Transgressing the Limit: Ritual Reenacted in Selected Plays by Edward Albee and Sam Shepard

The present study analyzes eight late plays by Albee and Shepard, reading them within the theoretical framework of Turner's concepts of ritual, rites of passage, liminality, and the liminoid. I hypothesize that the archetypal three-fold ritual structure resurfaces within these dramatic universes in a "mutilated" form with the final, reintegration phase eliminated from the body of the plays and transposed onto the liminoid interaction between performance and audience. I demonstrate how Turnerian concepts of ritual broadened by contemporary subject theory may serve as efficient tools in decoding theatrical texts, inviting a re-interpretation of the Albee and Shepard canons. I also conclude that the "mutilated" ritual structures identified in the plays arise not merely due to the fact that the ideal of coherent communities is discarded as illusion, but also because parody-as an inherent feature of both Albee's and Shepard's works-necessarily sets up a hermeneutical circle that demands the constant reinterpretation of the contemplated aesthetic object as well as the continuous readjustment of the observing and interpreting "gaze," perpetuating the liminal/liminoid experience.