Moving the margins with/of methodology: Towards a drama lens on the Fourth Gospel1

Various scholars have speculated about the possible link between the Fourth Gospel and drama. Such a connection, if valid, could potentially lead to the widening of hermeneutical lenses with which the Gospel is explored. While the exegetical field of biblical performance criticism has begun to break open the hermeneutical field by introducing performative and oral elements into the conversation, an attempt to formulate a methodology for a drama analysis of the text still needs to be made. This article evaluates the possibility of reading the Fourth Gospel through a drama lens in order to explore its possible performative impact on a first-time hypothetical audience. The article experiments with possible parameters of biblical drama criticism and how the translation of the text into stage-script format could be useful in academic and ecclesial spaces. Such a translation invites new experiences with the text and an expansion of the hermeneutical spectrum to include various non-textual elements like sound and sight. Moreover, it widens the hermeneutical scope to explore the audience’s own (vulnerable) journey with the performance by taking their possible struggle(s) with the drama seriously.


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beginning and builds to a crisis." 14 Scholars like Cummins, 15 Swanson,16 and Rhoads 17 therefore recognise that the interest to study the Fourth Gospel through a drama lens is a noteworthy development. This is the sentiment which gave rise to the experimental exegetical exercise of translating the Fourth Gospel as a script and exploring it accordinglyan exercise that this article aims to sample. While it cannot be said that the Fourth Gospel is a drama, it seems to contain various elements that resemble a drama and can thus invite a drama lens to the exegetical process. 18 However, the space for such an analysis will also need to be found within the sub-discipline of Biblical Studies. For this, it is imperative to look at biblical performance criticism as emerging methodological field.

Biblical performance criticism
African biblical scholar Musa Dube 19 has long emphasised the importance of biblical scholarship which takes seriously the oral culture within African communities. Moreover, scholars like Tom Boomershine, Joanna Dewey, David Rhoads, and Holly Hearon have emphasised the general lack of attention to the oral/aural nature of texts and have therefore began experimenting with an exegetical avenue referred to as biblical performance criticism, which approaches biblical texts as witnesses composed to be read out loud and even performed in front of faith communities and churches. 20 40 van Deventer • STJ 2020, Vol 6, No 4, 37-58 Perry succinctly defines performance criticism as "the analysis and practise of performance". 21 It explores the oral and performative nature of a text, 22 and analyses the possible effect(s) on an audience in a specific context 23 by incorporating sound, sight, speech, and the reaction/response of an audience. 24 Horsley motivates the need for the appropriation of performance criticism by referring to the danger of the "typographical captivity of biblical studies," which stems from the assumption that "biblical 'books' were widely distributed, readily available, and easily read" in the ancient Mediterranean. 25 Literacy was, in fact, limited in the first century (even among the elite), and oral transmission was the chosen (but not only) medium of communication. 26 This included the communication of biblical texts, which were "repeatedly 'reactivated' in oral performance." 27 Cascade Books, 2012), 1. 21 P.S. Perry Without creating a false dichotomy between literacy and orality, 28 or ascribing any motives of playwright to the Johannine author, this study aims to latch on to the momentum of biblical performance criticism, which allows interpreters to explore various elements or versions of performance. 29 Such a perspective sees the Fourth Gospel as a dynamic oral text with various performative possibilities, including that of drama. Rhoads 30 affirms such an innovative risk by calling for the emergence of new methodologies within performance criticism that can bring the performative nature of biblical texts to the fore, among which he mentions theatre studies as a potential partner. 31 Moreover, Swanson explores the possibility of biblical narratives finding "ensemble dramatic representation" in the exegetical field. 32 According to Rhoads,33 such new methodologies can take on one of three approaches. The first is to imaginatively reconstruct the performance of a specific writing and then to explore that writing with the hypothetical performance in mind. The second is to reorient existing methodologies to focus on the oral dimension of biblical writings, and the third is to actually perform these texts in our own languages and explore and analyse those performances. 34 This article reflects on the incorporation of the first and second of the above approaches by sampling a construction of and Prospects," in D. Rhoads

