Staging the Numinous: Dramaturgy, Memory, and the Cosmology of Stella Mittentis

Abstract

Modern dramaturgy is often discussed through psychological frameworks, yet the theatrical imagination’s lineage can be traced to an older correspondence between human experience and spiritual thought. In other words, theatrical function has its origins as a conduit between the living and what lies beyond perception, invoking unseen correspondence between human, memory, and even spirit. This thesis turns to the less-discussed terrain of dramaturgy, considering how drama can be a viable means of tending to the unseen. My research begins with the question of why humans look upwards in moments of crisis and how cosmological thought shapes our understanding of grief and cosmological inheritance. It poses questions about the ways in which spectral logic can be interpreted as contemporary performance. Working through a practice-based inquiry, the research is accompanied and anchored by my play, Stella Mittentis, whose premise is set within a cave. This thesis charts the creative and imaginative process of the piece, grounded in examinations of subterranean environments and theatrical traditions by Beckett, Pessoa, Watkins, Yeats, Ota Shōgo, and Kuo Pao Kun. These works reveal a preoccupation with the spectral and ineffable. This paper also draws on Ptolemaic cosmologies, Western Esoteric thought, and writings the intersections between ancient and modern thought that continue to animate our lives. In establishing these affinities, the exegesis proposes “spiritual realism” as a dramaturgical approach, a way of shaping theatre experiences that honours the numinous and its consequential metaphysical inquiry. This study aims to articulate a creative method for attending to that which resists articulation. In doing so, this thesis seeks to expand on the discussion of theatre-making and its imaginative possibilities.