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ENIKŐ SEPSI
concrete programs. Given that, we must be wary of emptying the concepts of
meaning via overuse. Better to leave the prayers empty space, the plunge to
the earth, the possibility of humilitas humana.
RITE AND THEATER:
RITUALS IN VALERE NOVARINA’S WORKS
To provide an overview of the different connections between emptying and
ritual for the analysis of Novarina’s theater, I call on not only the classics
(Gluckman, van Gennep, Turner) but also Artaud, who calls theater spatial
poetry that uses language metaphorically: it exchanges everyday meaning for
another one.” Developing the thought further with Richard Schechner, we can
also say that in theater, “real events” are revealed as metaphors fundamentally
tied to rites.** The poetic ritual of art goes further to become self-reflexive, self¬
questioning. The spectator approaches this self-enclosing object anamorphi¬
cally, when it is a matter of ritual. In other words, it is only in being immersed
in the rite that certain meanings become visible.
In his essay Les Rites de passage Max Gluckman illuminates the terminologi¬
cal confusion surrounding the concept,** whose solution he sees in the creation
of a concept of rite in which its exemplars relate to intangible meanings.” Van
Gennep’s well-known schematic describes the structure of rites of transition,
in which the fundamental aim of transitional rites is to assist and ensure some
change of state; its process can be divided into three episodes: rites separating
from the earlier world are preliminary, the rites of the transitional stages are
liminal, and the rites of acceptance into the new world he terms postlimi¬
nal." This scheme accurately depicts Novarina’s circular dramaturgy, which
traverses three stages, overturning an initial state and then building upon its
recurrence in a new, transformed condition.
Victor Turner further develops van Gennep’s scheme,” revealing the pe¬
culiarities within each stage in the form of their main characteristics. A new
concept, communitas, signals the elevated ego-state, the achievement of a
higher-level I-Thou relationship, during the course of which, connecting to
the liminal state, people are denuded of their earlier selves and encounter
2 Artaud: Thédtre oriental et thédtre occidental, 112.
Richard Schechner: From Ritual to Theatre and Back: The Efficacy-Entertainment Braid, in
Essays on Performance Theory 1970-1976, New York, Drama Book Specialists, 1977, 74.
Max Gluckman: Les Rites de passage, in M. Gluckman — D. Forde (eds.): Essays on the Ritual
of Social Relations, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1962, 20-22.
25 Ibid., 22.
Arnold van Gennep: The Rites of Passage, Routledge Library Editions, Anthropology and
Ethnography (Paperback Reprint ed.), Hove (East Sussex, UK), Psychology Press, 1977 [1960].
27 Ibid.
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