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Playing God in live theatre: The politics of representation
Cleary, Kathleen Colligan, Ph.D.
The Ohio State University, 1994
Copyright ©1994 by Cleary, Kathleen Colligan. All rights reserved.
300 N. ZeebRd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106
PLAYING GOD IN LIVE THEATRE; THE POLITICS OF REPRESENTATION
DISSERTATION
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University
By
Kathleen Colligan Cleary, B.A., M.A.
*****
The Ohio State University
1994
Dissertation Committee: Approved by S. Constantinidis E.R. Gilbert Stratos cinstantinidis J. Reilly Department of Theatre To my husband, Greg
11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my appreciation to Dr. Stratos Constantinidis for his strong and conscientious guidance throughout my research. I also want to thank the other members of my advisory committee, Drs. E. Reid Gilbert and Joy Harriman Reilly, for their suggestions and comments. I am grateful to Dr. Marsha Bordner for her steadfast support and to Nancy Schwerner and Steven Weiss for their technical assistance. I would also like
to thank Professor John Elliott, Jr. who provided me with his files on American passion plays. I am indebted to my parents, Harold and Marjorie Colligan, and to my husband's parents, Frank and Ellen Cleary, for their
constant support and encouragement. To my husband, Greg, I offer my deepest thanks.
I l l VITA
November 17, 1964 ...... Born - Buffalo, New York 1986 ...... B.A., Franciscan University of Steubenville, Steubenville, Ohio 1988...... M.À., The State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, New York 1988 - 1992...... Graduation Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1992 ...... Lecturer, The Ohio State University at Marion, Marion, Ohio 1993 - P r e s e n t ...... Instructor of Theatre, Clark State Community College, Springfield, Ohio
FIELD OF STUDY Major Field: Theatre
IV TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION ...... Ü ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... Ü i VITA ...... iv CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION ...... 1 II. MARK CONNELLY'S THE GREEN PASTURES...... 37 Introduction ...... 37 The Role of God in the T e x t ...... 60 The Role of God in Performance...... 71 III. ARTHUR MILLER'S CREATION OF THE WORLD AND OTHER BUSINESS AND UP FROM PA R A D I S E ...... 86 Introduction ...... 86 The Role of God in the T e x t ...... 106 The Role of God in Performance...... 117 IV. TONY HARRISON'S THE MYSTERIES: THE NATIVITY AND BERNARD SAHLINS'S THE MYSTERIES: CREATION ...... 128 Introduction ...... 128 The Role of God in the T e x t ...... 142 The Role of God in Performance...... 147 V. CONCLUSION...... 174
APPENDIX...... 191 LIST OF REFERENCES...... 195 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
Playing the Christian God (the Father, not Jesus Christ) in the theatre has been a controversial undertaking for several centuries, and few actors have been given the opportunity to perform this role in the contemporary theatre. There are several reasons, political and religious as well as pragmatic, which have led to the dearth of appearances of God in the theatre. This study examines some of these reasons, such as the difficulty of portraying the role, the effect of censorship, and the mistrust of images; and, then, discusses the theatrical character of God in five twentieth century plays; Marc Connelly's The Green
Pastures; Arthur Miller's The Creation of the World and Other Business and Up From Paradise; and finally Tony Harrison's The Mysteries: The Nativity which Bernard Sahlins adapted and retitled The Mysteries: Creation for the American stage. One of the arguments that has been freguently made against the physical representation of God is the 2 biblical verse, "You shall not make yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. In citing this quote, Clyde Holbrook argues that God was to be imageless so that his transcendence to all earthly and finite realities would be clear. Furthermore, it is futile to try to represent a spiritual nature in a physical form since "Nothing from this world could adequately represent him or be substituted for his invisible nature. When considering the physical representation of God on the stage, the production staff must face this issue from a practical as well as theoretical point of view. Decisions must be made as to how an actor will give a physical representation of what is for many a spiritual being, regardless of the ideological reasons supporting the portrayal, many of which will be discussed in detail throughout the following chapters. As was the case with the medieval mysteries, actors must treat the role of
^ Exodus 20; 4. ^ Clyde Holbrook, The Iconoclastic Deity: Biblical Images of God (Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 1984) 9. 3 God as a character type, rather than placing too much emphasis on motivation or "living the part." The five plays listed above have been included in this study primarily because they are, to the best of my knowledge, the only twentieth-century American or British plays where the Christian God is listed as a central character. Since my focus is on the representation of God, I am not including plays with allegorical representations of the deity, nor those whose central character is Jesus. The reasons for the relatively few number of portrayals of the Judeo-Christian God on the British and American stage can be traced directly to two major factors: the years of legislation banning them and a deeply rooted mistrust of physical images of God.
