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SASKIA FISCHER of compelling seriousness,” and they must avoid irony and criticism."" When performing a ritual, due to its stylized performance, the participants are always aware that, in the broadest sense, they are taking part in a theatrical performance and playing a certain “role.” But rituals move within a frame of concrete function and pragmatism, which is non-negotiable and which fundamentally determines their performance. According to Barbara StollbergRilinger, a ritual is not only a descriptive model of social order but must also be seen as a prescriptive model for reality.'” In contrast, theater and drama have much greater freedom to cope with reality and can use theatricality for criticism of what is brought to the stage and how it is presented. Brecht’s epic theater, which constantly points out that it is theater, aims to createa distance for the audience, and in doing so, makes subversive use of theatricality. Such a way of staging, where the performance itself is put into question, would make the ritual fail.'$ In summary, it can be said that theater and ritual are determined by the different contexts in which they take place and by the different communicative rules they follow. I, therefore, understand the concepts of “rituality” and “theatricality” as flexible, dynamic categories that can exceed and intertwine “ritual” and “theater,” and that can be applied to various cultural actions and practices. Rituality and theatricality measure the similarity of a cultural practice toward a ritual or a theater performance. Rituals can be highly theatrical and still remain a ritual in the first place, as the staging of a play can be very ritualistic in its style of performance without transforming into a ritual. But rituality and theatricality can unfold much more openly and self-critically in theater than would ever be possible in a ritual. At the same time, however, theater can intentionally make us forget the difference between theater and ritual through an aesthetic form strongly influenced by a ritualistic style of performance. Fourth: The Category of Poetic Rituality As I have pointed out, theater and drama are deeply related to ritual practice. But to speak of poetic rituality — a category I have developed in former studies"? — the great proximity of a piece of art to a ritual practice has to be emphasized by the work of art itself. That means: poetic rituality describes 1° Walter Burkert: Opferritual bei Sophokles. Pragmatik — Symbolik — Theater, AU. Der Altsprachliche Unterricht. Antike Religion 2 (1985), 5-20, 20. Stollberg-Rilinger: Rituale. Turner’s difference between ritual and theater being mostly neglected, especially in theater studies. Erika Fischer-Lichte for instance develops on the basis of Victor Turner’s studies a very broad concept of ritual that makes ritual and theater indistinguishable. (See FischerLichte: Theater und Ritual.) But it is crucial to acknowledge that the self-reference of the aesthetic of ritual is not the same as the self-critical approach to the use of ritual and rituality that is possible in a theater play. 1 Fischer: Ibid. +36 +
