Teatr wobec sacrum - zarys problematyki

Abstract

A historian of theater constantly uses terms such as liturgical theater or religious theater with its many varieties. A person doing research on contemporary theater does not encounter these terms on a daily basis, but he can extend his knowledge by focusing on the presence of the phenomenon of "religiosity" in the theater, which presence, according to the suggestions of the contemporary anthropology of culture, is dubbed the sacrum. The secularization of the theater, resulting from a rather common secularization of life in economically developed countries, is a plain fact. This phenomenon, however, does not equal becoming distant form the sacrum. The need for the sacrum exists in the heart of man as his integral part and there is nothing to indicate that it should disappear. An overwhelming majority of artists, following the tendencies of the theater of the twentieth century, have touched on the theme of the sacrum in their pursuit of renewing the ritual, but it is happening by way of going back to the sources of the human community and to the sources of the theater rather than by way of going back to clearly defined values.