Historically, God's theatrical representations have been a point of great controversy and legal debate in England since the sixteenth century. While characterizations of
(the role of) God were abundant during the Middle Ages, they were banned in England by the Licensing Act of 1737 which was upheld until 1968. The presentation of the medieval mysteries was linked with Roman Catholicism and was thus held suspect by the Puritans who strove for censorship of the 4 theatre. John Elliott argues that the medieval mysteries were deliberately legislated out of existence by Protestant government officials and their "allies in the pulpit, who resented the very effictiveness with
which the plays brought home the tenets of Catholic doctrine to their audiences.Ron Richards argues that the Corpus Christi plays may have functioned sacramentally: as communion by eating continued to
decline in the Middle Ages, "sacramental gazing" became a growing subsitute." As "the growing Corpus Christi processions expressed the impulse towards display of the
host,"® they became more of a religious and political threat to Protestants opposing Catholic doctrine. A brief historical survey of the impersonation of God will show how religious and political establishments have influenced the way in which God has been
represented in the theatre. Beginning in the sixteenth century, the theatrical representation of religious topics and characters was prohibited by both
^ John Elliott, Playing God: Medieval Mysteries on the Modern Stage (Toronto: U Toronto P, 1989) 4.
■* Ron Richards, "Communion Rite in the English Corpus Christi Cycles," presentation to The Ohio State University, 23 February 1993. ® Miri Rubin, Corpus Christi: the Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991) 288. 5 Protestants, who took exception to the papal elements of the mystery plays, and Catholics, who feared greater religious and political upheaval. In 1553, the Catholic monarch Queen Mary forbade theatrical representation of any matters of religious controversy.® Elizabeth I further restricted religious matters on the stage by establishing a Privy Council to read and censor any play thought to undermine the security of the state.’ The organization of a council specifically geared toward censoring subjects of political and religious controversy was the first step toward the elimination of the religious drama which flourished during the Middle
Ages. Local and Diocesan courts also proclaimed edicts which forbade controversial subjects. In 1575, the Diocesan Court of High Commission, an arm of the Privy
® She issued a proclamation which banned all "Interludes, books, ballads, rhymes, and other lewd treatises in the England [sic] tongue, concerning doctrine in matters now in question and controversy, touching the high points and mysteries of Christian religion." Qtd. John Elliott, Playing God: Medieval Mysteries on the Modern Stage. (Toronto, U of Toronto Press, 1989), 4. ’ She forbade any plays "wherein either matters of religion or the governance of the estate of the commonwealth shall be handled or treated." Frank Fowell and Frank Palmer, Censorship in England (London: Frank Palmer, 1913) 14-15. 6
Council y "gave strict orders to the neighbouring town of Wakefield that no play be performed in which 'the Majesty of God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Ghost . . . be counterfeited or represented.'"* This was the first known ban explicitly forbidding the appearance of the Christian God on stage. The edict started a precedent which was to be followed in England for the next three and a half centuries.® Five years later, the Master of the Revels became the official censor of the drama and its players. This served to organize censorship and to give the state complete control over the content of theatrical productions. The monarchs were afraid that the debate of religious issues in the theatre would lead to further political instability. Their response was to ban the discussion of religious topics on the stage. The Puritans also contributed significantly to the ban on presenting the deity in the live theatre. Their influence led James I to sign an Act of Parliament which
forbade even mentioning religion on the London stage. As the act's title indicates, "An Act for the Preventing and Avoiding of the great abuse of the holy name of God
* Qtd. Elliott 6.
