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Will you even tell her if you decide to make the sky fall?
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chriscrick is God. At least through tomorrow night.I went last night to New Works New Haven's production of Children of Eden, a two-act retelling of the first eight books of Genesis that I had unaccountably missed when it was performed at Brandeis (even though Standing Room Only has regularly played "In the Beginning" and "Stranger to the Rain" ever since the first cast recording came out). There I observed
chriscrick as the Father, Stephen Schwartz and John Caird's rather midrashic version of God: and he was good. And that was the first night. On my schedule, the evening and the morning are pretty much the same anyway.I consider it his fault, of course, that I am even thinking about this musical afterward. The score is not the pinnacle of Stephen Schwartz, but the Father of Children of Eden is an odd character, simultaneously anthropomorphic and nonhuman. This is a God that blinks at the sudden brilliance of the light he has caused to exist (". . . That's bright!"), who can create man and woman in his own image only to marvel at their sleeping faces with the bemused pride of a new father ("I think she's got my nose / I think he's got my dimples"). His delight in their quickness is evident, as when he turns his children loose on the nameless natural world and watches them invent the alphabet and the bestiary in one—as is his possessiveness, his impatience with Eve's excited curiosity and the short temper that traditionally characterizes the God of the Old Testament. He knows how to love the children who praise his name, but not yet the ones who push beyond the boundaries of their childhood. He built the world from a dream in the dark, and has yet to learn that dreams always change when made real.
At times he is painfully, recognizably human. In his fury at Eve's defiance, he raises his hand to strike her—not with lightnings, as he will blast the Tree of Knowledge, or with curses and rejection, as he will brand Cain, but with the back of his hand, like any furious mortal—and barely catches himself in time. His encounter with the adolescent Cain and Abel shifts uneasily between theophany and belated acknowledgement: these are children still too close to divinity to be as impressed with their grand-Father's presence as he would like, and a deity who has learned enough of deceit and hurt to hide his visit from his disobedient first children. Even by Noah's time, he can kneel in pain as the world drowns, amazed at how differently from his expectations his creation has turned out ("I thought that you would keep me young / But you have made me old").
In some ways, the story of Children of Eden is really their Father's: how his children have grown and matured, learned and changed, and how he must catch up; and begin to trust these weird, perishable, wayward beings, as stubborn and contradictory as their creator ("In your hands I place the key / To this prison made of gratitude / That has held you close to me / Now I know I cannot hold you / Till at last I let you be"). But he cannot be all human petulance, or his credibility as a god fails; and if he is all distant majesty, his children's capability to wound him makes as little sense. So I was particularly impressed by the way
chriscrick inhabited the character: even silent, motionless, his Father would not be mistaken for a mortal. He stands like a temple statue, walks unhurried as continental drift, a literal force of nature in birkenstocks and pragmatic white robes. If his demeanor and his actions were sometimes at odds with one another, so much the better for dramatic tension: we would like our gods to behave better than we do . . .Well, at least it makes for good story when they don't.
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Nine
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You know, between Godspell, Children of Eden, and Prince of Egypt, Stephen Schwartz is well on his way to musicalizing the entire Bible . . .
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In addition to
(And it's quite an experience to be in the restroom at intermission when Cain pops in, says "excuse me", and proceeds to wash the mark off his forehead.)
I must confess a small weakness with the Noah section: When God stood in the balcony and lectured Noah about being behind schedule with the ark, I nearly blurted out loudly, "Noah, how long can you tread water?"
Fortunately, propriety intervened and I kept it to a whisper.
A fine play, and a fine performance by all.
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I loved how Cain is mirrored in the second act by Japheth (again portrayed by Derek Chester: who, like the actor who played both Noah and Adam, had to be both reminiscent of his earlier role and still differentiate between the generations; both succeeded) and his descendant Yonah, whose character has always interested me. She is not only the familiar type of the perceived inferior who in fact behaves better than her superiors, but an archetype reflected back on itself. When she throws herself between Japheth and the brother whose head he is about to stave in, it's as though she's interfering in that first, ancient act of murder: she undoes in that moment the curse whose inherited mark she bears. And I think it's no accident that only then does the rain stop and the floodwaters begin to recede.
Yes, the forty days and forty nights are at an end, but I think that might also be the moment when God realizes, perhaps for the first time, that parentage is not what defines a person. "Ever since the flood began," Noah says to Yonah, "the blood of Cain has risen in all of us—but never in you." Cain's children are not Cain. God's children are not God. They will be themselves, not what he assumes or desires them to be. And so, finally, he can let them grow on their own.
And it's quite an experience to be in the restroom at intermission when Cain pops in, says "excuse me", and proceeds to wash the mark off his forehead.
That's mythologically cool. : )
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Meantime, a friend of mine is producing a musical of Paradise Lost in New York.
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With lyrics by Milton? They're going to need audience subtitles . . .
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Move over, Wagner.
I would certainly go to see an operatic version of the Divine Comedy. That would be marvelous. I don't suppose one really exists?
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Nine
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No, as far as I know Ben is NOT using 17th century lyrics--just Milton´s plot and interpretation of the characters.
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That's still bizarre enough to be cool. When does it open?
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Heh. I hadn't realized Brandeis had cross-cast the role: that should have been fascinating. I think the dynamic would be very different with a Mother rather than a Father. If nothing else, our culture does not read a single father (which God essentially is: despite all the midrash, there's no Shekhinah in this musical) in the same way as a single mother. And much of the generational mirroring is keyed to gender: as God behaves toward Adam, so Adam behaves toward Cain and Abel and Noah toward his three sons. I wonder if the likenesses between God and Eve would be played up to even greater effect with a female God—another reflection; a mother-daughter bond that begins to break down at adolescence—and the cycle of paternal dysfunction somewhat less visible. Curious. I'm really sorry I didn't see this version now.
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Chris
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Chris
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I request an autographed one of you smiting something.