God were abundant during the Middle Ages, they were banned in England by the Licensing Act of 1737 which was upheld until 1968. The presentation of the medieval mysteries was linked with Roman Catholicism and was thus held suspect by the Puritans who strove for censorship of the 4 theatre. John Elliott argues that the medieval mysteries were deliberately legislated out of existence by Protestant government officials and their "allies in the pulpit, who resented the very effictiveness with which the plays brought home the tenets of Catholic doctrine to their audiences.Ron Richards argues that the Corpus Christi plays may have functioned sacramentally: as communion by eating continued to decline in the Middle Ages, "sacramental gazing" became a growing subsitute." As "the growing Corpus Christi processions expressed the impulse towards display of the host,"® they became more of a religious and political threat to Protestants opposing Catholic doctrine. A brief historical survey of the impersonation of God will show how religious and political establishments have influenced the way in which God has been represented in the theatre. Beginning in the sixteenth century, the theatrical representation of religious topics and characters was prohibited by both ^ John Elliott, Playing God: Medieval Mysteries on the Modern Stage (Toronto: U Toronto P, 1989) 4. ■* Ron Richards, "Communion Rite in the English Corpus Christi Cycles," presentation to The Ohio State University, 23 February 1993. ® Miri Rubin, Corpus Christi: the Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991) 288. 5 Protestants, who took exception to the papal elements of the mystery plays, and Catholics, who feared greater religious and political upheaval. In 1553, the Catholic