® Elliott 6. 7 in stage plays, interludes. May games, shows, and such like," it sought to prevent anyone from using the name
of God on stage.Due to this act, all references to Biblical subjects or phrases were deleted from play-
scripts. One of the more outspoken of the Puritans to write about the deity on stage was William Prynne. In his Histriomastix (1633), he labeled the Catholics'
treatment of the deity as blasphemous- He wrote that
Catholics in honor of the Corpus Christi feast, produced a play which was set in Heaven. Prynne was disturbed by the ramifications of a theatrical representation of the
Christian God; God the Father sitting in Majesty, together with God the Son (O (sic) blasphemy, prophanesse beyond all expression) offering up the Blessed Virgin his mother, taken out of her sepulchre, unto his eternal Father. What wickedness, what blasphemy like to this, as thus to deify a player, and to bring the very throne, the Majesty of God himself, yea, the persons of the eternal father, son, and god of glory on the stage 1^^ Evidently, Prynne confused the actor's representation (impersonating God on stage) with incarnation (God taking human form). He did not distinguish the process
Elliott 9. Qtd. Elliott 3. 8 whereby an actor represents God as a dramatic character and that of God the Father becoming incarnated in God the Son (Jesus Christ). By launching attacks such as the one cited above, Prynne sought to draw an equation between the histrionics of Catholicism and the blasphemy he found in theatre. Not only did he call for a ban on presenting God on stage, he wrote against the theatre as a whole. The Puritans saw theatre as a threat to their religious and political survival because it provided a means for the dissemination of controversial ideas, particularly those which supported Catholic doctrine,
such as transubstantiation and papal authority. The prohibition of representing God on stage continued through the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. George III issued a royal patent to the Drury Lane theatre in 1812 which reinforced earlier statutes : We have thought fit to declare that henceforth no representations be admitted on the stage . . . whereby the Christian religion in general, or the Church of England, may in any manner suffer reproach, strictly inhibiting every degree of abuse or misrepresentation of sacred characters . . . “ As this patent indicates, sacred characters were still taboo on the London stage. The Theatres Act of 1843
Qtd. Elliott 15. 9 reaffirmed the Lord Chamberlain's authority to license plays. The twentieth century has retained much of the controversy surrounding the representation of the deity in live theatre. In 1904, an anonymous reviewer reminded his readers of the perils of this practice: It ought not to be forgotten that an undiscriminating revival of methods which appealed to the feelings of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, such as the representation in dramatic art of the Person of God the Father, is not without its dangers, and it is to be hoped that, with a view to real devotion, the dramatic representation of the mysteries of our Faith may be adapted to the requirements and necessities of the present. One of the ways of adapting to the "requirements and necessities of the present" was to re-write the plays in such a way that the character of God would be eliminated entirely, or failing that, to present the character as an off-stage voice. In The Deluge, a modernized version of one of the Chester Miracle Plays presented in 1930, the introduction of God as a character in the play once again caused a controversy. To appease his audience the producer, O. Bolton King, deleted some passages and rewrote others to gain the approval of the censor. The character of God was
Church Times. 12 February 1904: 195. 10 omitted altogether by the Lord Chamberlain, "but after further inquiry it was admitted that a "voice off" was not a speaking part. Mr. Bolton King recited the part of God from behind a screen, but did not appear on the stage.After this incident, several more representations of God were depicted as an off-stage voice. This was a common way for theatrical artists to try to circumvent the censor.
