"Ritual, Theatre, and Jean Genet's "The Blacks

Theatre and have often been linked in studies of drama. Nowhere is this more the case, for example, than in the works of Harrison, Murray, and Cornford who sought to trace the origins of Greek drama back to primal ritual.' More recently, as Anthony Graham-White has observed, ritual and its cognates have become increasingly common terms in both dramatic criticism and theory.2 This trend can be clearly observed in the case of the theatre of Jean Genet. Indeed, Charles Marowitz, writing in 1966 of his involvement in a production of The Screens, commented: Ritualistic may be a critic's cliche when writing about Genet but it becomes a directional Rosetta Stone in rehearsal.3 Nearly all critical studies of Genet's theatre include some reference to the elements of his drama. However, no attempt has been made to account for the emergence of ritual as a critical term in connection with Genet's work, nor to evaluate its relevance. The purpose of this article is to examine these areas. The discussion has three principal objectives

Art · History · Literature, Musicology, and Cultural Analysis · Musicology and Musical Analysis · Theatre and Performance Studies

• Black and White and Re(a)d All Over Again

  H Gilbert•Theatre Journal•2003

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