ABSTRACT
This chapter explains that a theological interaction with theatre should account for the rich particularities of performance interpretation. Hans Urs von Balthasar, for whom theology is an event, adopts dramatic art in so far as it angles the human perspective in the direction of the divine event. The enrapturing vitality in the man's personal identification with the drama has something of von Balthasar's theo-dramatic perspective in which the theologian, apprehended by the Christ event, becomes a personified retelling of the event. Von Balthasar illustrates the subjectivity of the lyrical posture through the practice of Ignatian exercises. Von Balthasar's vision for a theological exchange with drama in the Germanic world of the latter half of the twentieth century may not seem particularly remarkable given Europe's general state of revision, reconstruction, and reinvention. Kevin Vanhoozer, explicitly taking his cues from Balthasar's Theo-Drama, sees an obvious parallel between dramatic interpretation and the biblical emphasis on hearing and doing the Word.
