‘Alternative’ Productions Off-Off-Off-Off-Broadway

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The New York Sun

Do you take pride in seeking out obscure theatrical productions in little-known venues off-off-Broadway? Well Edmund Lingan has attended some theater that few New Yorkers have seen.


This theater scholar, in a search for drama involving theosophy, anthroposophy, occultism, and neo-paganism, has traveled to Europe, gone to an apartment in Queens, and even stood on a Manhattan pier to witness theatrical and performance traditions of various alternative spiritual movements. He defines “alternative” as spiritual practices that a majority of the general population in the culture find nontraditional or unconventional.


Don’t expect to see these plays anytime soon under footlights around Times Square. “They’re not trying to create a hit on Broadway,” Mr. Lingan said. “They view theater as a spiritual endeavor, not a commercial endeavor.”


To study theatrical manifestations of religious experience, he attended a gnostic Mass in Queens held by an occult society called Ordo Templi Orientis; witnessed a solstice celebration conducted in the middle of the night by an urban shaman at the end of a pier near the South Street Seaport; and ventured to Switzerland to see four seven-hour mystery dramas by anthroposophy founder Rudolf Steiner, whose method, “Eurythmy,” aims to express aspects of the soul through movement.


How did he become interested in this unusual kind of theater? Mr. Lingan began to see references to members of esoteric traditions while studying Symbolist avant-garde theater, where plays often involve invisible forces that affect everyday life, a central idea of the occult. “I began to wonder if there was a tradition of theater and performance associated with occult societies,” he said.


In researching this subject, he overcame hurdles such as getting permission as an outsider to examine archives of spiritual movements. He believes he is among the few nonmembers to have examined the archives of the Theosophical Society in the last 30 years. Inside the scholarly community, there can be hurdles as well, he said. The subject can be a bit “edgy for academe,” he noted. For example, grant makers want to be sure he is not proselytizing. He is not, Mr. Lingan says.


He has been conducting research for a book on Katherine Tingley, a Theosophist leader between 1897 and 1929 who ran a utopian settlement in Point Loma, Calif. For spiritual enlightenment, Tingley staged Greek plays, Shakespearean dramas, Theosophical plays called “symposia,” and pageants. A pioneer of the Greek Revivalist movement in America around the turn of the century, Tingley attracted followers that included sporting-goods manufacturer Albert Spaulding.


Spirituality is a theme in some of Mr. Lingan’s own playwriting as well. He has written “Godgoo” about a poor, lonely fellow who wishes to invoke the essence of God, but all he has at his disposal are items he can find at a local grocery, such as Twinkies and rubber gloves. “Bartholomew’s Revenge” is a play about an alchemist out of place in everyday society. In late March, Mr. Lingan will also be directing an adaptation of Christopher Marlowe’s “Dr. Faustus” at Baruch College. He successfully defended his CUNY Graduate Center doctoral dissertation in September on “The Theatre of the New Religious Movements of Europe and America From the 19th Century to the Present.” This spring, he is teaching two classes at New York University, one on experimental theater and another on realism and naturalism in the theater.


He also has founded the International Institute for the Study of Performance and Spiritual Movements, which will maintain an online resource of visual and written materials of new spiritual movements and publish an online scholarly journal. The institute will launch its Web site at an inaugural event next Thursday at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center at the CUNY Graduate Center. A panel will convene with performance artist Jose Alvarez; CUNY Graduate Center professor Daniel Gerould, a specialist in Polish and Russian drama; Bonnie Marranca, who edits PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art; anthropologist Angela Zito, who co-directs NYU’s Center for Religion and Media; Yale School of Drama professor Elinor Fuchs; and Lance Gharavi, who teaches digital theater at Arizona State University.


The institute may be part of a trend in America of greater scholarly attention paid to religion. Mr. Lingan said there has been growing interest in the topic of religion at meetings of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education and the American Society for Theater Research.


Mr. Lingan’s early childhood was suffused with faith; he grew up in a fundamentalist household in Texas that belonged to a church that believed in the literal truth of the Bible. He became a minister at the age of 14 and preached until he was 18. His wife is Jewish. “The rabbi who married us blends Eastern mysticism into his Judaism,” he said. He presently considers himself a “religious relativist.”


gshapiro@nysun.com


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