Why The Ghostlight? Theatrical Superstition, Ritual, and Sacred Space Citation Collins Bandes, Patsy. Why The Ghostlight? Theatrical Superstition, Ritual, and Sacred Space. Master's thesis, Harvard University Division of Continuing Education. Permanent link https://nrs.edu/URN-3:HUL.INSTREPOS:37370048 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.edu/urn-3:HUL.terms-of-use#LAA Share Your Story The Harvard community has made this article openly available.
Please share how this access benefits you. Accessibility Why The Ghostlight? Theatrical Superstition, Ritual, and Sacred Space Patsy Collins Bandes A Thesis in the Field of Dramatic Arts for the Degree of Master of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies Harvard University November 2021 Copyright 2021 Patsy Collins Bandes Abstract Theater artists have long practiced superstitions and rituals such as leaving a light onstage to keep ghosts from taking up residence in the theater or not saying the name of the play Macbeth for fear of being cursed. The question we must ask is why? And what purpose do these rituals serve? By examining the history of the lineage of these superstitions through the lens of both practitioners such as Tony Church and Richard Huggett and theatrical scholars Gabriel Egan and Aoife Monks and looking at cultural and religious practices through the work of Victor Turner and Mircea Eliade, we see that the practices of superstition and ritual create the bonds of a community. In addition, they are part of what sanctifies a space, or prepares it for performance.
In this sacred space, the performers and audience together can be transformed by their collective and communal experience. Through the lenses of communications theorist James W. Carey and Jacques Ranciere we can look at artists and movements who have pushed back against mere transmission of information or the spectacle theater to create ritual communication and communal processes engaging both practitioners and audiences. But can that transformational space exist in a virtual medium? When the global COVID-19 pandemic forced theater-makers to move their work online, the collective now existed digitally.
Theorist John Perry Barlow of the Electronic Frontier Foundation defines cyberspace as a digital web where participants interact, and Jaron Lanier argues that it is merely the sum of its users. While both speak about it as if it is a space, it is metaphorical, not tangible. The question that must be asked is whether community and sacred space can be created in a digital format or is a physical environment a necessity for the creation of a sacred space and a community to create within it? 3 AuthorÕs Biographical Sketch Patsy Collins Bandes currently serves as the Chair of Theater at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, a position that she has held since 2019 after a year as interim Chair. Collins Bandes joined the Conservatory in 2004 as production stage manager and, in 2006, became a member of the theater and dance faculty as an Assistant Professor.
During her time at the Conservatory, Collins Bandes stage managed or directed more than 100 productions. Prior to joining the Conservatory, Collins Bandes served as a stage manager at the Denver Center Theatre Company, including the 1998 season, in which the theater won a Tony Award for excellence in regional theater. In this role, she worked on the world premieres of The Laramie Project and Give 'Em a Bit of Mystery: Shakespeare and the Old Tradition (with Sir Tony Church, a founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company), in addition to many other productions. She was also the production stage manager at the National Theatre Conservatory and at Lizard Head Theatre Company in Telluride, Colorado, where she stage managed for Roscoe Lee Browne and Anthony Zerbe on their production of Behind the Broken Words.
A respected theater artist, Collins Bandes has worked as a freelance stage manager and director for many companies in Boston and Denver, including North Shore Music Theatre, Aurora Fox Theater, Prometheus Dance, and Intermezzo Chamber Opera. iv Dedication To Polly Noone, Lloyd Norton, Tony Church, and those who passed the superstitions and rituals to me, and to those who might learn them from me in the future. v Acknowledgments My very special thanks and appreciation go to my advisor, Dr. James Stanley, for his thoughtful and insightful guidance during this project.
It would not have been possible without him, and I am eternally grateful. I am also thankful that he found the humor in his Avant Garde class to not fail me when I turned in a paper that was a collage of scribbled quotes and a hand drawn angry face in response to an assignment on Dada. I would also like to thank my many friends and colleagues at Boston Conservatory and my research advisors Dr. Talaya Delaney and Dr.
Special thanks go to Dr. Helen Deborah Lewis and Dr. Their undying moral support, advice, and proof-reading has kept me from fleeing to Tahiti on more than one occasion. Finally, a particularly large thank you to my family, Charley, Maija, and Ari, who will eternally remind me that I work too much and yet always encourage me to do what I love.
vi Table of Contents AuthorÕs Biographical Sketch. The ÒScottish PlayÓ: A Practical Background and History of Superstition. Science and Religion as Connected to Sacred Space. Ritual and Response: Spectacle Theater and the Need for Community.