Opponents of censorship in the theatre began to voice their objections in the early twentieth century. In 1907, seventy-one of the leading literary figures, including Joseph Conrad, George Bernard Shaw and William Butler Yeats, announced in a letter to The Times that they had lodged a "formal protest" with the government, calling for the abolition of the licensing act.“ In response to this protest and the growing skepticism toward the merits of censorship, the government formed a committee to investigate the issue. While the outcome of this investigation led to more freedom for artists to explore religious subjects on stage, plays in which
Bucks Free Press. Wycombe, 1 August 1930, qtd. in Elliott 64. Elliott 22. 11 divine characters were represented were still prohibited. In 1941, Dorothy Sayers encountered British censorship of her radio play, Man Born to Be King in which the character Jesus was a central one in the drama. While representations of Jesus are outside the realm of this study, many of the same problems of portraying the deity are evident in this production. Sayers, in her introduction to the published script, discussed how there were no modern precedents to serve as a guide for this production or to prepare the audience for what they would hear.^® Furthermore, she pointed out, the law forbidding the presence of the deity on stage "helped to foster the notion that all such representations were inherently wicked."^’ Sayers encountered the same problems with portraying God that William Poel did when he produced Everyman in 1901 for the Elizabethan Stage society. Initially, he successfully avoided the censor by changing the name of the character, "God," to "Adonai." When he produced the play commercially, however, he was
Dorothy Sayers, Man Born to Be King (Bungay: Richard Clay, 1943) 17. Sayers 17-18. 12 forced to present the voice of Adonai off-stage.^®
While the physicalization of the deity was still taboo, the voice was allowed: seeing (the representation of) God's face was forbidden, hearing (the representation of) His voice was allowed. When the censorship law was being challenged in the 1960s, producers were the ones who lobbied to try to maintain it: the censorship law protected them from the threat of Common Law persecution. Producers realized that plays with God as a central character dealt with a subject that was still controversial on the stage. In a Joint Select Committee of the two houses of Parliament (1966), the Society of West End Theatre Managers were the only group which testified in favor of censorship. What finally brought an end to censorship was the testimony of the Archbishop of Canterbury. He acknowledged that the law was put into effect because it was thought at the time to be "seemly and reverent. The Archbishop claimed that people's feelings had
^® Elliott 42. Elliott 108. Minutes of Evidence Taken Before the Joint Committee on Censorship of the Theatre (Her Majesty's Stationery Office: London, 1967) 132. 13 changed and it was the Church's position that "encouragement to face unfamiliar and temporarily distressing images of God is probably more help today than censorship designed to protect from the confrontation."^^ He added that recent productions had demonstrated the ability of contemporary theatre companies to handle the subject matter reverently. What the Archbishop failed to mention, was that the image of God in the theatre was no longer a threat to the well
being of the state: religious issues were not likely to threaten the survival of the late twentieth-century British government. The idea that personifying the deity was blasphemous emerged in the United States as well. A
nineteenth-century law in the state of California forbade the personification of the deity.“ On the
opposite end of the country, A New York Assemblyman introduced a bill in 1911 prohibiting the impersonation of the deity on stage. Managers who violated the law
were charged with a misdemeanor and were forced to
Minutes 132. Charles Warren Stoddard, "Santa Clara's Passion Play" Sunset Magazine Aug 1907: 377. 14 forfeit their licenses.The issue surfaced again in the South in the 1930's when some Americans who had not yet seen or read The Green Pastures objected to the representation of God. When Connelly invited a group of
Southern newspaper critics to view the play, they went back home and wrote articles about the reverence of the play.^“ A few years later, Connelly's play was banned entirely from the British stage, although the movie, whose industry was governed by a different agency, played in England to popular success. Today, the issue is still relevant. The portrayal of God on stage was recently discussed again at the 1991 national conference of Christians in Theatre Arts (CITA). Dale Savidge, President of CITA and a professor at Bob Jones University, explained his reservations about incarnating the deity: I personally would not attempt to stage a physical representation of God because I think that God did this once in history and chose to remove Himself, physically, from this earth at the ascension and to leave behind His third Person in the form of a spiritual Being. I am, of course, not in the tradition of the medieval theatre— too protestant! This
“ "Against the Deity in Plays," New York Dramatic Mirror 29 March 1911: 9.
Walter Daniel, "De Lawd": Richard B. Harrison and The Green Pastures, Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies 99 (New York: Greenwood, 1986) 139. 15 extends to my beliefs about communion . . . and visual representations of Christ as instruments of worship. I also think the commandment forbidding "graven images" may be relevant.“ In much the same way that Prynne confused representation (an actor impersonating God) with incarnation (God taking the form of an actor on stage), Professor Savidge's reservations addressed the issue of incarnation, or the presentation of God on stage.
