Do This: Liturgy as Performance Book

"Richard McCall takes what is perhaps the most obvious yet most neglected element in the liturgy, its dramatic character, and gives it superb theoretical substance. Liturgical studies can have many starting points but the most neglected of all is Jesus' command: Do this in memory of me. While the 'this' can be codified into rubrics,the essence of the command, i.e., the 'do' in 'Do this', is that it must be performed. Dr. McCall deftly and brilliantly explores the nature of such performance and its implications for liturgical studies. In this, he has advanced the field significantly." --Alejandro Garcia-Rivera, Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley "Richard McCall's Do This is an insightful work of scholarship that brings the tools of performance studies to bear on the doing of liturgical action. McCall moves freely between nascent church dramas,Aristotle's Poetics, liturgical theology, and historical reconstructions of medieval liturgy. Paralleling recent work in performance and cultural studies, McCall understands that liturgy is first and foremost a performed event in a particular context--not a text or theology." --Troy Messenger, Union Theological Seminary "In this splendid contribution to liturgical theology, Richard McCall provides an excellent analysis of liturgical memorial through the lens of performance theory. In the course of the book McCall constructs a profound account of the liturgy as Trinitarian theology." --John F. Baldovin, S.J., Weston Jesuit School of Theology In this ambitious work, McCall follows the rise of dramatic interpretation of the early Christian liturgy from its beginnings through such elements as costumes, interpretative text, and gesture. He then examines the development of performance theory, focusing on the work of Victor Turner and Richard Schechner. Three views of liturgical theology, especially that of Aidan Kavanagh's, set the stage to construct a definition of liturgy as a mode of performance. McCall brings Aristotle's categories in the Poetics to bear on liturgical action. In the final chapter he analyzes the Gregorian Sacramentary and the actions described in Ordo Romanus I.Read More