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THE TRAGEDY OF MAN AS THEATRUM THEOLOGICUM (A DRAMATURG’S DIARY) ——~<~o»—___ ANDRAS VISKY The theater of parousia means the theater of “Christ’s appearance at the Last Judgment.” In other words: the theater of the Resurrection. In ancient Greek usage, parousia referred to the rite of the ruler’s visit; in the Gospels, to the final visit of the Redeemer, that is, to the second coming of the Messiah, the final, fulfilling event when He restores “the country” and sits in final judgment. “This will be the theater of parousia,” Silviu Purcarete declares on the first day of rehearsal of The Tragedy of Man with a theater company in Temesvar (Romania) in 2019. This dramaturg’s diary documents the elaboration of this directorial proposition meaning rendering justice that represents the essence of theater. This is not solely a philosophical-theological matter, but also poetic advice: with Purcärete, in any event, we come face to face with it, since he regards the theater as the stage of universal events: a space where Revelation is achieved and we participate in the administration of justice. Not a theater of illusion, opposed to reality, but on the contrary, the theater of the sole reality, opposed to the world as optical illusion. The theater to which I commit myself is that which glorifies men’s failures much rather than their strength and efficacy. A place where we can observe the human being’s frailty, weakness, faults, and inadequacies. Silviu Purcärete! 1 Silviu Purcärete: Images de théâtre, Carnières (Belgium), Lansman Editeur, 2002, 26. e 225 +