In the Old Testament, God was revealed either through an intermediary (i.e. a prophet) or through a voice alone. In the New Testament, the "word became flesh" in the person of Jesus who was the incarnation of the invisible God. Acting by its nature brings text to life, and the playwright's words become the flesh and blood of the actor. The representation of God differs significantly from the presentation of God in the theatre. In representation, the actor is conscious of the fact that he is playing a role in the theatre, he is clearly not
God. The presentation of God would include those performances in which the actor becomes God; he is possessed by a spiritual being. This would include performances such as the Raganuga Bhakti Sadhana, in
See appendix. 16 which actors are transformed into the deities they are portraying; they are in a sense incarnations of the deities. Professor Savidge maintained that the incarnation occurred once in history. Therefore, he argued that it is not appropriate to repeat this event by bringing the words of a text to the flesh and blood of an actor playing God. From this line of thinking, when an actor portrays God, he is reenacting the incarnation in the present, making contemporary the historical event of the Christian incarnation. While playing God in the live theatre is legal in the twentieth century, it has remained a controversial issue for scholars of religion and theatre. This study explores the over-riding issue of controlling images in the theatre, in this case, that of the Christian God. This is done primarily through an investigation of the playtexts and their contemporary social and political environments. Theatre and religion have been intertwined at various historical periods. Studying how the image of God is represented in the theatre involves an examination of the economic benefits of the performance, the political structure in place at the time of the production, and the agendas which inform 17 that portrayal. Furthermore, there are several sources for the developing image of God: the Bible, churches, and an individual's own conception. Clyde Holbrook explains the principal ways in which life experiences have been the source for biblical images of God. One source is the naturalistic realm, which encompasses both man-made and natural elements. The realism of the Jewish scriptures, with its attention to the activities of the daily life of the Hebrew people, would be included in this area. Anthropomorphism, in which God is shown as having physical form and features, also provides a basis for conceptions of God. The human personality is also ascribed to images of God. Examples of all of these sources are found throughout the plays included in this study. There are many images of God found throughout the Bible and in other literature as well. God is depicted at alternate times as a King, warrior, judge, lawgiver, father, mother/"' and savior, among others. Holbrook
Clyde Holbrook, The Iconoclastic Deity: Biblical Images of God (Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 1984) 38. See P.A.H. DeBoer, Fatherhood and Motherhood in Israelite and Judean Piety (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1974): 41 for numerous biblical references to motherly images of God, including Isaiah 66, 13: "As a mother comforts 18 argues that the image of savior is the one that "runs through both Testaments, showing where the primordial center of all religion is, namely, in the soteriological question (which pertains to the doctrine of salvation through Jesus Christ)."^® Holbrook goes on to say that a god who does not save, regardless of how great he is in other respects, "soon loses his devotees."^' The same, of course, can also be said of theatre: theorists such as Peter Brook and Jerzy Grotowski have argued that theatre should fill a (religious) void, becoming an institution of salvation. When theatre fails to be meaningful, it loses its spectators. Other cultures use theatrical performances of divine characters in a more overtly religious way, within their mode of worship. David Haberman, in his study of a religio-dramatic technique known as Raganuga Bhakti Sadhana, distinguished religious role-taking from other forms of role-taking primarily by citing the nature of the paradigmatic individual, which he defined as "a figure who is not physically present, but a divine
her son, so will I comfort you."
^® Holbrook 169. Holbrook 169-170. 19 or superhuman being inhabiting a mythical world. Haberman differentiated the role-taking of human characters from those of the superhuman beings; through ritual imitation, he claimed, the actor's identity was transformed, situating him in the reality of the superhuman being. He maintained that this role-taking was a transformative process that used dramatic techniques to produce change: "the religious world is attained as this role is enacted."®^ This mode of religious performance differs markedly from the production of the plays being examined for this study. None of the plays claim to present the Christian God on stage; rather, the actors "play" God as they would any other character on stage. While many actors play a variety of roles, never completely forgetting that they are actors, the Raganuga practitioners strive to forget their old selves completely in order to become thoroughly absorbed in the one "true identity of the
part".®® This is similar to the scriptural call for a
®° David Haberman, Acting As a Way of Salvation: A Study of Raganuga Bkakti Sadhana (Oxford: Oxford UP: 1988) 8. ®® Haberman 9. ®® Haberman 75. 20
Christian to "deny his very self" in following Christ.There is, however, no direct equivalent in terms of a religious performance of the incarnation. Haberman described a type of drama known as the ra.sa.-lHa, a religious drama based on the mythological Krsna and his companions. For this religious event, pilgrims gather outdoors in the evening to watch actors "who are for the time being the deities themselves."^" Through the use of ritual, the participants enter the framework of meaning which is defined by religious conceptions. Through imititation of divine characters, the participants strive to internalize the transcendant role. When the ritual ends, the participants return to "the common-sense" world, having been transformed by the religious experience.^' Haberman concludes his study by discussing the similarities and differences between Stanislavski's Method of acting, which has dominated the West, and the
actions of what he refers to as the holy actors: Stanislavski designed his method of taking on the character's identity temporarily for the purpose of successful dramatic presentation.
