Katherine Tingley's Theosophical Theatre: Greek Revivalism and New Religion in Lomaland, USA

Abstract

Katherine Tingley's Theosophical Theatre: Greek Revivalism and New Religion in Lomaland, USA Edmund B. Lingan (bio) In Point Loma, California, which is a small town a few miles west of San Diego, stand two eye-catching buildings on what is now the campus of Point Loma Nazarene University. One is a round building topped with what resembles a three-dimensional, purple, stained-glass teardrop. The other is an outdoor theatre with orchestra and hillside seating that recalls the architecture of ancient Greek theatres. These two buildings are reminders of the headquarters and residential community of the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society (UBTS), also known as "Lomaland," which flourished under the leadership of Katherine Tingley between 1898 and 1929. During the heyday of the UBTS, the Greek Theater housed ancient Greek and original plays that Tingley directed as a means to teach the principles of her spiritual worldview, which is called Theosophy. Although Tingley's name is virtually unknown by contemporary theatre scholars, in her own time she was known and understood by theatre critics as an important director of experimental theatre. In The Open-Air Theatre (1918), Sheldon Cheney, who is one of the first American critics of avant-garde theatre, credits Tingley with being a pioneer of Greek Revivalism and the Open-Air Theatre movement in the US.1 Cheney writes that Tingley constructed the first outdoor, Greek-style theatre in California and credits her with developing a new and decorative form of drama that was "permeated by the Greek spirit."2 In a 1916 article entitled "Some American Experimental Theaters," W. L. Sowers compared Tingley's theatrical work to that of well-known Greek Revivalist theatre artists such as Maude Adams and Margaret Anglin.3 Tingley, however, differed from the professional theatre artists with whom she was compared because her theatre was created primarily to teach and promote Theosophy: one of the most well-known and enduring of the "new religious movements," or "NRMs," that emerged during the Occult Revival of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.4 By the end of the nineteenth century, Tingley was known internationally as the leader of the UBTS, and she predicted that the mysteries of a lost primordial religion, or "Wisdom Religion," would be [End Page 5] revived on the grounds of Lomaland, which was presented to the general public as a new Athens of the modern age.5 Tingley viewed theatre as one of the most important tools for teaching the mysteries of the Wisdom Religion. With the stated goal of reconstructing what she imagined the "supreme religious dramas" of ancient Greece might have been like, Tingley directed Aeschylus's Eumenides and original, Greek-inspired theosophical mystery dramas called "symposia" (see fig. 1).6 Click for larger view View full resolution Fig. 1. Katherine Tingley (1847–1929). Copyright and courtesy of the Theosophical Society Archives, Pasadena, California. This essay explores the religious motivations behind Tingley's theatre, as well as the social and political concerns that were embedded within those productions. To accomplish this purpose, it has been necessary to depend for the most part [End Page 6] upon primary resources because little scholarship has been dedicated to Tingley's theatrical work. Emmet A. Greenwalt's The Point Loma Community in California 1897–1942: A Theosophical Experiment (1955) includes an illustrated chapter on Tingley's theatre, and a few theatre critics who worked during the early-twentieth century discussed Tingley's theatre.7 Knowledge of Tingley's theatre faded, however, after her death in 1929, and since then the bulk of the documents concerning her theatrical work have been held in The Theosophical Society Archive in Pasadena, California, which is not open to scholars and the general public. Between 2001 and 2008, two directors of The Theosophical Society—Grace F. Knoche and Randell C. Grubb—granted me permission to visit the archives on three separate occasions, and this rare opportunity has enabled me to access hundreds of photos, scripts, programs, and articles relating to the theatrical activities of Katherine Tingley and the UBTS in Lomaland (Point Loma) and New York City.8 Like many organizations identified by sociologists of religion as an NRM, Theosophy offers alternatives to some...