Theater as Liturgy in the Post-Christian Age

This is the first book-length study of one of the most talented and exciting American playwrights working today. Stephen Adly Guirgis has said that “God is the starting point and the finish line” of his work, and this book identifies him as a playwright with a distinctly Christian sensibility who uses the technique of “inculturation” to translate the gospel for a secular audience. Critics have noted that his plays are peopled with poor, suffering minority figures, but few have also noted that these figures bear a remarkable similarity to the dispossessed with whom Jesus identifies in Matthew 25.

Beginning with his early play Den of Thieves and proceeding through each of his dramas, this work examines Guirgis’s plays within a biblical context. While noting that Guirgis is a writer of the “post–Christian age” who staunchly resists identification as a “Christian playwright,” the book situates him within the tradition of the “drama of ideas” as a powerful writer employing a dialectical method to inculcate the New Testament ethos and transform the theater space into a place of sacrament.

Matthew Yde holds a PhD in theatre history, literature, and criticism from The Ohio State University. He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Matthew Yde
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 247
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2024
pISBN: 978-1-4766-8894-7
eISBN: 978-1-4766-5281-8
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
One—A Parable of the Kingdom: Den of Thieves 29
Two—Globalization and Its Dispossessed: In Arabia, We’d All Be Kings 39
Three—A Theology of the Cross: Jesus Hopped the A Train 53
Four—The Return of the Prodigal Son: Our Lady of 121st Street 75
Five—“He Descended into Hell”: The Last Days of Judas Iscariot 94
Six—The Bound and the Loosed: The Little Flower of East Orange 124
Seven—Stephen Adly Guirgis and the Big Book: The Motherfucker with the Hat 143
Eight—“Jesus Is Black”: Between Riverside and Crazy 163
Conclusion 183
Chapter Notes 201
Bibliography 221
Index 229