4 from ritual to theater and back: the efficacy ... - AAAARG.ORG

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drama, script, theater, and performance
hunt-and-destroy sport but that’s how war colleges teach it and one
way recruiters sell it. On the other hand, hunting for food is no longer
a major human occupation. And in human play – other than war and
hunting – the actual kill is avoided. (Most murders are something else,
not the result of detailed planning, and not much fun, no matter what
the movies show us.) But there still is fun in playing – and I think this
“fun” is a playing at killing.
Not all playing maybe, but the kind that is related to dramatic theatrical
performance. Drama, as distinct from script, performance, and
theater, is not universal. That is, drama occurs at certain times and
among certain peoples who have consciously made a connection
among hunting, warfare, human and/or animal sacrifice, and play. 7
The dynamics of the relationships between hunting, playing, ritual, and
drama might be modeled as in figure 3.6.
My thesis is that much play behavior is adapted from hunting, that
hunting is a kind of playing. This kind of playing is strategic, futureand-crisis-oriented,
violent and/or combative; it has winners and
losers, leaders and followers; it employs costumes and/or disguises
(often as animals); it has a beginning, middle, and end; and its underlying
themes are fertility, prowess, and animism/totemism. This kind
of playing at killing emphasizes individual or small-group action and
teamwork. It is scripted behavior. In time, playing/hunting may generate
the symbolic activities of ritual and drama. This transformation may
be a function of what Lorenz calls “displacement activity”: when two
conflicting impulses prevent each other from being activated a third
Figure 3.6
Note
The bottom half of each circle is the “source” of the top half, although there is a
significant amount of feedback from the top. The bottom is, in psychological terms,
“unconscious” and the top “conscious.” The top half of each transaction becomes
the bottom half in another transaction. Ecological and social circumstances
determine which transaction is dominant in a given culture.