Biblical drama criticism
Drama criticism seeks to "examine the line of communication, the transmission of signals between stage and audience and back again." 35 In order to do this, the methodology explores elements on stage, the sociohistorical world found beneath the dialogue, 36 as well as the audience's different reactions to the performance. However, as twenty-first century receivers of a text, the challenge remains to become an audience who would be better equipped to understand the nuances of the drama in its context.
In a drama analysis one would therefore create something along the lines of a hypothetical audience -a historically-informed and textually-constructed group of receivers. Literary cues in the text give insight regarding the shared knowledge between the sender and receivers (e.g., Jn 4:9), where socio-historic analysis provides more insight into the world(s) of such an audience (e.g., the ancient reality of gendered spaces amid a context of honour and shame). For the analysis of the Fourth Gospel this audience is created by pairing information from the text with socio-scientific studies of the first-century Mediterranean. 37 In developing a tool for the text, Aristotle's Περὶ ποιητικῆς (commonly referred to as The Poetics) 38 becomes a crucial dialogue partner. In his discussion, Aristotle (1450a) identifies six essential elements of tragedy, which can be condensed into five for a drama analysis. 39 Aristotle (1450a) identifies the first component to the drama as ὁ μῦθος (the plot) and defines it as the sequence of events that carries along the drama. The second element (1450b) is that of ἦθος (custom, habit, or behavioural patter), 40 which refers to characterisation. Characters are known through various means, including their speech, actions, gestures, clothing, the speech of others, and the settings in which they appear and function. 41 Thirdly, Aristotle (1450b) refers to διάνοια (thought), defining it as "the ability to say what is possible and appropriate." In drama theory, this is translated as theme(s) -the morals or lessons that the audience can learn through the story. 42 The fourth element is that of λέξις (a saying; a speech) (1450b) and μέλος (tune; melody), which can be categorised under the audible. Language can serve to inform or confuse the audience. 43 The hidden or intended meaning behind words (or actions) in a drama functions as subtext, which can be found in various forms, including symbolism, irony, contrast, and comparison. The author can also use memorable lines to keep the audience engaged and create certain expectations among them. 44 Included in the audible, are the sounds coming from the audience-itself. The last element is what Aristotle (1450b) refers to as ὄψῐς (the visual). The goal of the visual is to capture and hold the attention of the audience and to reinforce other elements of the drama. 45 This includes settings, décor, and props, as well as the visual experience of the audience-itself.
The focal point of such an analysis is the hypothetical audience and their reception of and grappling with the drama. This is brought to the fore by focussing on the aforementioned elements and bringing the world on stage into dialogue with the audience's socio-historic realities. While the above argues that the elements apply to all forms of drama (even comedy) and are commonly used in script writing and drama analysis. 40 J.P. Louw  elements do not constitute a comprehensive tool for drama analysis, they are plausible starting points for a creative methodology which explores the dramatic and performative side of the Fourth Gospel. The study at hand follows the experiment of translating a pericope from the Fourth Gospel into the form of a stage-style script and analysing it accordingly to unlock something of the performative dimension(s) and rhetorical effect of the text. To illustrate what such an analysis would look like, at excerpt from the drama analysis of John 19:17-18 and 19:28-30 will follow (the beginning and ending of the crucifixion scene). The text will be provided in Greek, followed by a narrative translation (my own), and a translation in the form of a stage-style script -the performative translation. 46 Finally, some exegetical observations will be made from the perspective of a hypothetical audience.

