Toward Witnessing the Other: Syria, Islam and Frans van der Lugt

Abstract

This article addresses issues and questions at the intersection of religion and theatrical drama from the perspective of Muslim-Christian comparative theology. A case study approaching an actual performance of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet from this disciplinary point of view also takes into account the Syrian context, develops a framework for “mutual witnessing”, and the practice of drama therapy. Accordingly, the case-method proceeds to address two interrelated challenges. The first is how to relate to the adaptive praxis and theological sensibilities of performers who inhabit a political and religious situation that is radically different from one’s own. The second regards in a more specific way of reframing a case of Christian martyrdom in terms of witnessing that remains open and hospitable to religious others, and particularly in this case to Syrian Muslims. As an exercise of comparative theology, this case-method approach focuses on notions of “witnessing truth” that appear and are cultivated in the work of liberation theologian Jon Sobrino and in Ibn ‘Arabī’s Fusūs al-Hikam, specifically the chapter on Shuayb. In conclusion, this exercise turns to the performance itself as a potential foundation for shared theological reflection between Muslims and Christians. As such, this article attempts to render how theatrical action creates a “religious” experience according to the structure and threefold sense that Peter Brook observes.

Religion and Theatrical Drama, an Introduction

“…Michael VanZandt Collins' essay engages the case of a particular staging of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet where "mutual witnessing" opens possibilities for comparative theology. Like that performance's juxtaposition of star-crossed lovers and war-torn Syria, VanZandt Collins occasions new insights between Islamic and Christian theologies of martyrdom and witnessing truth (VanZandt Collins 2020).…”

“…Conversely, the language of theatrical drama might wander into the pages of the churchly (a la Karl Barth's kirchlich) theories on God, transcendence, and ritual. Recent turns to a "theatrical theology" (Vander Lugt and Hart 2014;Craigo-Snell 2014) follow the large footprints of Hans Urs von Balthasar's five-volume fusion of the European dramatic tradition and Christian systematic theology in Theo-Drama (von Balthasar 1988, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1998. If religion promises to codify and represent for our consideration in the "mirror held up to nature" those feelings and beliefs that make existence meaningful, then 15 See also (Bouchard 2011, pp.…”