Mark 8: 34-35. Haberman 142.
35 Haberman 143. 21
The purpose of "true acting" for the holy actor, for whom only one drama is worthy of enactment, is salvation; taking on the identity of the paradigmatic individual . . . (usually a divine character) transforms one forever. Clearly, the British and American plays in this study, were acted by men who did not seek transformation by the deity they were representing on stage. Rather, they were acting out their roles fully aware of the illusion they were attempting to create. The five plays included in this project were chosen because they are the only known representations of the Christian God the Father in plays of the twentieth- century American and British theatre. Although many plays have God-like characters, each of the plays selected for this study actually lists "God" as a central character. The plays spanned sixty years and provide contrasting views of the Christian God. The productions of the plays included in this study are situated in the "logocentric" tradition whereby the directors, designers, and actors created performances that presumably conveyed the playwright-'s intention. The selected plays, of course, are based on adaptations
Stratos Constantinidis, Theatre Under Deconstruction? A Question of Approach (New York: Garland, 1993) 7. 22 of stories from the Bible. For example. The Green
Pastures is an adaptation of Ol' Man Adam an' His Chillun^ Up From Paradise is based on The Creation of the World and Other Business, and The Mysteries: Creation is based on The Mysteries: Nativity. Each of the productions included in this study attempts to fix meaning of both the play and of the biblical story through careful framing of the role of God. The Green Pastures is significant for several reasons. A commercial and critical success, the play toured for five years during the Great Depression. Written by a white playwright, the production was composed of an all-African-American cast which was centered on an old, black God. Finally, the play's view of God was framed by scenes involving African-American schoolchildren who were in the process of forming their own conception of God. Arthur Miller's genesis plays, although they were not as successful as some of his other plays, merit inclusion in this study for their unusual characterization of God. A strong advocate for the
rights of the individual, his characterization of the deity provides an important contrast to the other plays in this study. Miller made significant changes between 23 the original play. The Creation of the World and Other Business and the adapted musical. Up From Paradise. For Paradise, Miller added narration and a physical description of God before He enters. Both of these additions helped to focus the view of God more clearly.
The narrator identified the qualities of God and offered a frame of reference from which the audience could view God. Chapter Three examines these changes and the two productions' portrayals of God in light of the social and political environment of the early 1970's. One of the primary issues of the play, the question of God's existence, was being debated by Death of God theologians at the time. When "The Death of God" appeared on the front page of Time magazine in 1966, the discussion quickly spread to the general public. Chapter Four examines The National Theatre of Great Britain's production of The Mysteries which was later adapted and produced by the Court Theatre in Chicago. These productions are significant to this study because of their novel portrayals of God and the similar framing devices which were used to support them. God first appeared on a fork lift and later descended to earth "in a cloth cap and braces, with a pencil behind his ear" to 24 give Noah the measurements for the Ark.^'' Throughout the play, a working class view of God was presented. Furthermore, the play featured actors in overalls who directly addressed the audience. Several times during the production, the audience was asked to move to accommodate scenes, "requiring them to produce a remarkable level of mutual cooperation and confidence. Bernard Levin identified the importance of this kind of audience participation: "You could see the audience responding until they ached to be given a part themselves, gradually realizing with wonder and visible joy that they had been given a part and were playing it."®® At the end of the play, the cast led the audience in a "communal dance as recognition that everyone shared in a common endeavour. This framing device, as well as the political agenda driving it (the
legitimization of regional dialects), make these plays central to this study.
