Word: ritualization
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Abrams will probably return to the U.S. in July and later will undergo the ritual preconfirmation questioning by the Senate Armed Services Committee. Though he should be confirmed readily, he can expect some tough queries on the case of General Lavelle, who carried on his own private bombing war against North Viet Nam in defiance of presidential restraints. How much did Abrams know about Lavelle's bombing patterns in the North, for instance...
...formidable Leo Bebb, a sleazy but possibly genuine faith healer who cranked an ordination-by-mail divinity mill in Armadillo, Fla. It turned out that Bebb was quite capable of exposing himself. After he did so, raising up his loins in thanksgiving at the climactic moment of a healing ritual held to restore the sexual potency of a wealthy Indian chief, he had to leave town one jump ahead of the law. But by then Bebb's daughter Sharon had an occasion to cure Antonio of his chastity...
...really starting novelty that Kahn has introduced is the staging of the actual assassination of Caesar. At this point Casca and the rest of the conspirators execute their dagger thrusts and other bodily movements in ultra slow-motion, turning the scene into a graceful choreographed ritual. The director perhaps got the idea from the slow-motion violence in such recent movies as Bonnie and Clyde, The Wild Bunch, and Bunch Cassidy and the Sundance...
Murder-as-ritual is a perfectly valid concept for this play, in which several characters specifically speak of "rites" and "ceremonies." In fact, the conspirators seal their resolution with a handshaking ritual, and the text requires them to go through a bloodbath ritual after the murder. Cassius even predicts that this "lofty scene" will be re-enacted countless times by posterity. This killing is viewed as almost a religious act, and Kahn has taken his cue from Brutus's words: "Let's be sacrificers, but not butchers...Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods...
...witches, a red cord for second degree, and a magic knife called an othame. So far, not even Kelly has felt prepared to go for the highest degree, the green garter. Among other things, it involves a milder version of what Gardner called the "Great Rite," an act of ritual sexual intercourse. "Nobody in our coven," says Kelly, "has felt ready to take...