SOURCE: "Liturgy and Epiphany: Religious Experience as Dramatic Form in Two of Seán O'Casey's Symbolic Plays," in O'Casey Annual No. 3, edited by Robert G. Lowery, MacMillan Press, 1984, pp. 169-85.

In the following essay, Zeiss analyzes O'Casey's use of formalized dialogue and epiphanies in The Silver Tassie and Red Roses for Me, contending that O'Casey's usage suggests a religious view of experience.

Can we not take it that the form of the drama must vary from age to age in accordance with the religious assumptions of the age?… The more fluid, the more chaotic the religious and ethical beliefs, the more the drama must tend in the direction of liturgy. [T. S. Eliot, 'A Dialogue on Dramatic Poetry,' in Selected Essays, 1932]

In emphasizing the relationship between liturgy and drama, T. S. Eliot implies that both forms express the need to affirm a purpose in the scheme of...