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Congruence of rituals and theatre. The use of drama for religious ceremony

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DOI: 10.18638/dialogo.2015.2.1.4

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 DIALOGO 2.1: 42 - 53 (2015) doi: 10.18638/dialogo.2015.2.1.4
CONFERENCES & JOURNAL
t h e Di a l ogue b et ween   Sci en c e a n d  Th eol ogy

Congruence of rituals and theatre.

The use of drama for religious ceremony

Cosmin Tudor CIOCAN, PhD

Department of Theology
Ovidius University of Constanta
Constanța, Romania
cosmin.ciocan@univ-ovidius.ro

Abstract: I have started this research as a response to
a pejorative question that religious rituals are merely
theatrical, and the personnel involved nothing else
but actors; beyond this there is nothing any religion
suggests, e.g. healing, divine touch, blessings et.al.
This paper is about rituals and their meanings and
roles played as in social drama and theatre play.
Considering the relationship between ritual and
theatre to be reciprocal I will use their functions
to evaluate the process of religious ceremonies and
the role they play for adherents/participants, as if
they would be attending a play. Religious Studies
and Drama joint study offers the opportunity to
combine two complementary humanities subjects,
as both drama and religion are mainstays of cultural
practice.
Keywords: scenery, choreography, badge, healing,
garments, social cohesion, settings, piety
I. INTRODUCTION
Why do people have rituals of any kind?
Repetitive acts are finger-printed habits,
patterns that eliminate the element of surprise,
the unknown, for those who know the content of
the ritual, because discovering the unknown was
what determined man to become religious in the
first place. By performing meaningful, repetitive
acts man ensures himself psychological comfort.
A particular kind of play is drama, maybe
the most elaborate, systemic and adequate
means that religious rituals can use in their
manifestation. Drama is for everyone. It relies
on universal human skills that we use every day,
such as communication, empathy, observation,
and improvisation. It is not concerned with
creating a polished performance, but with
the development of emotional, embodied
and cognitive knowledge built on experience.
[1] While creating an entertainment/relaxing
atmosphere, theatre and rituals also transmit
values, ideas, and profound beliefs without
enforcing anyone to believe so; everything
comings naturally, feelings induced through
the play and active participation. It is easier to
induce a behaviour and a thought through play/
theatre/ritual than to request those directly. Any
direct approach will have to face a contradictory
attitude, a wall made of preconceptions that are
usually hidden, unknown or subconscious. But
spoken as a direct confrontation, these attitudes
are always well formed and become stronger
through arguments, and the person who
verbalizes them becomes convinced of the truth
of his feelings, now grown into strong beliefs. In
order to make people believe what you want,

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it is more productive to make them believe the
ideas you portray are actually theirs, that they
always thought this, even if they weren’t saying
it out loud.
The relationship between theatre and ritual
is complex; it differs according to cultural norms
and periods. When you attend a performance of
a play in connection with any social traditions,
religion or just cultural behaviour, you would
probably have a strong sense that what you
were experiencing was not just a play but a
ritual. Also, attending religious ceremonies will
make you feel like being in a play, as if you are
an outsider of the belief shared by and through
that ritual. “The presence of singing and
dancing, elevated beyond the conversational
use of the voice and the body, together with
the environment and the story, would mark the
experience as something other than theatre,
even though it would be using the resources of
theatre”[2].
Dedicated to the gods in the beginning,
but not too distant from educating people to
behave in a certain way to those gods, religious
ceremonies had to grasp all the possible
functions and roles in order to attain these
two aims. Most religious plays are centred on
the birth-death-rebirth of a god and mankind is
invited to rejoice with Him through that ritual.
”This basic alternation of death and life is found
in myths across cultures and centuries: death as
a necessary prelude to life. This pattern is clearly
an archetype for many religious ceremonies”[3].
II. THE ESSENCE OF THEATRE, A RITUAL OF
LIFE
The “essence” of theatre is thus needs
a player and someone to experience the
performance; a story for the player to tell is
also assumed. Everything else (a formal script,
scenery, costume, etc.) is a welcome but not
essential accoutrement of the interaction of
actor and audience[4].
Drama is active learning, but its lessons are
not easy to learn, even if it includes historical
and theoretical information. These lessons and
activities can be taken as inspiration, just as we
discovered ourselves after being inspired by
our teachers and mentors; but we encourage
readers to adapt them both to personal
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strengths and to populations with whom you
work. We learn through doing, exploring, and
trying out, and by interacting with our peers
and our environment. The act of doing is what
makes us lifelong learners.[5]
Vice versa, theatre and all its elements
became an integral part of religious life to
provide the desired effects for its adherents.
Besides divine encounters and healing/helping
aids of religious rituals, they have always played
the role of the display of their beliefs. For
adherents to experience the reality of divinity
implication in this world and in their lives, they
have to become witnesses of what I like to
call, ‘religiogenesis event’ (RgE)[6]. People
have always been changed by a divine/spiritual
apparitions, but it never lasted and they cannot
begin anew every time someone wanted them
to. This is just not possible at all times, to compel
divinity to make its appearance and use its power
– it is just not a God-like-way of acting, (“The
wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its
sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from
or where it is going. So it is with everyone born
of the Spirit.” John 3.8). Therefore, religion’s
representatives came up with this compromise
solution, a ceremony.