Narrative translation
And, carrying his own cross, he was going out to [the place] called the place of a skull, which was called Golgotha in Aramaic; there they crucified him, and with him two others on each side, and Jesus in the middle. 46 The script format will be edited according to Fink,Dramatic Story Structure,[191][192][193][194] layout. 47 Verse 17 indicates a change in setting from Pilate's praetorium, where Jesus was just trialled, to Golgotha. While the division between verse 16b (Παρέλαβον οὖν τὸν Ἰησοῦν -"So, they took Jesus…") and 17 (… καὶ βαστάζων ἑαυτῷ τὸν σταυρὸν ἐξῆλθεν -"… and, carrying his own cross, he went out …") splits a sentence in half, the change in setting merits a scene change. Verse 17, therefore, opens the crucifixion scene. van Deventer • STJ 2020, Vol 6, No 4, 37-58

Performative translation SETTING
The scene begins with bright and warm lights. It is just after noonday. 48 The centre of the stage is elevated by rostrums representing the last climb and peak of a hill (the rest of the hill is assumed to be off stage). On the top are three wooden poles planted into the ground. 49

AT RISE
On the top of the hill are two men who are held by four SOLDIERS. They are not well-composed individuals, but rough criminals, cursing, spitting and scratching at the SOLDIERS who are holding them down. Some of the SOLDIERS on the hill are holding hammers and long nails.
[17] JESUS staggers onto the scene (on the far left), carrying a heavy wooden beam, surrounded by a group of SOLDIERS and a large CROWD. JESUS is still bloody from the scourging and the audience can see that he is severely fatigued as he collapses every now and then. He has been climbing this hill for a while and the heat of the sun seems to be intensifying his discomfort.
(JESUS is stumbling and moaning, struggling to climb the hill.)  van Deventer • STJ 2020, Vol 6, No 4, 37-58 (The four SOLDIERS take the two CRIMINALS and hold them down onto two wooden beams on the ground. Starting with one CRIMINAL, a SOLDIER swings a hammer downwards and slashes a nail through his wrist, pinning him to the wooden beam. The screech of the CRIMINAL penetrates the auditorium and blood gushes from his wrist. This horrendous deed is repeated as his other wrist is fastened to the beam.) (Terrified, the next CRIMINAL tries desperately to loosen himself from the grip of the SOLDIERS, but he too is slammed to the ground and violently nailed to the wooden beam. With this, they are lifted up and fastened to the poles in the ground, exposing their nude and broken bodies, 50 after which they are also nailed to the poles at their feet.) (The SOLDIERS then take JESUS and shove him onto a wooden beam, ripping off the blood-stained robe, as well as his undergarment. As with the CRIMINALS before him, his wrists are violently nailed to the wooden beam.)

JESUS
(Releases a cry of pain.)

Narrative translation
After this, knowing that everything had already been completed, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled, Jesus was saying, "I thirst." A jar full of sour wine was standing [there]. So, placing a sponge full of sour wine on a hyssop branch, they brought it to his mouth. When he took the sour wine, Jesus said, "It has been completed," and bowing his head, he gave up his spirit. (One by one the CROWD begins leaving the stage, followed by the SOLDIERS. In a matter of seconds, the stage is nearly empty. All that remains is JESUS's loved ones crying silently at the feet of his lifeless and naked body and the two unresponsive CRIMINALS hanging next to him.) (The stage gradually darkens, until only the crucified protagonist is illuminated. Suddenly all is quiet.) ) 48 van Deventer • STJ 2020, Vol 6, No 4, 37-58 (END OF SCENE)

