The Soul’s Awakening at Threefold

The fourth Mystery Drama conference — anticipation for the four-drama 2014 event

Two hundred enthusiastic and fortunate souls gathered this summer in Chestnut Ridge, NY to attend The Soul’s Awakening, Rudolf Steiner’s fourth and final mystery drama performed by the Threefold Mystery Drama Group. It begins in a modern setting, a factory office... Several individuals may be able to help bring spiritual transformation to the factory, characters who have appeared in the previous mystery plays, and we now follow their progress into spiritual realms, travel back to previous incarnations, see the thread that connects these souls and their paths through time. Beginning with a few pieces of furniture, the various locales of this theatrical journey grew increasingly epic with an initiation scene in Ancient Egypt, enormous Sphinxes framing the stage, to the solitary lair of Ahriman with a wildly creative backdrop of molten red and frozen gray, and a clifflike rock formation center stage. Artistic cohesion was the key to the success of this production, with original music and excellent lighting design. Through speech eurythmy, the spiritual beings truly appeared to be moving on a higher plane.

At the surrounding conference, the exciting announcement was made that in 2014 all four of Rudolf Steiner’s mystery plays will be presented during a nineday conference from August 8-17. It will be the first time all four plays have been presented in English at a single event. I, for one, don’t plan to miss it! I can already feel the silence in the auditorium, the brief moment when we all share in the great drama of being human.

Excerpts from a review by Clio Venho, drama teacher at the Rudolf Steiner School in New York City—the full review is posted online [www.anthroposophy.org/articles].

At a rehearsal for the August 2013 Mystery Drama conference. Photo by Bill Day

A large feeling of gratitude flew from one’s heart towards the stage when the curtain closed on the 2013 Mystery Drama conference. When at the very end of the last scene, Benedictus, to free himself from the power of Ahriman, affirms that human beings should work towards their spiritual development not for themselves but for the betterment of the world, he freed a part of me. What a help on one’s path to have found companionship and inspiration in the courageous characters of the Mystery Dramas. —Marie Eve Piche

The Mystery Dramas: an instruction manual for meeting one’s sister-soul, for connecting with one’s karmic adventuring fellowship, for taking over the Mystic League, and for bringing a book and a machine to all of humanity. —Travis Henry

To really witness Rudolf Steiner’s Mystery Dramas takes courage and a sense of Self... a humbling and at times an overwhelming glimpse into unseen worlds. As a young person relatively new to anthroposophy, they flesh out invisible spirit world forces that I have tried with difficulty to imagine and understand... I relate to the stories outside myself; however, feel touched and moved by the serious endeavor of spiritual partnership and understanding. The dramas have inspired a more rigorous recommitment to my own spiritual practice and path of self-knowledge. —Megan Durney

I was struck by the immediacy of the drama. Somehow seeing the destiny of these souls unfold allowed me to enter into my own destiny in a new way. I had the vivid impression that I was not only witnessing their paths, but could see in them glimpses of my own. —Clifford Venho

The intense, anticipatory atmosphere and inwardly enthusiastic mood in the hall...was able to become a kind of living force in and of itself, sometimes even going beyond the limitations of personal sensibilities, opinions, and aesthetics... I experienced myself being stretched, molded, densified, chiseled, engraved, rasped, and ultimately reformed around the shape of a new sense of knowing. —Virginia Hermann