Although ritual is the symbolic anamnesis
of a RgE, the undergoing transformations
can be very real, depending on a multitude of
elements – which will be discussed partially
here. Christopher Junes describes the ritual as
“apparently inducing a change in the participants
that is not merely symbolical but actual.”[7]
Everything that has been said or done has
the purpose of bringing participants to the same
position of witnesses of a real, unique historical
event. For that reason everything related to
cult is perceived as belonging to another time,
the oldest and most distant era. For many social
events that have produced profound changes
in social consciousness were accompanied with
myths and legends, with the role of underlining
the importance of these events, but especially
the amplitude that have been further developed.
I have heard quite often direct and vehement
complaints against those trying to modernize
places of worship or the cult itself. The use of a
modern idea is always regarded with scepticism,
because they diminish the archaic atmosphere
created by all the elements of the cult, around
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the remaking of the RgE.
Everything, from architecture, position and
placement, to unimaginable details, as singing,
dancing, and mime, which all suggest a well-
planned choreography with a single purpose:
the (re)significance of everything and every
element that implies a meeting divine figures.
Since the aim is always the same, the differences,
sometimes huge, between types of temples,
ceremony or stage settings have not aided the
cause of God’s will, but in the different vision
each leader has about the ‘scene’ of the RgE. The
elements found on the ‘scene’ of the RgE will be
refigurated on the ‘stage’ of religious rituals, so
that participants of the ritual will feel the same
as the actual witnesses of the event.
Other elements in the ceremony may not be
directly related to the event’s scene itself, but
they are re-symbolized, and, by the function of
symbolic attribution, they ‘become’ as being
there. Here we require the help of myth and
legend, for we need to fabric the unreal, still
helpful, meaning for something that will be used
in ritual drama . For example, the use of water in
religious ceremonies is well-known; some use it
per se, others after a blessing upon this element.
In any case the first ritual - writers made a link
between water and religious events, (e.g. the
crossing of the Red Sea and Jewish deliverance
from the slavery of Egypt; baptism of Christ,
Vitezda well, the bath of Ganesh Chaturthi, the
elephant-headed god, into Ganges, etc.). There
many Faiths that incorporate ritual washing,
(ablution), including Christianity, Hinduism,
Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism, Islam, the
Bahá’í Faith, Shinto, Taoism, and the Rastafari
movement, encouraging us to consider the
importance of this element in religious practices.
But the ‘real’ benefit of using holy/blessed water
is that, through divine touch it takes away pain,
sins, in a word it lifts the spiritual burden from
the participants at ceremony. The particular
selection of the moment of religious ceremony,
(day of the week, hour of the day, period of the
year, etc.), is also symbolized through myths of
transformation (Derrida): for some Saturday
is important as the day of deliverance from
the slavery of Egypt (Jews), others celebrate
Sunday as the day of resurrection (Christians),
while for others Friday is important for it is the
day of Adam’s creation, and his salvation too
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(Muslims). The ritual made by the Babylonians
in the first seven days of the year (on the first
day of the seventh month, called Tashritu) was
a remembrance of the steps of Creation (Rosh
Hashanah)[8]; a ritual that celebrates birth and
death, etc.
Other scholars view theatre and ritual as
two manifestations of performance. “Some
performance tended toward “entertainment”
(theatrical performance), and some tended
toward “efficacy” (ritual with an intended
outcome), but both ritual and theatre were
performative activities”[9]. To sustain this
suggestion anthropologists from The Cambridge
School of Anthropology (CSA) imply that “ritual
developed into drama as the magical element
of the ritual weakened in the face of declining
belief, as the mimetic element grew and the
participants were divided between performers
and spectators, and as myths were replaced by
heroic sagas”[10]. Yet this can also be seen as
just the symptoms, the external appearance that
public can see without any doubt, but the need
of re-significance over objects that take control
over pain – either physical or psychological – is
known and used in other domains as well, at
least for the placebo effect[11].
Another role of the use of staging religious
motifs within ceremonies is imitation, as
an intuitive activity of humans (Aristotle).
“People, even and especially as children, tend
to imitate and role-play in life. This inherent
tendency supposedly led to the use of the
mimetic (i.e., theatrical) in religion and later in
art”[12]. Therefore, instead of wasting time with
acts of teaching behaviours that you expect
from others, you can streamline this period
by creating pathways of behaviour, easy to
follow and capable of developing attitudes and
mimetic conducts. This function underlines the
role of education or formative role of religious
dramatics. Known in Hebrew culture as an
ot, the use of the whole body in delivering a
message (such as in 2 Kings 9.13) is an important
manner in which Hebrews communicate. This
emphasises the power of concepts used by the
suggestion of example. Acknowledging this
transformative potential inherent in role-playing,
drama becomes a means of therapy for several
educational domains, drama therapy, counselling
sessions, known as psychodrama for people with
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psychological disorders or alower capability to
accommodate new, tough situations.
A. Ritual function of catharsis
Victor Turner considers that rituals are
„means of doing the same, but by allowing
the normal social structure to be inverted and
broken out of temporarily, so that the return to
everyday structure is enhance in value”[13]. The
main reason, if not the only one that matters,
the space of worship,(public or private), tries
to recreate the theatrical atmosphere of the
spiritual world, transforming a portion of this
world in a celestial space, full of positive spirits
and benefits for those entering it, is to “remove
anxiety and resentment through catharsis”.