Theater and Connection in the COVID Era. Introduction The image of a solitary light alone in the middle of a bare stage is a common symbol of the theater. Called a ghostlight, traditionally a bare bulb on a pole, this tool ensures that the theater1 never truly goes dark. Modern technology has made slightly less romanticized adjustments in using energy-efficient LED overhead or wall lighting, but they serve the same purpose.
Why is this? While there are certainly practical concerns, namely those around safety or OSHA2 requirements, many theater practitioners, myself included, are superstitious, and have come to believe there is a greater reason for this practice. I have been told by colleagues and collaborators various versions of the lightÕs purpose over the years, stories that they learned from other practitioners before them. One is that the light keeps the ghosts from taking up residence in the theater. Another is that it prevents the ghosts in residence from causing any mischief, as they only like the dark.
My personal favorite, however, is the idea that with a constant light onstage, the theater never truly closes. The circle of performance is never broken. While the ghosts in residence may continue to be there, the stage will remain the platform of the community of the living, even if there is not an actual performance currently happening. Like many 1 The use of the spelling theater (versus theatre) is a hotly debated topic among theater practitioners.
Some make the argument that -er describes the physical space, while -re the artistic practice. Others say that -re is the British English spelling and -er the American English spelling. While there is significant linguistic research and justification for either spelling, I will default to -er unless an artist or authorÕs work specifies otherwise. 2 Occupational Health and Safety Administration, which oversees workplace safety.
1 theatrical superstitions, this version originates in the creation of a community, and a particular space for that community to convene. While that space is primarily defined as a physical location, I maintain that it is also experiential. The sacred space of the theater is a place where an audience and performers come together to share something that exists only in that moment. They then leave somehow changed by the experience.
In this thesis I will establish that superstitions and rituals serve multiple purposes in the theater community. While there is certainly a piece of the practice that is comforting to the individual actor or practitioner, the superstitions and their continued existence serve larger purposes. The primary purpose of passing superstitions from person to person is to create a community with shared traditions, rituals, and practices. This mimics the idea of an initiation, or of hazing, where one can only truly be a member of the society when one has learned the secret handshake and password.
Building on the idea of the creation of community, superstitions are themselves a part of the rituals used to create a sacred space that is then used for the performance. This not only has an effect on the participants, but also on the space itself, or the participantsÕ collective experience of the space. I will also analyze the question of whether community and sanctity can exist in a digital environment, or if shared physical space is a requirement. Theatrical performances are unlike many other forms of entertainment that can be viewed over and over.
They exist only in that one moment, never to be repeated in the same way. In that sense they are a moment of communion, or coming together, between the performers and the audience, which has a strong resemblance to the moment of communion that occurs within a congregation in a place of worship. If there is a creation of something out of nothing that comes from the gathering of a group of people that can 2 only exist in that moment, the space of that creation is sacred. To help prepare that space, the participants would have established rites and rituals that they would practice to help create that space.
This can also be seen in public spaces when a group of people gather for a specific purpose, such as a rally or a protest. Space is not limited to a physical building but can be defined as any physical location where people are able to gather. While theater is frequently thought of as entertainment, my argument is that it serves a more spiritual purpose for its practitioners. Much of the information around why members of the theater community still believe these superstitions and practice these rituals is passed on through oral tradition rather than in scholarly documentation, handed down from person to person, and the stories grow and change slightly with each passage.
However, they are the through line of the community that binds it together. Those bonds of theater communities were tested when the continuing outbreak of COVID-19 involuntarily shut down theaters across the country, and quarantines and lockdowns forced people to isolate in their homes. Commercial theater was particularly hard hit, with thousands of people out of work and venues shuttered. However, while the industry was dealt a significant blow with shows closed for more than a year, the theater never truly goes dark.
Instead, practitioners took advantage of one of the most consequential global events of the modern age to reexamine the purpose of their work in the world. Theater artists quickly moved their craft into the virtual realm, creating theater in new mediums that had not yet been explored. The context of the performances was different, but the objective of the ritual stayed the same. Virtual theater was created with the goal of creating and connecting.
What happens to the transformational space when the 3 physical space disappears? Can the collective experience transcend the digital barrier of moving online and being physically separated? The lineage of theatrical culture means superstition and ritual are handed down from practitioner to practitioner, even when the practical origins no longer exist. Why do we, as a community, keep going back to these rituals passed down from practitioner to practitioner, from the late 1500s to today? The utilitarian reasons for (most) theatrical superstitions and rituals no longer exist. We still consider it bad luck to whistle in the theater, even though flying scenery is now operated by computers instead of sailors, who used whistling to communicate to each other. Even some of those who are not members of the theater community have heard such statements as ÒBreak a leg,Ó or ÒdonÕt say Macbeth in the theater,Ó or such terms as Òthe limelightÓ or Òbeing a ham.
