Abstract

This study examines the nature of the transmutation of historical reality into the illusion of reality of theatrical experience in the history play. Central to the study is developing a unity of perception which unites a play's literary, performance, and aesthetic qualities. An interaction dialectic among script, stage, and audience is set in motion, in which the moving viewpoint of the play meets the wandering viewpoint of the player. The point of intersection or interaction we are calling "making presence." We are emphasizing playing in order to grasp it in its becoming. Our purpose, then, is to enhance our theatrical experience by which we may remember who we are and how we are, where we touch the past and the present. ;The history play is the dramatic medium for revealing the past in the present. In "making presence," the player/reader actor/spectator plays the play/script performance by which the historical reality of the past becomes a perpetual presence. The illusion of reality created between the word becomes flesh on stage, and the response of the audience as it collects "moments of felt presence," "aha moments," as the play moves along, are the means by which historical reality becomes present to us. ;The interaction dialectic of dramatic art, historical reality and "making presence" unites as we take a creative approach to the criticism of John Osborne's Luther. ;Chapter I. We search for a language of the stage in order to speak of a dramatic work of art as an illusion of reality. ;Chapter II. We devise a method of exploration and encounter, "making presence," by which the illusion of reality on stage meets the illusion and reality in the audience. ;Chapter III. We examine the problematic nature of historical reality, the similarities and differences of translating history into art. ;Chapter IV. We test our assumptions on John Osborne's history play, Luther, and its connection with Erik Erikson's psychoanalytical study, Young Man Luther