Removing anxiety is especially fully done
through the decoration and the choreography of
religious ceremonies, fully valuing the symbolic
forms, so that, although part of this world, the
religious temple no longer belongs to this world.
“The temple I am going to build will be great,
because our God is greater than all other gods”
(2 Chronicles 2.5); „I have built a magnificent
temple for you, a place for you to dwell forever”
(2 Chronicles 6.2) „ When Solomon had finished
the temple of the LORD…the LORD appeared
to him at night and said: I have heard your
prayer and have chosen this place for myself
as a temple for sacrifices…I have chosen and
consecrated this temple so that my Name may
be there forever” (2 Chronicles 17.11,12,16). „We
made the House (at Makka) a resort for mankind
and sanctuary, (saying): Take as your place of
worship the place where Abraham stood (to
pray). And We imposed a duty upon Abraham
and Ishmael, (saying): Purify My house for
those who go around and those who meditate
therein and those who bow down and prostrate
themselves (in worship)” (Quran 2:125).
C. Geertz treats culture in general, „as the
vehicle which enables participants to give
form and meaning to their experiences”[14].
This way of picturing religion as, „the most
elaborately system of symbols”, helped Geertz
understand that religion, “acts to establish
powerful, pervasive and long-lasting moods and
motivations in men by formulation conceptions
of a general order of existence and clothing”[15].
In the context of this conceptualizing
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of religion, as having the role of organizing
human experience and, especially, in providing
responses to those experiences that lack
interpretability, religious ceremony links
the religious promoter and his vision on the
one hand, with his (future) followers on the
other. By far the Saviour Christ used the role
of “staging” His didactic and theological
concepts the best. Without redefinition of His
teachings in dramaturgical representation of
parables, Christological theology would seem
very complex and also very barren, non-stick.
Thus we see how religious ceremony takes
another function of the theatre, that of dis-
inhibition, breaking the barriers of audience’s
preconceptions. Surely we all have had the
experience of been directly approached on
the street, in shops or at the front door by a
representative of a religious denomination
different from ours, to promote his confession /
religious faith, (or a company wishing to present
a new product on the market). And whenever
this promotion began abruptly, with abstract
theories and doctrines that are contradictory
to what the audience believes, the latter always
leaves the scene,, leaving the merchandiser
without success. I have even witnessed a street
play presentation, where someone stages, using
puppets, a very abstract and stodgy philosophy,
like the Apocalypse. Well, his success, which
attracted not only children who saw the beauty
and decoration of the play, but also adults who
managed to glimpse the true content, beyond
the act of drama.
Religious ritual succeeds in emphasizing
meanings and experiences that otherwise
would be hard to express, to deposit in man’s
consciousness, or even to be digested by them.
The preference that people have towards the
play form of any educational process has been
successfully employed and used in the design of
religious ceremonies. Quite often religious rituals
were treated as theatre and the performances
of some local religious leaders as “theatrical”. By
use of these derogatory systems, the appellative
actually wanted to highlight the excessive
use of ceremonial forms, and less the spiritual
significance of the background of gestures. Of
course these accusations, often very subjective,
cannot be really proven, nor differentiated from
the usual religious ceremony.
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B. The different, higher use of religious rituals
over theatre
When made the subject of systematic
historical and comparative cultural analysis,
ritual has offered new insights into the dynamics
of religion, culture, and personhood [16]. But
why do we use rituals? Admitting that ritual is
any activity that we perform at least as much
for its symbolic and emotional value as for its
practical value, do we use rituals because the
act in itself has meaning, or because doing it
makes us feel better about ourselves, or both?
From the simple acts of serving meals with
family on Easter, sharing gifts at Christmas, to
complex ceremonies of wedding and funeral, all
our ritually activities have the role of creating a
psychological comfort given by the stability of the
acts as landmarks in our lives, points that help us
organize our thoughts, feelings and stability for
we think in patterns, apart from the unknown.
As David Cortesi, (an IBM programmer), says
[17] “we are culturally (perhaps, biologically)
programmed to enjoy doing things that have
symbolic and emotional value, and to not count
their cost too carefully”. According to him the
main uses of ritual could be put together into
four issues.
- Rituals give time-structure to our lives,
saving us from chaos and anxiety and acting
to stabilize the tempo of life, as the beat of a
metronome stabilizes music;
- They assist and encourage the formation
of trust and community between people;
- They give shape to public expressions
of powerful emotions: expressions of grief, as at
funerals; and of joy, as at weddings, graduations,
etc.;
- They help to reorient and stabilize our
own feelings when we need to comprehend and
cope with crucial life passages.[18]
Because rituals are standard processes that
we come to know by heart, along with all the
other attendees, we realize that we eventually
allow play-ritual to express our feelings.. They
express the way we feel about ourselves (guilty,
happy, remorse, etc.), and reassure us that we
are still in control of our lives.
When time goes by and shows no mercy, ,
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little, insignificant short-in-time creatures as we
are, we pay ‘time’ back,, by meeting it with the
right behaviour, emphasizing that we are still
in charge of our time, still masters of our lives.
Being efficacious is the only tool we have to have
some control over our lives, and if the meaning of
our acts, (like religious rituals), we can overcome
time, extending its influence beyond time, then
our aim is accomplished and we ‘make’ time
obey us and not the other way around. By doing
expected things at appointed intervals and not
letting things happen at their will, this empowers
us over time, keeping everything under control
by ‘knowing’ what is going to happen and
overcoming everything that might occur.
