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BIRTE GIESLER
in stating that it is guite impossible to discriminate exactly between ritual
and drama.? German drama researcher Hans-Ihies Lehmann refers to Victor
Turner’s differentiation between “social” and “aesthetic” drama in arguing:
Victor Turner made the important distinction between ‘social drama’, which takes
place in social reality, and what he called ‘aesthetic’ drama, primarily in order
to show how the latter ‘reflects’ hidden structures of the former. He emphasized,
however, that, conversely, the aesthetic articulations of social conflicts in turn
offer models for their perception and are partially responsible for the modes of
ritualization in real social life. He argued that aesthetically formed drama produces
images, structured forms of development, and ideological patterns that give order
to the social, its organization and perception.*
Aesthetic drama thus mirrors social drama, while at the same time taking part
in the shaping of ritualized forms of social interaction, human perception, and
the social order in general.’
Current human biotechnology, with its cultural practices in human genetic
engineering and reproductive medicine, challenges heteronormative sex and
gender identities and hence fundamentally contests traditional family forms.
‘Thus, theater plays dealing with reproductive technology and human genetic
engineering prove to be particularly useful in investigating gender as ritual in
literary drama. This is because drama and dramatic literature very much deal
with, and reflect on, “implicit knowledge” and the tension between language
and the body as the two major tools of human cognition. Lehmann points out:
“No other form of art but theater focuses that strongly on the human body, on
its vulnerable, violent, erotic, or ‘holy’ substantiality. [...] As is generally known
everything starts with a bodily act [...].”° However, in the age of human biotech¬
nology “everything” no longer starts with a bodily act but with a mechanical
procedure of technical devices. Lehmann further argues: “Cultural notions
of what ‘the’ body is are subject to ‘dramatic’ changes, and theater articulates
3 Matthias Warstat: Ritual, in E. Fischer-Lichte — D. Kolesch — M. Warstat (eds.): Metzler
Lexikon Theatertheorie, Stuttgart/Weimar, Metzler, 2005, 274-278, 274. See also Uri Rapp:
Rolle Interaktion Spiel. Eine Einführung in die Theatersoziologie, Wien/Köln/Weimar, Böhlau,
1993, 15.
Hans-Ihies Lehmann: Postdramatic theatre, trans. Karen Jürs-Munby, London/New York,
Routledge, 2006, 37.
On the fundamental relation between ritual and aesthetic drama see Bernhard Jahn: Grund¬
kurs Drama, Stuttgart, Klett, 2009, 74-82.
6° Lehmann: Postdramatisches Theater, Frankfurt a. M., Verlag der Autoren, 1999, 361f. [In
keiner anderen Kunstform steht der menschliche Körper, seine verletzliche, gewalttätige,
erotische oder ‘heilige’ Wirklichkeit so sehr im Zentrum wie im Theater. [...] Mit einem
körperlichen Akt fängt bekanntlich alles an [...].]“ (Translation by the author of this article
as this section is not part of the published translation.)
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