Abstract

Toward a Transformation of Experience in Drama and Philosophy is a work composed of two distinct though interrelated parts: a full-length play entitled Solitary God and an essay entitled "Solitary God: Toward a New Ontology in Drama and Philosophy." ;Solitary God is a play combining the realities of family, religion, and emotional growth in a new, intellectually and emotionally challenging way. It explores family as a major force for determining individual identity and as a carrier and transmitter of religious ideals and values that also help determine identity. It shows how individuals grow emotionally by accepting the validity of their own experience in the face of rejection by those with whom they are intimate and those whose values determine their own values. ;"Solitary God: Toward a New Ontology in Drama and Philosophy" is an attempt to place Solitary God, the play, within the context of current dramatic criticism through the use of new philosophical ideas. It purports that Solitary God is neither naturalistic or realistic nor expressionistic, symbolic, ritualistic, surreal or mythical, i.e., avant garde. Nor is it a concatonation of any of these styles. Rather, it is a synthesis of the realistic and the non-realistic, the physical and the metaphysical, the empirical and the ideal. It shows that realistic and non-realistic phenomena are mutually dependent upon each other for their existence. ;If Solitary God is an example of a new type of artistic expression , and if the expression cannot be satisfactorily explained by current philosophical thinking , then new philosophical ideas are needed to satisfactorily explain the existence and meaning of the play. "Solitary God: Toward a New Ontology in Drama and Philosophy" is an attempt to provide the rudiments of a philosophical perspective appropriate for explaining Solitary God, the play