By putting together people with same
purpose in a controlled environment, this helps
people bond. In fact, it starts long before they
actually meet, that a positive energy, a kind of
emotional neutral ground is attracting people
with common needs to express them and/
or interact. Similarly to people who gather in
restaurants, cinemas, and theatre (A), in schools,
nightclubs, casinos, outdoor shows (B); they also
use similar situations for doing what people in
churches and temples do(C). The difference is
that (A)s have a mutual aim, but less contact;
(B)s have the aim and contact, but without
proper professional assistance for their bond
and aims. But for (C)s everything is set in place
for the gathering, (as in A’s), a special bond and
interaction (as in B’s), and also for supervised,
assisted healing – in a word, for psychological
comfort. The fact that people mostly attend
As or Bs does not help them isolate and take
control over their emotions; or expressing them
chaotically doesn’t mean they are gone, in fact
they might actually take control in time over you
and change you into a person you didn’t intend
to be. That is why taking part in a ritual group
helps you express and know how to control your
feelings by reaching out for people who really
care for you and are not there as a job (as in As
or Bs).
It is comforting to take part in a formal,
public gathering (as in A), but it is rather
stressful needing to make contact with others
(as in B), knowing that behind every attempt at
approaching someone stands a possibility of a
refusal that might shut you down for good. “Being
lonely in a crowded place” is not unusual in this
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kind of meeting (A or B), and with each failure to
interact, your psychological comfort (along with
self-respect, self-esteem, etc.) decreases to the
point of suicidal behaviour. This was proved as
inefficacious by many collective specialists, and
apart from those interested-for-contact people,
(e.g. pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers, and the
like), the majority being sceptical regarding the
unknown approach, and 90% of B gatherings end
with stressful behaviour[19]. Instead, attending
religious rituals puts you in contact with people
sharing positive thoughts, desiring selflessly to
help and professionally assist you to go through
your emotional situation. This has always proven
to be helpful, “to deal with either tragedy
or triumph silently, unshared, the emotional
burden [that] can be choking”[20].
Religious rituals give a controlled, assisted
way to externalize emotion, express it, and
so end it. Many times I have witnessed people
burying their loved ones, or giving their children
for marriage, and I was always seeing stress and
fear along with sorrow / happiness on their faces.
Coming together with a religious community for
many rituals that follow “the event” is for their
benefit, because the legitimate grief is shared by
others, and make the rest of life more bearable,
(after the event has ended).
C. The role of decor in rituals
In general, besides the imaginative scenery
that I spoke of earlier, which is found more or
less in any religious ceremony, a role that is at
least as important is the part that choreography
plays in the ceremonial act. In addition to basic
roles of ritualistic choreography – recorded in the
books of worship – i.e. (1) the uniformity of ritual
confessional, (2) the schematization of religious
belief, and (3) the imprinting of this scheme and
of theological vocabulary. – It is very important
to emphasise the ambient function of décor, the
true aspect of religious ritual that matters and
helps both to promote the confessional creed
and to maintain the cohesion of the community.
It turns out that people attend more frequently
temples of worship with more vivid ambient
decoration, or at least they prefer those to the
sober, undecorated ones, because it confers an
increased psychological / spiritual comfort. Quite
often I have heard believers of certain confession
that attend religious services of another
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denomination, (or of the same denomination),
because they “feel better” there.
This preference it is not just for the religious
ceremonial, but for the religious actor too,
for he is the one that fulfills the roles of a real
actor, but on a stage of worship, ritualistic, not
dramaturgical, and therefore the characteristics
that they should have are somehow similar to
those of drama actors. Often, followers and
leaders religious subsequent to the religious
promoter have sought to improve the ceremonial
choreography with all sorts of elements that
complement the environmental decor and
enhance theological rigor behind the ceremony.
Each religious local leader will try to improve the
choreography as best he can (e.g. spectacular
manifestation, pleasant music, painting vivid,
hand-crafted furniture, etc.), and this is certainly
dependent on the talents he received as gifts
(very good speaker, chanter, manager, etc.), but
also by the interest allocated to their optimal use.
The “theatrical” form in terms of presentation
(nonmimetic) and staging (suggestive costumes
and scenery) which certain clerks give to the
scenic interpretation of the ceremony is often
wanted, although rarely acknowledged or
verbalized. They are seen by their followers or/
and peers as exaggerations – without knowing
whether that assessment is only a manifestation
of collegial envy or something else – has greater
appeal, more followers, etc., because nobody
forbids the use of their “talents” to improve
ceremony if he would thus bring more followers.
Even if it seems to be an essential feature of
religion, proselytism in this form, of theatrical
interpretation, it is often condemned – by
others, but used by all. It is also true that this
method works almost always and that people
prefer them to rigorous, cold, leisurely events
that bring monotony rather than ambient décor
comfort.
III. THE ROLE OF SCENERY IN RELIGIOUS
RITUALS
If a ritual act is one that we perform for its
symbolic and emotional value, so we can apply the
same qualifier to spaces, objects and the whole
décor of the scenery in rituals. We are aware now
that we don’t keep or acquire ritualistic objects
because they are useful, but because they mean
something, as souvenirs, mementos, a record of
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their symbolic and emotional value. Rituals can
portray their effective power over us for several
reasons. They are mementos, ties to events and
good things that happened and we need to
remember in order to dilute the bad things that
come upon us. Then, a ritual object can capture a
whole complex of meanings and beliefs , events
and stories that our faith carry with it, in a single
non-verbal and subtle object.