Peter Lewis, The National: A Dream Made Concrete (London: Methuen, 1990) 152. ®® Peter Lewis 153.
®® Qtd. Peter Lewis 154. Peter Lewis 154. 25 The most significant of the previous studies in this area is the book. Playing God: Medieval Mysteries on the Modern Stage (1989) by John R. Elliott. It is an excellent overview of the major productions of mysteries in twentieth-century England. Contrary to its title, however, the book does not deal extensively with the philosophical implications and practical aspects of the performance of God on stage. The portrayal of God is mentioned as one among many elements in the revival of the mysteries on the British stage in the twentieth century. Elliott's survey stops with plays written prior to
1980; and in so doing misses the opportunity to explore some of the factors leading toward a redefinition of the issue in the contemporary theatre. Specifically, the book fails to consider the National Theatre of London and the Court Theatre of Chicago's productions of The
Mysteries in which God is a central figure. The book also disregards commercial productions in the United States which cast a new light on the "old" treatment. The book excludes such noteworthy productions as Marc
Connelly's The Green Pastures and Arthur Miller's genesis plays. Creation of the World and Other Business (adapted for the musical. Up From Paradise.) Cleary 26 Another work which provides passing reference to this topic is Dorothy Sayers' introduction to her radio drama Man Born to Be King in which she defends her choice to allow the voice of God in her radio play. At this time (1941), God was banned from appearing on stage and so the representation of His voice was questionable on the radio. Sayers was allowed to use the voice of God in her radio play on the condition that no audience members be present during the production of the radio play. Gordon Bennett in Acting Out Faith: Christian Theatre Today briefly discusses the issue of playing God. Bennett has a chapter on the relationship between the Church and the theatre in which he makes passing reference (one paragraph) to the representation of God on stage. His study is valuable, however, as an historical overview of Christian theatre. Martha Candler's Drama in Religious Service is a seminal work in the field of religious drama. While the book offers many passing references to God on stage, it provides no in-depth analysis of specific twentieth century roles. Written in 1922, it is more valuable as a "how-to manual" for producing religious drama in the church than as a theoretical treatise or textual 27 analysis of the problems encountered in the stage representations of God. Tryggve Mettinger treats the subject area in "The Veto on Images and the Aniconic God in Ancient Israel" in Religious Symbols and Their Functions. Hettinger's article is a valuable survey of the events leading up to the prohibition of images of the unseen God. It is particularly useful for its biblical references which identify passages forbidding idolatry. While he does not deal specifically with theatre, his work is useful as source material when encountering the ideas of fundamentalists who oppose the impersonation of the deity based on biblical principles. There are several secondary sources of significance to the five plays cited above. The one pertaining to
The Green Pastures is Walter C. Daniel's De Lawd: Richard B. Harrison and The Green Pastures, which is part of the series. Contributions in Afro-American and
African Studies. This work offers a detailed survey of the production's history and touches on the importance of the Sunday School framing device, but does not explore the relationship between the play's device and playing "De Lawd." Other secondary sources, including 28 many newspaper reviews from the New York production and the ensuing tours, are listed in the bibliography. A source for The Creation of the World and Other Business and Up From Paradise is Dennis Welland's Miller: A Study of His Plays, Welland's book offers a brief (7 page) chapter on the Genesis plays in which he offers a cursory comparison of the two works. There are numerous books and articles written by and about Arthur Miller. Miller spoke of the genesis plays in several interviews which are quoted throughout Chapter Three.