Exegetical notes on the performative translation
To an ancient Mediterranean audience, Jesus's death is not heroic nor beneficial, but one of defeat and ultimately dishonour. 52 It is a slow and painful downfall accompanied by "bodily distortions," "loss of bodily control," 53 and nakedness. 54 The action in the scene they just witnessed was centred around that which would "normally be physical humiliation of a prisoner." 55 The audience would recognise the crucifixion as one of the most pitiable ways to die. Unlike some ancient dramas, nature does not sympathise with the hero: there are no divine signs, no utterings from heaven, no natural disasters -just the hero dying a gruesome and lonesome death. 56 From a dramatic point of view, Jesus's death on the cross leaves behind a θεατρον of particularly dissatisfied audience members. This scene has failed to provide a moment of recovery (spark) which would have brought Jesus back into the fight for triumph. Instead, the protagonist's darkest hour just grew darker to the point where the Johannine drama's plot has unravelled into something almost unredeemable. Moreover, the presence of the protagonist has completely disappeared, and the antagonists seem to reign supreme. 52 Neyrey, The Gospel of John, 24. 53 Ibid., 413. 54 The humiliation of nakedness and the slow death were institutionalised methods of ensuring that the crucified be robbed of any form of heroic suffering (Brant,Dialogue and Drama,243). The audience has become part "of what it otherwise cannot see or, in some cases, cannot normally bear to look at," 57 by essentially being confronted with a protagonist from whom they feel alienated due to the imperfections of his fate. 58 The culturally-conditioned interpretation of the glorious tiding that the darkness will not master the light (1:5) and that ὁ λόγος will embody a good and abundant life which reflects the divine order, seems difficult to reconcile with the fact that Jesus hangs mastered by his enemies and dies a vulnerable death. A paradox ensues as the drama which set out to display the glory of God has unfolded as a tragedy. 59 The audience would recognise a tragedy as a drama which deals with "sorrowful or terrible events" in a serious way 60 and focuses on the suffering of a great figure. 61 The hero of a tragedy usually suffers an unfortunate fate due to their own foolish and immoral actions 62 or boastful pride (hybris). 63 The rhetorical effect of such a portrayal would be that the audience distances itself from the protagonist, which leads to the examination of the self and serves to reinforce the opposite behaviour than that of the protagonist. 64 Those on the side of the antagonist berating Jesus for making himself equal to God (5:18; 10:33; 19:7), labelling him as evil-doer (18:30), handing him over to be killed (18:35), choosing a bandit over him (18:40), flogging and mocking him (9:1, 3), and condemning him to crucifixion (19:6, 15) are thus creating a plausible point of view for the audience to identify with based on Jesus's performance.
On the other side, the audience is confronted with the incomprehensible point of view of the Fourth Evangelist who seems to dress the horrific events of the climax in glorious terms and exhorts the audience to make a choice for the protagonist (1:12; 20:30-31). Instead of adjusting his point of view to that of failure and shame, the Evangelist maintains that the glory of God has just been displayed through that which the audience witnessed (1:14; 12:23-25, 27-28; 17:1), essentially collapsing the suffering and glorification of Jesus into one another. 65 The audience members are therefore caught off guard as the glory promised by the narrator in the prologue, seems to have unfolded as a "crucified glory", 66 which finds its ultimate manifestation in the crucifixion scene, where neither fame (κλέος) nor honour (τιμή) are present. 67 As Jesus's vulnerability intensifies, the Evangelist seems to insist that God's glory not only remains present, but increases. 68 Intensifying the audience's struggle with the performance is that the genre does not fit the content. The choice of tragedy for a drama in which God is revealed is inappropriate to say the least -especially in the case where God becomes the object of the tragedy. Moreover, the audience was not adequately prepared for this by the prologue. Where tragedies commonly began with a catastrophic error on the side of the protagonist, 69 the Johannine prologue paints the protagonist in a virtuous and glory-filled way, triggering expectations about the Messiah, σοφία (Wisdom), and the divine. 70 If becoming the implied audience involves adapting to the point of view of the Evangelist, 71 the audience will have to make sense of the Johannine drama in an alternative way and reconcile the tragic and vulnerable anticlimax of the Johannine drama with the Evangelist's point of view of glory (δόξα), which he seems to be gradually massaging in throughout the drama.