It is easy to see that almost all religious
manifestations use pictures and visual
representations of their faith. However,
alongside this universal imagery, any religion
contains ceremonies structured to contain
essential elements that sustain religious belief
– along with other elements, about which we
will talk later. We will encounter denominations
which have minimized visual representations,
but there is none that exclude any symbolic
badge of their faith.
A. Role of badge for religious symbols
I am not referring to religious phenomena
that have banned any graphic or sculptural
representation of what divinity means in their
design, (e.g. Islam, Judaism, Protestantism
Christian), because, in one form or another, they
have also felt the need of “filling” the visual
space with something. This something ranges
from a minimum of items, e.g. just a name, a
single religious symbol, the cross, to complete
and complex decoration of the enclosure with
human figures, flowers, animals or simply
crafts. In all of these was manifested the
artistic spirit of man who wanted to contribute
something to beautifying the space devoted to
religious worship, public or private, and these
artistic decorations, (either graphics, craft or
sculpture), subsequently became iconic symbols
of faith and of their religious manifestation by
concomitant use. If in the theater scenery is
meant to create a certain atmosphere, offering
to the viewers the opportunity to transpose
themselves, during exhibition, in the time
and space of play, in religious ceremonial this
function is accompanied by many others, with
very deep implications in worship. This way,
the need to symbolize, schematically and
analytically, the whole teaching of faith and to
have a concise formula of presenting religious
manifestations, led the religious adherents to
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use badges and iconic figures as to symbolize
faith emblematically. In other words, functions
that religious symbol - and not only – has, are:
the customization, of branding places, objects
and people, marking them and dedicating them
strict for ritual purposes; we use such badges to
give an authentic, unique note. Another function
is that of identity that a religious symbol gives
to the community; whoever or whatever (space
or object) bears the specific mark, definitely
belongs to that community and cannot be
claimed for purposes other than religious.
A badge is a code that is linked with the
license management. It corresponds to a kind of
resource that has a stock which is consumed by
users when using the functions of ritual through
the dedicated objects. As in the theatre’s
scenery we will find in religious ceremony similar
elements that compose it and help it accomplish
its aim.
All this variety of symbolic decorations
certainly have been desired, thought or even felt,
as functioning as (1) support for the content of
faith. The painting was conceived and nurtured
in Christianity as an auxiliary of or completing
the catechesis, preaching the pictures, available
for everyone, an intuitive material of great
value. Also there are (2) present patterns,
templates of brief externalization of religious
manifestations, (3) and a badge of religious
identity. Perhaps there was another function
too, one of (4) decorating, just the arrangement
of the consecrated place. Still it is most unlikely
that these symbolic representations have been
conceived as a mere decoration, because then
they would not have been placed under divine
authority and thus mandatory. A simple decor
which sprang solely from the human mind and
unrelated to inspiration, such as that of re-
symbolizing the faith, would not have had any
impact on followers. The psychological comfort
felt where these representations abound, in
places of worship, can be considered no more
than a side-effect and not a purpose in itself. The
main religious function of ritual scenery, found
only in the traditional religions, is (5) to stimulate
feelings of reverence, and piety. In contact with
the symbols of his religion, each follower will
feel reverence, and now these items are being
re-symbolized in his mind, as taboo objects /
symbols, in the presence of which they feel the
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company of the worshiped deity / spirits. The
function of (4) decoration of the cultic space
plays an important role in the science of design,
namely (6) setting, the (re) creation of a specific
atmosphere, in this case the celestial, a (re)
creation of the spiritual world. For this spiritual
atmosphere, full of meaning – of taboo, spiritual
values, etc. – and content of faith, emanating
the interest of divine for the restoration of
its bond with man and inspiring feelings of
reverence, is intersecting religious ritual with the
theatre, therefore the rapport between the two
is ambivalent – either assimilating ceremonial
cult with theatrical scene, or bringing reasons
and characters from religious domain into the
theatrical drama. Leaving the second side of this
relation aside, theatre with religious content; for
further research, we will deal here exclusively
with the first relationship between them.
B. Role of costumes in theatrical choreography
As in the theatre, the improvement of
religious ceremoniy is demonstrated by clothing
details, the decor, frescoes and statuary and
everything that constitutes in general the
choreographic ambience where the ritual act
takes place. Costume design is the envisioning
of clothing and the overall appearance of a
character or performer. Dramatic effects may
be decidedly aided by costumes. It takes a lot
of energy and qualities to make people follow
your footsteps without wearing the right outfit,
but if you back-up your skills and effort with the
right clothes, then you may double your winning
odds. At least you can improve your results by
making people turn heads over your unusual
costume.
The first theatre plays attracted people
through various accessories for picturing the
characters in the play and for setting the mood.
