Sacred Play

Acknowledgements

This book has grown out of my teaching and research over the past thirty years. My interpretive framework has developed from a dialogue with theology, feminist theory and the Irish dramatic tradition. A number of Irish academic environments have nurtured and sustained my own intellectual journey: The Religious Studies faculty at the Mater Dei Institute Dublin; the Theology faculty of St. Patrick’s College Maynooth; the Drama Studies faculty of University College Dublin and the Department of English at NUI Galway. I am grateful to all my teachers from these different disciplines, in particular Dr. Eamonn Jordan, who supervised my studies and who saw the possibility of this book long before I did.

I acknowledge the support of friends and colleagues who have read parts of the book in earlier formats. Many conversations have facilitated the development and clarification of my ideas. Gratitude must also go to the Religious Studies Department at St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, Dublin, who have always supported and enabled my continuing studies.

Behind the book is another journey that has brought me into dialogue with Western and Eastern mysticism, psychotherapy, and many contemporary innovative approaches to the relationship between body and spirit. The work of Dr. Ruth Doherty, (Annwn Institute) and Chloe Goodchild (The Naked Voice) deserve special mention. My ongoing soul-journey work with Kevin Harnett has been an invaluable source of insight and wisdom.

Finally, to close friends and family, who have tolerated my absence, tiredness, and preoccupation over the past few years – thanks for your patience and practical support. You kept me grounded. Anne O’Reilly

Introduction | Sacred Play

At first there is nothing. Nothing but the empty space. The womb that begets all life – the space of nothingness and possibility, emptiness and potential form. The trajectory of the human journey is from the source into life and back again to the source – from nothingness to separateness and back to nothingness. It is also the trajectory of creativity, of each work of art, of each participation in the play of images.

In this view of creation, the universe is an enormous play that is conceived, written, directed, produced and designed by God. It is God in the audience, God working the lights, and God playing every role. The point of this play is to make something so convincingly tangible that it actually appears to be not-God. (66)

Boroson’s interest in theatre led to his search to ‘find a way to make modern theatre a temenos – a strong and sacred container in which people can experience the deepest kinds of play, the play of gods. Play can be fun, of course, but it can also be transcendent. Sometimes, it can be both’. (66)

We may ask who in fact is playing? Behind and beneath all our playing may lie the play of the divine. Our lives may be premised on forgetting or the source may be obscured. The illusion of separation prevents the realization that underneath the many manifestations of forms we are all connected. We breathe the same breath. The mystics east and west always had access to this kind of unified experience of existence. Kilroy’s Matt Talbot tries to talk about such an experience:

There be nuthin’ to see when Gawd comes ’cause there’s nuthin’ other than yerself ’cause yerself is wan with whah ya see so ya see nuthin ’cause ya can only see what’s separate than yerself, ya can only count what’s different, not the same, not the wan, the only. (Kilroy: 1997:58)

When he wrote of the empty space of theatre the renowned theatre director Peter Brook had in mind the theatre of the invisible made visible. Theatrical playing can open to moments of epiphany, where the source comes through, and transfigures the ordinary, making it holy. Theatre as sacred play invites a new imagining of the divine human relationship. The human impulse towards transformative play is itself a participation in the play of the divine.

In the empty space of theatre the body performs, the body watches and the present opens to the eternal. In the now of theatre, in the space of play, the empty space becomes the container for transformation. Just as the body of the person is the container for all that the person is and may become, the space of theatre as concrete physical space, is one of the cultural containers for being and becoming. It too is a container for energies that are both human and divine, a space within which body and spirit can find a home.

One of the central images within the Celtic tradition is ‘the cauldron, the vessel of heat, plenty and inspiration’ (Matthews, 2001:222). The cauldron was also a central image in the poetic schools, and symbolized sources of inspiration and creativity. In fact in the early Celtic creation stories the cauldron was the source from which all life came, in a manner reminiscent of a cosmic womb. Within the poetic tradition it was believed that within the body there were three cauldrons. The first cauldron was located in the belly and was the vessel of physical health and vitality, the second was located within the heart or solar plexus area and was the vessel of psychic health, the third was located in the head and was the vessel of spiritual health. This model of the interrelation of body, mind and spirit provides a useful way to understand the flow of physical, artistic and spiritual energy. ‘The trinity of soul, heart and mind are strong in harmony, yet they can be shattered if not in union. Doubt, distrust and neglected observances are the pathways to madness, heartsickness and soul fragmentation’ (302). Soul loss or fragmentation which can be caused by illness, assault or shock manifests itself in ‘vitality depletion, mental disorientation and dispiritedness’ (304).

Irish theatre can become a similar cauldron for transformation, where the alchemy of spirit can continue. Like the tradition in the great Bardic schools, the theatre can also function as a house of memory and place of dreaming incubation, where new visions are forged. Theatre as container also shares many of the features associated with healing and transformation that we find in the ancient Greek tradition of Asklepios. In contrast to the Hippocratic tradition this model of healing was more holistic, open to the unconscious, and took place in the sacred precincts of the temple. Dreams were integral to this healing, and the person in search of healing spent much time in the dark waiting for a dream that the temple priests could interpret, and which might lead to healing, or transformation in their life’s direction. In a similar way theatre can be a place of dreaming, where the audience comes in search of healing and transformation.

Theatre as alternative sacred space

While the traditional sacred space provided by Christian worship has been abandoned by many, others are seeking new ways to access the mystery. Theatre for many playwrights has become an alternative sacred space. The empty space of theatre can function as a rough or holy space. It can enable access to the mystery, it can allow an otherness to emerge. In the fluid shape-shifting space of theatre one can play with what is not yet. One can discover what may be. It is this sense of theatre as the space of possibility that allows identification of theatre as an alternative sacred space.

Where theatre creates the kind of sacred space traditionally reserved for religious ritual it can create a sense of community and enable access to transformation and vision. The ritual aspects of theatre have long been noted from its earliest associations with the Mystery Religions, the medieval attention to the celebration of the Mystery Plays and the contemporary need to access mystery. The participation of the audience can be understood and assessed in different ways. Theatre can be interpreted as an alternative sacred space for the performance of identity.