Martyrs on Trial, from the Court to the Stage: Diego Fabbri, T.S. Eliot, G.B. Shaw and the Social Drama of Martyrdom

In Catholic tradition, martyrs often undergo two trials: they are condemned to death by the representatives of a legal system hostile to their faith, and then they become the subjects of a specific judicial procedure called “cause for canonization” regulated by the Church. A third-level trial takes place when the story of the martyrs is represented in drama. This paper focuses on a sample of 20th-century playwrights by T.S. Eliot, G.B. Shaw, and D. Fabbri featuring martyrs’ trial. It points out how legal, religious, ritual, and theatrical features interweave in these representations and looks into some enunciative strategies by which the audience is called to take an active part in the trial performed on the stage. It concludes by arguing how the mise-en-abime of the trial to martyrs in theater has the function of interpreting the “social drama,” as Turner call it, embodied by the figure of the martyr.