The most significant accessory the choreography
had was the masks, mostly indicating the
expressions and emotional state its character had
in the act of drama. ‘The use of the mask tradition,
which made the doubling of roles easier, was a
form of disguise or concealment usually worn
over or in front of the face to hide the identity
of a person and by its own features to establish
another being. This essential characteristic of
hiding and revealing personalities or moods is
common to all masks’.[21] The role of wearing
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a mask is in accordance with the aim the play
intended to achieve. ‘A paramount role of the
mask is to give a sense of continuity between
the present and the beginnings of time, a sense
that is of vital importance for the integration of
a culture with no written history. Psychologically
the spectators are linked to the past through
the spirit power of the mask, and—depending
on the character represented by the mask—
this may in some cases lead the participants to
a state of complete absorption or near-frenzy.
In some cases, the spirit or supernatural being
depicted is viewed with rejoicing and almost
a familiarity, which leads to gaiety that has a
cathartic aspect’ [22]. In time, many religions
gave up masks and have developed instead the
layout of clothing. Since there are no rituals
without special clothing, we have to assume its
importance and sine qua non condition.
By far, most investigators of religions say
that all religious rituals are mostly about,”a
drama about life and the drama of life”[23]. The
anthropological study of religion can prove that
the image every religious confession has on the,
life-humankind-God relationship, is reflected
in their rituals, at least in their main forms of
ceremony. Consequently, in a primitive society,
‘a daily ritual is incorporated in the common
activities, in eating, washing, fire-making, etc.,
as well as in pure ceremonial; because the need
of reasserting the tribal morale and recognizing
its cosmic conditions is constantly felt’[24].
Therefore we have to assume that ritual masks
and outfits have everything to do with this
intention. Even the words used to define the
ritual outfit are considered to bring forward the
very meaning of wearing them; instead of using
clothing – as covering the body; to be dressed
up – it is always used the archaic significance of
the term apparel – to adorn certain vestments
with a piece of embroidery and ornament. From
that emphasis of wearing clothes, always in an
extravagant way compared to common people,
fashion designers borrowed the look, the
adornment, but mostly the concept that outfits
are not exclusively for coverage, but for making
them more pleasing, attractive, and impressive
too. “Make sacred garments for your brother
Aaron to give him dignity and honour” (Exodus
28.2).
Clothes reflect the time and place in which
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the character lives, his social standing, his present
circumstances, and even his emotional state. They
are therefore important to the expressiveness of
the production. Moreover, they must be, in one
way or another, part of the general design of the
production. Certain elements of the design may
have to be made more noticeable, the colours
may have to be modified, and the areas they
cover may have to be larger.[25] We will not
engage further in the philosophy of costumes
about other clothing’s characters, regarding
colour, design, and the quality of the material.
But if they are used for visibility or projection
of a certain vision and atmosphere, either for a
hierarchical distinction [26] or just as a sacerdotal
emblem, the garments used in religious ritual
play an important role without any doubt. In
the performance of ceremonial, costumes and
other visual elements create beyond doubt a
particular impression the instant a religious
actor appears on the stage and establishes
himself in the audience’s mind [27] along with his
performed role-play-message. It is obvious that
‘not only language, but stage setting, properties,
and costumes take on a new significance as
religious symbols, much like those employed
in high-church liturgies’[28] and soon the use
of certain garments, especially those sacred
through the ‘divine touch’ or by wearing them in
the divine service, became as religious symbols
like any other. Therefore, used as a sacerdotal
emblem, the ceremonial garments received
also some kind of personality, allegorically or,
sometimes even literally speaking. The famous
designer Valentina[29] stresses the importance
of conveying, emphasizing, and vitalizing the
wearer’s personality, his “uniqueness, a never-
repeated psychological and external pattern”.
Being considered as the beneficent, as the
holy person, that once worn, the garments of
saints were always surrounded with great care
and honour, and even worshiped per se. This
honour passed from only saints’ garments to
every ceremonial garments, so that religious
adepts worship them with great luxuriance for
several reasons, e.g. they were symbolically
related to a divine act, for a possible power of
healing or punishment, for divine protection
against all kinds of evil, etc. They give finery,
embroidery and expensive materials (gold,
jewels) as presents for garments to become
more gorgeous, sumptuous (see the process
of making them in Exodus 28); sometimes, due
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to the pomposity and expensiveness of them
these garments were used as a mean to pay
debts [“The governor gave to the treasury 1,000
darics[b] of gold, 50 bowls and 530 garments
for priests...”, Nehemiah 7.71; Zechariah 14.14].
Next step was to venerate these garments
downright (Fig. 2); there are many traditional
religions that even have prayers for dressing
up with these holy garments, or before starting
the process of making them, and subsequently
a taboo restriction about touching them by the
unholy, without previous preparation. “[Priests]
must wear them whenever they enter the tent
of meeting or approach the altar to minister in
the Holy Place, so that they will not incur guilt
and die” (Exodus 28.43). These two kinds of
symbolism were bestowed upon ceremonial
garments – (1) esoteric symbolism made out of
combinations of motifs representing the divine
name or his words[30] and (2) totemic one –
made a heavy stone in ritual choreography out
of them.
C. Other functions of scenery and drama
meetings for religious rituals
Besides all these we can add several other
functions play and theatre may have had within
religious rituals. An important role to stress
here is finding identity and social cohesion.
