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

162
from ritual to theater and back
The great antiquity of the trickster should be suggested first of all by
his being much the same in both Paleosiberian and American hunting
tribes; and again by the fact that the more a tribe has been influenced
by agriculture in America, the less important he becomes in the total
tribal mythology as compared with his pre-eminence among both
Siberian and American hunters. . . . We must not forget the element of
entertainment in Old World shamanism: were tales of the erotic escapades
of eagle-Zeus once told in the same tone of voice as those of
Sibero-American Raven? And did not shamanistic rivalry develop
into both the Dionysian bard-contests of Greek drama in the
Old World and into midewewin medicine-shows in the New? As for
that, have modern medicine-men entirely lost the old shamanic
self-dramatization?
(La Barre 1972: 195–6)
So wherever we look, and no matter how far back, theater is a mixture,
a braid, of entertainment and ritual. At one moment ritual sems to be
the source, at another it is entertainment. They are gemini acrobats,
tumbling over one another, neither one always on top, neither one
always first.
Even at this more or less quiet moment* it’s clear that orthodox
dramaturgy – the theater of plays behind prosceniums, in fixed settings,
for a settled audience, relating stories as if they were happening
to others – is finished. At least this kind of theater doesn’t meet the
needs of many people, needs as old as theater itself, combining ritual
and entertainment. These needs also include group interactions as one
of the remedies for runaway mechanistic technologies. I am not against
technology – I haven’t yet traded in my Manhattan loft for a Vermont
cabin. But I know a need exists for encounters that are neither just
informal person-to-person gatherings like parties nor formal, mediated
programmed routines like office or factory work – or watching.
TV and movies for that matter.
Theater is a middle world where groups actually interact not only
through audience participation but by subtler means of audience inclusion
and environmental staging. Theater combines artistic-composed
* 1974; revised 1986 (still pretty silent).