Abstract
Arthur Giron’s play Edith Stein serves as a lens through which we can explore, briefly, central theoretical questions that arise from theatrical representation of a person’s life, and, at greater length, links between Edith Stein’s attraction to theater and her philosophical thought.
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Notes
- 1.
This essay evolved from my presentation on Arthur Giron’s theatrical approach to the life of Edith Stein that I gave at the second conference of the International Association for the Study of the Philosophy of Edith Stein, organized by Professor Antonio Calcagno, at Western University, London, Ontario, Canada in June, 2013.
- 2.
For a useful account of the history of Arthur Giron’s play, see Giron [1]. Henceforth cited as Sourcebook.
- 3.
Stein has left no written account that she said those four words. Friends of hers report she said precisely these words. Despite the absence of hard evidence current scholars hold that “There is no reason not to accept as authentic the famous and oft-quoted accolade…” Batzdorff et al. [2, 293].
- 4.
White [3, 147–157].
- 5.
Sourcebook, 13.
- 6.
- 7.
See: Perks and Thomson [6].
- 8.
Also, Stein singles out Grillparzer for his psychological depth (LJF 481).
- 9.
Stein [7, 23]. See footnote 2, 150. The original manuscript titled Lebensgestaltung im Geist der heiligen Elisabeth is located in the Archivum Carmelitanum Edith Stein. The volume, titled Verborgenes Leben: Hagiographische Essays, Meditationen, Geistliche Texte appears as vol. 11 of Edith Steins Werke (Freiburg: Herder, 1987).
- 10.
Batzdorff [8, 121, 180].
- 11.
Ibid., 125.
- 12.
Edith Stein to Mother Petra Brüning, June 13, 1941. Stein refers to a play she wrote for Mother Ottilia’s Name day in December 1939. Lucy Gelber states that Stein regarded these dramas as “‘stage plays.’” See Lucy Gelber’s Introduction to her edition of Edith Stein, The Hidden Life, xxiii.
- 13.
Edith Stein to Ruth Kantorowicz, January 5, 1935.
- 14.
Posselt [9, 138–139]. This is a revised updated edition of Posselt’s original text in German, published in 1948.
- 15.
Ibid, 144–145.
- 16.
Internal bracketed words are mine.
- 17.
Ann W. Astell provides a clear account of an array of modes of intersubjectivity with a fictional or nonfictional person in “Saintly Mimesis, Contagion, and Empathy in the Thought of Rene Girard, Edith Stein and Simone Weil,” in Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Life, (Winter 2004), 22/3, 116–131.
- 18.
Brecht [10].
- 19.
Sourcebook, 2.
- 20.
Stein’s dramatic dialogue, “Conversation at Night” appears in The Hidden Life, 128–133. The various quotations are culled from these pages.
- 21.
Edith Stein to Petra Brüning, October 31, 1938.
- 22.
Professional actors have spoken with me about this experience in my conversations with them at various play development programs, among them Sundance, New York Stage and Film Company, Wordbridge, and Mark Taper Forum, where my husband, Leonard Berkman, has worked as dramaturg.
- 23.
Sourcebook, 16.
- 24.
Ibid, 15.
References
Arthur Giron’s Edith Stein: A Dramaturgical Sourcebook, ed. Donald Marinelli (Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1994)
Susanne M. Batzdorff, Josephine Koeppel and John Sullivan, “Gleanings” appended as revisions on the first major biography of Edith Stein, Teresia Renata Posselt, OCD, Edith Stein: The Life of a Philosopher and Carmelite (Washington DC: ICS Publications, 2005)
Hayden White, “Introduction: Historical Fiction, Fictional History and Historical Reality,” in Rethinking History, vol. 9, 2–3: June–September, 2005)
Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1992)
Pierre Nora, Realms of Memory (Les Lieux de Memoire) (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998)
Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson, ed., The Oral History Reader (New York and London: Routledge, 1998)
Edith Stein, “The Spirit of St. Elizabeth as It Informed Her Life,” in The Hidden Life: Hagiographic Essays, Meditations, Spiritual Texts, ed. Lucy Gelber and Michael Linssen, OCD, trans. Waltraut Stein, vol. 4 of the Collected Works of Edith Stein (Washington, DC: ICS, 1992)
Susanne M. Batzdorff, Aunt Edith: The Jewish Heritage of a Catholic Saint (Springfield, Illinois: Templegate, 1998)
Teresia Renata Posselt (Mother Teresia Renata de Spiritu Sancto), OCD, Edith Stein: The Life of a Philosopher and Carmelite, ed. Susanne M. Batzdorff, Josephine Koeppel and John Sullivan (includes commentaries and explanatory notes), (Washington DC: ICS Publications, 2005)
Bertolt Brecht, “A Short Organum for the Theatre,” in Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, ed. and trans. John Willett (London: Methuen, 1964)
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Berkman, J.A. (2016). Edith Stein and Theatrical Truth. In: Calcagno, A. (eds) Edith Stein: Women, Social-Political Philosophy, Theology, Metaphysics and Public History. Boston Studies in Philosophy, Religion and Public Life, vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21124-4_18
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