TY - JOUR
AB - It's 10∶30 at night, the day after Halloween 2003. I'm standing in line outside of the Freedom Assembly of God Church in Tallahassee, Florida, to watch their first annual Hell House. Every October, hundreds of congregations across America mount religious dramas conceived as Christian Halloween alternatives. Such productions typically invoke and alter haunted-house conventions, replacing ghosts and monsters with demons and sin—all designed to confront unsaved audience members with the reality of spiritual warfare and the necessity of being born again. Whereas the Tallahassee version promised to be relatively modest, many other Hell House events boast huge production budgets and attract thousands of visitors annually. In recent years, these shows have garnered considerable media attention for their shocking, graphically staged scenes of “sin” and its consequences. Infamous images include gay people dying of AIDS and burning in hell, black-clad, Columbine-style gunmen mowing down Christians in schools, and blood-soaked abortions featuring vacuum-cleaner noises and bowls of raw meat meant to resemble fetuses. Criticism pours in from both left-wing advocacy groups and other evangelical Christians. It's “pornography for the soul,” it's “simplistic theology,” it's “spiritual violence.”
TI - TASTELESS AS HELL: COMMUNITY PERFORMANCE, DISTINCTION, AND COUNTERTASTE IN HELL HOUSE
JF - Theatre Survey
DO - 10.1017/S0040557407000701
DA - 2007-10-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/cambridge-university-press/tasteless-as-hell-community-performance-distinction-and-countertaste-YDFkIjJsLI
SP - 313
EP - 330
VL - 48
IS - 2
DP - DeepDyve
ER -