Evaluations of drama criticism
While the above example is but a sample of an analysis that covers nearly three chapters of the Fourth Gospel, it brings the audience's interaction with the text to the fore in a way that highlights often-underplayed dimensions, like the evaluation of the protagonist's performance against culturallyconditioned foreknowledge about him(/her), the theological implications of genre, and a contextualised audience's emotions at the height or climax of the drama.
Although the experience of the hypothetical audience is nothing more than an informed guess, it helps the exegete to involve her/himself in the text in a more emotive and experiential way. Moreover, such a hypothetical construction can serve to create various "audience scenarios" 72 with which to imagine the performative event of the drama of a biblical text. This opens the interpretational possibility to witness the Johannine drama through the eyes of our own communities, social or cultural groups, embodied experiences, et cetera.
By becoming aware of a first-time hypothetical audience, a drama analysis can also be helpful to allow the reader to escape their familiarity with the text and experience it in a new way. Additionally, the communal nature of the hypothetical audience highlights that biblical texts were not read and interpreted in isolation, but that various individuals' biographies function as a story within a bigger drama. 73 52 van Deventer • STJ 2020, Vol 6, No 4, 37-58 Finally, the most profound contribution of a drama analysis of the Fourth Gospel is that it brings the text to life in a new way. 74 As interpreter, I was stimulated to have an experience with the text that was enjoyable, and might I risk saying, entertaining. 75 Rhoads, who explored the avenue of performance criticism, 76 emphasises that biblical texts were essentially composed for public reading and storytelling, which would have been "animated, emotional, and engaging." 77 Stimulating, entertaining, and creative methodologies to biblical studies therefore need not be "a problem for biblical hermeneutics, but its ultimate aim." 78 The ecclesial and missional potential of a performative translation is thus something to anticipate.
However, just as drama criticism opens up certain hermeneutical possibilities, it closes others. 79 Being a biblical scholar, and being aware of the dangers of anachronism, I have to admit that this translating and reading process has its shortcomings. Not only does it impose modern drama theory on an ancient text, but it builds a hypothetical first-century world through a twenty-first century lens. Similar to narrative criticism, 80 drama analysis blurs the lines between modern and ancient performative study by using tools from modern drama theory to analyse ancient texts, 81 and underplays the unique elements of the ancient Greek drama that were germane to the first-century context of the Gospel of John. 82 Moreover, there is no evidence that the Fourth Gospel was composed to be performed as a drama and the contemporary reader cannot know how biblical texts were heard in the first century. 83 Therefore, interpretations of tone, attitudes, facial and bodily expressions, et cetera, can surely be subject to anachronistic exaggeration or misunderstanding due to the various barriers of language and culture that stand between ancient and modern audiences. 84 Additionally, the influence of the interpreter's perspective in a drama analysis problematises the exercise. As experience is drenched in subjectivity, so is the outcome of a drama analysis. No two individuals will walk out of a theatre performance having come to exactly the same conclusions. Rightfully so, there are scholars who warn that the reading of the Gospel of John through a drama lens could become ideologically driven, 85 and yield to the interpreter's preconceived convictions and conclusions. 86 However, Powell 87 seeks to remind us that any interpretative methodology runs this risk. 88

Concluding thoughts -a way forward?
Perry defines the basic steps of performance criticism as preparation (preparing the text for performance), internalisation (memorising the translation) and performance. 89 This article reflects on the first step in this process by providing two excerpts (John 19:78-18, 28-30) from a larger study experimenting with a performative translation and analysis of three scenes within the Fourth Gospel. Such an exercise carries the potential to do more than bear fruit on paper, but to transpire in performance, which becomes "domesticated for today's context" 90 and comes alive in an oral manner. 91 These performances have the potential to take revelation beyond paper and literacy, and to serve orally-oriented and even illiterate individuals and groups.
The way forward would thus be embodiment and performance. Not with the aim of reconstructing ancient events, as this is impossible, but with the aim of hearing the Gospel anew -touching it, seeing it played out, encountering it in a communal sense, being excited, surprised and even offended by it -and allowing God to perform through our bodies.