As a negative example for demonstrating
this assumption, in the Letter to Monsieur
d’Alembert (1758), Rousseau energetically
quashed d’Alembert’s suggestion that Geneva
required a theatre in order to keep up with other
European cities. Rousseau’s main argument was
that the theatre would threaten the identity of
the inhabitants of Geneva, perhaps even destroy
it altogether.It threatened the cultural, gender
and, ultimately, also the individual identity of
the Genevans. In order to preserve their sense
of identity, Rousseau believed, they should not
accept theatre into their society[31]. But the
concept of identity was understood in a narrow,
static way: identity is understood as something
which is either given by Nature or dictated by
society for now and ever more, as something
which must be maintained in the individual
and social life at whatever cost[32]. This was
a concept long time used in human society to
classify and tear apart people into classes of
sexes, skin colour, culture, richness, and other.
That was the main social problem religion,
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CONFERENCES & JOURNAL
(Christianity, in particular), tried to solve; “There
is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free,
nor is there male and female, for you are all one
in Christ Jesus [and] if you belong to Christ, then
you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according
to the promise” (Galatians 3.28). As ambulant
actors did by travelling through society and
making people see that there should not be any
differences between humans, (for we are all the
same from birth), similarly religious preachers
always had this aim in their sermons, to prove
that we are all brothers in the eyes of the Maker;
“Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised
or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or
free, but Christ is all, and is in all” (Colossians
3.11). “Through actions carried out by the
[religious] actors with their bodies and language,
and through the role being played, the actors’
stage aspects and scenes which the spectators
perceive and understand as representative of
society in terms of their identity as members
of a particular society and as themselves”[33].
Rituals have the social function of helping people
how to ‘construct’ their identities, worldviews,
and taken-for-granted [34] ways of managing
their affairs
CONCLUSIONS
If someone would ask if he should make the
effort to invest habitual activities with ritual
value, the correct answer is most probably
affirmative, since rituals have uses that go
beyond and above the details of their practice.
Depending on the social length of relevance of a
particular type of ‘knowledge’ and its complexity
and importance in a given community, the
‘knowledge’ may have to be reaffirmed through
symbolic objects (such as fetishes, amulets, and
taboo badges), and/or by symbolic actions,(such
as religious or theatrical ritual). In other words,
physical objects and actions may be called upon
as mnemotechnic aids[35]. All transmission
of institutional meanings obviously implies
control and legitimating procedures that are
attached to the institutions themselves and
administered by the transmitting personnel.
These are the necessary and natural steps from
which any ritual is born and grows, along with its
ancestry and institutions. The entire inventory
of theatrical and/or religious ritual – made out
of scenery décor, objects, clothing, masks, and
choreography – cannot be explained by its
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separate use or contained in any small meaning.
They are bound by their institutional symbolism
and tied together for a larger significance.
Taken separately, each object used in rituals,
has its meaning and its useful purpose only in
relation with the entrusted code, as a badge
of everything else, and not solely, by itself. In
other words, it is about the psychological law of
projective, (of perceptive image), where we can
reconstruct a “panoramic” image from a small
detail. Similarly, any believer can reconstruct
his whole faith and system of beliefs from a
single item (a wooden cross, rosaries, Star of
David, Ganesha statue, Allah pictogram, et.
al.). That is how religious adherents deposit an
intrinsically exoteric body of knowledge in the
scenery of ceremony with all the mentioned
purposes. In most societies, however, some
rituals accompany the transition from primary
to secondary socialization and because this is
not based on any ‘laws of nature’, we are not
ipso facto taking a position on a metaphysical
conception of ‘natural law’. Therefore the
attendance to rituals, religious or theatrical, is a
personal choice, and thus accompanied by the
expected outcomes.
REFERENCES
[1] Manon van de Water, Mary McAvoy, and Kristin
Hunt, Drama and Education. Performance
Methodologies for Teaching and Learning.
London: Routledge, 2015, Introduction 3.
[2] Todd E. Johnson, Performing the sacred…, p. 32.
[3] Todd E. Johnson, Performing the sacred…, p. 33.
[4] Todd E. Johnson, Performing the sacred…, p. 30.
[5] Manon van de Water, Mary McAvoy, and Kristin
Hunt, Drama and Education…, p. 3,
[6] The spiritual experience that someone lives once,
in the beginning of his religious life, when he
encounters divinity or spiritual beings and feels
touched by divine grace. This is the moment his
life take a crucial turn and change it forever making
him become a new person, with new intentions and
thoughts, commonly trying to save all others from
living a wrong, sinful life. This ‘religiogenesis
event’ is always a start for a religious phenomenon,
movement or a main religion due to the urge that
divine-touched-person feels to impose his change
into others’ lives too.
[7] Todd E. Johnson, Performing the sacred…, p. 73.
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[8] For further discussion on the New Year’s festival in
Babylon (and in other ancient cities), see A. Sachs,
in: J.B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts
Relating to the Old Testament, Princeton 1955,
pp. 331-334; M.E. Cohen, The Cultic Calendars
of the Ancient Near East, Bethesda MD 1993, pp.
400-453; M.J.H. Linssen, The Cults of Uruk and
Babylon: The Temple Ritual Texts as Evidence for
Hellenistic Cult Practice (Cuneiform Monographs
25), Leiden 2004, pp. 61-91, 184-237.
[9] Todd, Performing the sacred…, p. 56.
[10] Ibid, 56.
[11] For more on placebo social effect see Daniel
E. Moerman, PhD; and Wayne B. Jonas, MD,
“Deconstructing the Placebo Effect and Finding
the Meaning Response”, in Ann Intern Med.
