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JAN L. HAGENS Before developing my argument further, let me highlight, often with reference to Braungart’s writings, some of the core characteristics shared by ritual and theatrical performance that may help promote positive resolution to dramatic conflict: 1.) Ritual and theater bring people together. As Braungart states, ritual is “performed by a community or for a community” and upholds values that “provide a sense of community and unity.”" The collective playing and watching in the theatron, the looking-place, creates a togetherness that presupposes and supports social belonging. Ritualistic elements in theater can help make it more participatory, enabling more shared emotion and more empathy. Braungart mentions the “celebratory, festive nature” of ritual, which may contribute to positive outcomes, both in ritual and in theater." 2.) Braungart writes that ritual is “aesthetically designed and selfreferential.”'® Both ritual and theater may exhibit self-referentiality, but, as must be obvious from my present analysis, I do hold these characteristics to be primary not so much for ritual as for drama; Braungart himself agrees.’® Ritual does its work best when it induces a state of participation that merges on the unconscious, that involves even the subconscious, reaching maybe not higher, but deeper. In drama, aesthetic self-reference can induce spectatorial self-reflection, which may then promote the critical distance that allows for careful conflict resolution. In a best-case scenario, drama’s self-reference can alleviate pragmatic pressure, allowing for the ideational space and psychological distance that favor conflict resolution. 3.) However, like theater, ritual provides a condensation of past and future in the present moment; this leads both to an intensification, a heightening of emotion, and to an essentializing and universalizing.’’ Ritual’s symbols, just like drama’s “presentative symbolism,” create and convey significance beyond discursive conceptual meaning.'* The integration of ritualistic elements into performance may thus bring into reach what otherwise would remain ungraspable and unrelatable, and it could thus open up new pathways of resolution. 4.) According to Braungart, repetition is another defining feature of ritual.” Repetition may render a behavior unperceived and unconscious — or it may put it at a distance, thus allowing for a working-through, to avoid the dead end of mindless violence and reach positive resolution. Closely related to repetition is a feature that appears to me to be of crucial importance: the process of ritual 3 Braungart: Ibid., 427, 428. 4° Braungart: Ibid., 427. 15 Ibid. Braungart: Ritual und Literatur, 220. For a more elaborate argument regarding the notion that ritual compresses meanings and heightens emotions, see Stroup: Ritual and Ceremony, 144. 8° Braungart: Ritual, 433; see also Stroup: Ibid., 140-141. 1% Braungart: Ibid., 427. + 62 +
