The Symbolism of the Theater

Le symbolisme du théâtre, February 1932.

In a recent article (November 1931 issue), Mr. Clavelle rightfully pointed out that there is a symbolism of theater, just as we have spoken on a variety of occasions that there is a symbolism of journeys, pilgrimage, navigation, and war. Furthermore, this can be related to what we have already said about the primacy of the arts, sciences, and even trades, ^[235] all possessing a symbolic value by the fact that they were attached to a superior principle, from which they derived contingent applications, and which became purely 'profane' solely as a result of the spiritual degen- eration of humanity in the course of the downward march of its historical cycle.

It may be said, generally speaking, that the theater is a symbol of manifestation, of which it expresses the illusory character as perfectly as possible; this symbolism can be considered from the point of view of the actor, or from the point of view of the theater itself. The actor is, as Mr. Clavelle says, “a symbol of the Personality manifested as an indefinite series of individualities, until the day when he puts down the mask of his final role and leaves to never return to the scene of the manifested.” Note here the significance of the ancient usage of the mask and the perfect accuracy of this symbolism: indeed, under the mask the actor remains himself in all his roles, as the Personality is 'unaffected' by all its mani- festations; on the contrary, the suppression of the mask forces the actor to modify his own physiognomy and thus seems to alter in some way his essential identity. However, in all cases the actor remains fundamentally something else than what he appears to be, just as the Personality is something other than the manifold states of the manifested, which are only the external and changing appearances of which it is clothed to re- alized, according to the various modes which suit their nature, the indef- inite possibilities which it contains within itself in the permanent actu- ality of the non-manifest.

If we go to the other point of view, we can say that the theater is an image of the world: one and the other are properly a 'representation,' because the world itself, existing only as a consequence and expression of the Principle of which it depends essentially in all that is, can be re- garded as symbolizing in its own way the principal order, and this sym- bolic character confers on it a value superior even to what is within itself since this is where it participates in a higher degree of reality. ^[236] In Ara- bic, the theater is designated by the word tamthīl, which, like all those derived from the same root mathl, has the proper meaning of resem- blance, comparison, image, or figure; and some Muslim theologians use the expression alam tamthil, which could be translated as a 'figurative world,' to designate everything in the sacred scriptures that is described in symbolic terms which should not be taken literally. It is remarkable that some apply this expression in particular to angels and demons, who effectively 'represent' the higher and lower states of being; furthermore, we know the considerable role that these angels and demons played in the religious theater of the Western Middle Ages. Indeed, theater is not necessarily limited to represent the human world, which is a single state of manifestation; it can also represent the superior and inferior worlds at the same time. In the 'mysteries' of the Middle Ages the scene was, for this reason, divided into several stages corresponding to different worlds, generally distributed according to the ternary division: Heaven, Earth, Hell; and the action played simultane- ously in these different divisions represented the simultaneity of the states of being. The moderns, no longer understanding this symbolism, have come to regard it as a 'naïvety,' which is not to say a dullness, pre- cisely having the most profound meaning here; and what is astonishing is the rapidity with which this misunderstanding, so striking in the writ- ers of the seventeenth century has appeared; this radical break between the Middle Ages and modern times is not one of the least puzzles in his- tory. Since we have just spoken of the 'mysteries,' we do not think it is useless to point out the singularity of this denomination that has a dual meaning: one should, in all etymological rigor, write ‘misteries,' because this word is derived from the Latin ministerium, meaning 'office' or 'function,' which clearly indicates to what extent the theatrical represen- tations of this kind were originally considered as an integral part of the celebration of religious holidays. But what is strange is that this name has contracted and abbreviated so as to become exactly the namesake of 'mysteries;' and to finally be confused with this other work of Greek or-igins with a derivation that is far different; is it only by allusion to the 'mysteries' of religion, staged in the designated rooms that this assimila-tion may have occurred? This can likely be a plausible reason; on the other hand, if one thinks that similar symbolic representations took place in the 'mysteries' of antiquity, in Greece and probably also in Egypt as Mr. Clavelle has noted, one may be tempted to see there something that goes much farther, and as an indication of the continuity of a certain esoteric and initiatic tradition, affirming itself outside at more or less dis-tant intervals, by similar manifestations, with the adaptations required by the diversity of circumstance of time and place. Moreover, we have often had occasion to point out the importance, as a process of symbolic language, of phonetic assimilations between philologically distinct words; in truth, there is something there which is not arbitrary, whatever our contemporaries may think of it, and which is rather directly related to the modes of interpretation pertaining to the Hindu nirukta; but the secrets of the intimate constitution of language are so completely lost today that it is hardly possible to refer to it without everyone imagining that it is a question of 'false etymologies,' or even vulgar 'wordplays,' and Plato himself in his Cratylus, does not find favor with the pseudo-scientific 'criticism' of minds limited by modern prejudices.

To conclude these notes, we will again indicate in the symbolism of theater another point of view, that which relates to the dramatic author: the different characters, being mental productions of him, can be re-garded as representing secondary modifications and in a way extensions of himself, in much the same way as the subtle forms produced in the dream state. ^[237] The same consideration would, naturally, apply to the production of every type of imaginative work; but, in the particular case of the theater, it is special that this production is realized in a sensible way, giving the very image of life as it also takes place in the dream. In this respect, the author has a truly 'demiurgic' function, since he pro-duces a world that he draws entirely from himself; and it is in this, the very symbol of the Being producing the universal manifestation. In this case as well as in that of the dream, the essential unity of the producer of the 'illusory forms' is not affected by the multiplicity of accidental modifications, any more than the unity of the Being is affected by the multiplicity of the manifestation. Thus, from whatever point of view one finds oneself, one always finds in the theater that character which is its profound reason, unknown as it can be for those who are purely profane, which forms by its very nature one of the most perfect symbols of uni-versal manifestation.