In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Theatre Journal 55.4 (2003) 740-742



[Access article in PDF]
The Bible as Theatre. By Shimon Levy. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2000; Pp. X + 274. $69.50 Cloth, $27.95 Paper.

Oberammergau: the Troubling Story of the World's Most Famous Passion Play. By James S. Shapiro. New York: Vintage Books, 2001; Pp. X + 238. $13.00 Paper.


The Bible stands at the foundation of Western culture. Not only did it help form the way Euro-Americans think and behave but it also provided story materials for countless plays reaching from Exagoge, ascribed to a Jew named Ezekiel sometime between 250 BCE and 50 CE, all the way to Terrence McNally's Corpus Christi. However, the two communities most closely tied to the Bible—Judaism and Christianity—have had a problematic relationship with theatre, not to mention with each other. Shimon Levy's The Bible as Theatre and James Shapiro's Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World's Most Famous Passion Play contribute to our understanding of the relationship between theatre and Biblical narratives and, in the case of Shapiro's book, the relationship between Christians and Jews.

Levy's The Bible as Theatre uses theatrical perceptions to investigate fourteen passages from the Old Testament, some familiar and some less so. From the Torah, Levy deals with the stories of Tamar and of Moses at Kibroth-hattaavah. From Old Testament wisdom literature he discusses passages from Proverbs and the Song of Songs. From Judges he covers the stories of Deborah and of the Levite's concubine. From the historical writings he comments on the stories of Ruth, David and Bathsheba, Elisha, and Jehu, and from the prophets and post-exilic writings, the stories of Esther and Jonah and the prophets Daniel and Ezekiel. Besides his theatrical knowledge and background, Levy brings to this study proficiency in Hebrew, a background in the religion/theatre nexus (see his Theatre & Holy Script reviewed in the March 2003 issue of Theatre Journal), and perhaps most importantly his sense of discovery: as an Israeli living in the biblical lands, he attempts to meld the geographical, political, cultural, and religious elements he finds there.

In spite of Levy's attempts to clarify his aims and methodologies, the book remains difficult to categorize. Levy sets out to illuminate "the intrinsic theatrical qualities in the biblical texts themselves" (2) and "to explore the performability of the Bible and analyze the stories' theatrical potential" (4). Yet he doesn't attempt to explain how to stage the stories; he doesn't analyze drama-in-life in the manner of performance studies; he doesn't deal with existing theatrical adaptations of the biblical stories; and he makes no attempt to suggest that the stories were intended as scripts for actors or patterned after dramatic texts.

All things considered, the book makes most sense as a biblical commentary on selected Old Testament passages. As such, it follows a Bible-as-(dramatic)-literature approach that illuminates the passages through linguistic and cultural insights along with Levy's theatrical sensibility. Particular strengths of Levy's exegesis are his awareness of traditional and current approaches to biblical scholarship and his freedom from dogmatic, theological intentions. The book's fresh, non-theological, theatrically sensitized viewpoint can give readers a new, liberating approach to reading the Bible. This approach would make the book especially effective for readers who have been alienated from the Bible because of its uses by religion and readers who have been so conditioned by specific interpretations of the stories that they are distanced from the texts themselves.

The most exciting possibility, however, is that the book may stimulate further study of issues that Levy touches on. Topics of potential interest to theatre producers and scholars—Jewish, Christian, or otherwise—include the following: how have [End Page 740] theatrical adaptations of Biblical narratives reinterpreted the stories, with what effect have they done so, and what do the reinterpretations demonstrate about the producers and the source scriptures themselves? For instance, how have the Purim plays performed annually in...

pdf

Share