Tongues of Flame

Building on her fundamental texts The Art of Actingand The Art of Speech, Dawn Langman shows how the great dramas of Western heritage illuminate the evolution of human consciousness--from the past and into the future--providing a context in which actors can evolve their art consciously. Having laid her foundation by exploring the Eleusis Mysteries, the seed point of Western drama, she moves to the end of the nineteenth century, when drama and performance practice prepared for its next great evolutionary leap. She explores the connection of this leap to the evolutionary threshold facing human beings at the end of what esoteric history refers to as Kali Yuga.

Moving fluidly among future, past, and present, and guided by the great cyclic themes of human soul and spiritual development, Langman shows how the inspiration of our greatest artists springs from a source of knowing that encompasses the high calling of human beings to mature beyond our biological inheritance and to become a conscious co-creators with the macrocosmic powers that serve cosmic evolution. She clarifies the specific function of drama in our contemporary development within the spectrum of the arts.

C O N T E N T S

Preface

Introduction: The True Names of Things

1. The Key to the Mysteries: The Founding Myth

2. "It Takes So Many Thousand Years to Wake" Drama at the Threshold

3. When Will the Lost Word Be Found?

4. "The Fabulous Wings Unused" Towards a Drama of the Futuer

5. "We Shall not Cease from Exploration"

Epilogue: The Crucible of Art

Appendices:

A. Additional Volumes in the Series

B. Therapeutic Applications of Speech Formation

C. DVD Recordings of Dawn Langman's Lecture Series

Lists of Plays Quoted or Cited

Bibliography

List of Illustrations

Notes