2002;136(6):471-476. doi:10.7326/0003-4819-
136-6-200203190-00011 “Placebo effect” is
not caused by “placebo” but rather by the belief,
expectations or any previous to conditionings
placebo, meaning that the patient gives significance
to the substance or procedure that is administered.
[12] Ibid, 56.
[13] John Bowker (edit.), The Oxford Dictionary of
World Religions…, p. 820 citation after Victor
Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-
Structure. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1969, p. 95.
[14] John Bowker (edit.), The Oxford Dictionary of
World Religions, p. 369.
[15] Clifford Geertz, The interpretation of Cultures. NY:
Basic Books, 1973, p. 90.
[16] Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and
Dimensions. New York: Oxford University Press,
1997, Preface.
[17] David Cortesi, Secular Wholeness: A Skeptic’s
Paths to a Richer Life. Bloomington (US): Trafford
Publishing, 2002, p. 61. I recommend this book,
especially Cpt. 5, for a better understanding of
rituals.
[18] Ibid, p. 64.
[19] There are several studies on how the nightclubs
impact your comfort level, all proving that Bs can
frustrate us and cause further discomfort, lowering
personal comfort and increasing anxiety. For
example, Yale Fox, The Psychology of a Nightclub,
http://jordandetmers.com/2014/06/25/the-
psychology-of-a-nightclub/ (accessed 2.10.2015);
Edmund Janes James, The Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science, 1952, p.
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144. Et. Al.
[20] D. Cortesi, Secular Wholeness, p. 65.
[21] Paul S. Wingert, „Mask”, in Encyclopaedia
Britannica, online edition, http://www.britannica.
com/art/mask-face-covering (accessed 9/29/15).
[22] Ibidem.
[23] Todd E. Johnson and Dale Savidge, Performing
the sacred: theology and theatre in dialogue. Grand
Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009, p. 26.
[24] C. Geertz, The interpretation of Cultures, p. 107.
[25] John Gassner, Producing the Play. New York: The
Dryden Press, 1949, p. 119.
[26] For some religion, in which religious hierarchy
doesn’t exist or it is very poor, adepts take this
position instead or along with them and make their
garments the distinctive element of faith display.
For example Muslims in Iran, home to some of the
best-dressed clergy in the Islamic world, looking
good is part of their life. See Niloofar Haeri,
“Clothes make the mullah”, in Salon, Wednesday,
Jan 5, 2005. Online source: http://www.salon.
com/2005/01/05/iran_clergy/ (accessed 1/10/15).
[27] John Gassner, Producing the Play, p. 120.
[28] Todd E. Johnson, Performing the sacred…, p. 74.
[29] Valentina Nicholaevna Sanina Schlee (1 May 1899
– 14 September 1989), simply known as Valentina,
was a Ukrainian émigré fashion designer and
theatrical costume designer active from 1928 to
the late 1950s[. ]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Valentina_(fashion_designer) accessed 9/30/15.
[30] As an example the tassel (tzitzit) (Hebrew: ‫תיציצ‬,
Modern tzitzit, Tiberian sˤisˤiṯ), specially knotted
ritual fringes worn in antiquity by Israelites and
today by observant Jews and Samaritans, are made
with four strands passed through holes near the
four corners of the garment, have a special, esoteric
symbolism related to a combination of numbers,
of knots, separated by four sections of winding,
repeatedly done at each group etc. This procedure
is repeated three times, such that there are a total of
five knots, the four intervening spaces being taken
up by windings numbering 7-8-11-13, respectively.
The total number of winds comes to 39, is found to
be significant in that it is the gematria (numerical
equivalent, Greek geōmetriā) of the words: “The
Lord is One” Deuteronomy 6:4). Others, especially
Sephardi Jews, use 10-5-6-5 as the number of
windings, a combination that represents directly
the spelling of the Tetragrammaton (one of
God’s names). – cf. Rabbi Mois Navon, Threads
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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween   Sci en c e a n d  Th eol ogy

of Reason. A Collection of Essays on Tekhelet. California and 4 other States in USA, gathering
2013. Article about Tzitzit in Wikipedia, https:// data and understanding how religious pluralism
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzitzit (accessed 9/30/15). is possible at a high level of involvement; in the
[31] Erika Fischer-Lichte, History of European Drama same time I made friends from many different
and Theatre. London: Routledge, 2002, p. 1. countries and religions that are now involved in
[32] Ibid. this project or another, helping in his endeavor.
[33] Ibid, 2.
[34] Berger Peter L. & Luckmann Thomas. The Social
Construction of Reality; a Treatise in the Sociology
of Knowledge. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1991, p.
15.
[35] Ibid. 88.

Biography
Ciocan Tudor Cosmin, born in Constanta/
Romania in 1977, I have attended several
theological and psychological schools (BA,
MB, PhD), obtained my PhD in Missiology and
Doctrinal Theology in 2010. I was ordained as
orthodox priest in 2002. High-school teacher
from 1998, then Professor assistant and Lecturer
from 2012, I have written more than 30 papers
on theology and psychology, along with 4 single
author books in the past two decades.
In 2013 started a multidisciplinary program
aiming to engage scholars from different
files into friendly and academic debates with
theology and in the same year a Research
Center was founded in Ovidius University with
researchers from 11 fields. in lest then 1 year
I manage to gather people from around the
globe around this idea and so we have started
Dialogo Conferences project. In 2014 I received
a Fulbright scholarship and I spent the summer

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