I saw the Chicago production of The Mysteries in February of 1993 and was able to gather source materials including a videotape of both the London and Chicago productions. The secondary source of most significance to London's The Mysteries is The National: A Dream Made Concrete which has detailed references to The Mysteries. Another source valuable for its pictorial evidence is Britain's National Theatre— The First 25 years (1988). Other secondary sources include programs and reviews of both productions which are listed in the bibliography. This study will examine how God's portrayal onstage
is established by five twentieth-century plays in controversial political and social contexts of the 1930s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Particular attention 29 will be given to how the representation of the deity is
framed in each of the plays. The framing device is the "lens" through which the audience is invited to view the play and its production. The use of narrative in each of the five plays is also a significant contributor to the way God is
portrayed onstage. Russell Hittinger argues that the narrative is the fundamental way of interpreting historical actions. By his reasoning, revising a narrative gives new meaning to material facts, even when
the author retains all of the facts of the previous narrative.In each of the plays examined in this study the biblical narrative was changed; an adaptation was made of a source based on the biblical narrative. Just as The Green Pastures was based on Ol' Man Adam an'
His Chillun, the latter was based loosely on the Bible. The same is true of Up From Paradise which was based on
The Creation of the World and Other Business and The Mysteries: Creation which was adapted from The Mysteries: The Nativity.
Russell Hittinger, "The Metahistorical Vision of Christopher Dawson," The Dynamic Character of Christian Culture, ed. Peter J. Cataldo (Lanham: UP of America, 1984) 10. 30
In Marc Connelly's The Green Pastures, the predominantly white audience saw a southern African- American Sunday school class filled with young black children. One of the students asked her teacher, "What did God look like, Mr. Deshee?" to which the teacher responded, "Well, nobody knows exactly what God looked like. But when I was a little boy I used to imagine dat he looked like de Reverend Dubois.Mr. Deshee's description of God as a black preacher prepared the audience for an old, black God. The expectation was already set up for God to be the schoolchildren's image of Him through the guidance of their teacher. This device may have been the essential reason for the widespread popularity and relative lack of controversy surrounding this play. The production ran for a year and a half (1930-1931) at the Mansfield Theatre in New York City and then toured for another three and a half years (1931-1935) throughout the United States and Canada. Great Britain would not allow performances of the play due to its ban on personifying the Christian
God on stage.
Marc Connelly, The Green Pastures (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1929) 8. 31
As the play ran during the Depression, from 1930 to 1935, the production's portrayal of a sweet, fatherly, God had ramifications beyond the scope of the play. As is explained in Chapter Two, the fact that God was played by an African-American man as seen through the eyes of African-American schoolchildren encouraged members of the primarily white audience to view the
representation in a condescending way: they saw a cute, but naive, view of God and the world. Furthermore, the economic hardships experienced by the country prepared the audiences for the plight of humanity expressed in
the play. In The Green Pastures, "de Lawd" was transformed from a god of wrath to a god of mercy. He was aided by a human being, Hezdrel, who had superior knowledge. The changing image of the deity encompassed the basic argument for progressive revelation, which "suggests an unfolding of divine truth over an extended period of time," instead of God revealing "all His truth" to Adam, Moses, or any other singular man.'*^ The image of God was controlled by the changing needs and desires of the
human characters in the play. The financially depressed
William H. Walker, Progressive Revelation (Cherokee: Spanish, 1971) 6. 32 audience wished to be spared by a God who initially
punished His creation but at the end of the play, sacrificed Himself. This hopeful outlook, according to accounts by critics of the time, was encouraging to a Depression-battered audience. The second set of plays which is included in this
study is Arthur Miller's genesis plays. The Creation of the World and Other Business and the musical version. Up
From Paradise. In Creation, the curtain rose on God as He approached Adam. When Creation was adapted by Miller for the musical. Up From Paradise, several additions were made which are pertinent to this study. The musical play was narrated by three angels, Uriel, Azrael, and Chemuel. The angels sang a song, "The Lord
Is Perfectly Adorable" in which the lyrics described the possibilities for His appearance: "God is tall and often short . . . God is rough and also smooth . . . The Lord
is very wide . . . He is often narrow. A production note at the beginning of the play underscored
the fact that this was not to be a realistic production: Please note that there is no ground plan, costume or property plots included in this edition because the actors wear either black tie or the simplest kind of costume and there
** Miller, The Creation of the World and Other Business (New York: Viking, 1973) 3. 33
is virtually no set— just a bare stage with a translucent backdrop and a few props.*® In the musical, as the opening song suggested, God became all things to all people: He could be whatever people thought He was going to be. The view of God was a cynical one: He appeared as a helpless buffoon-like character who was unable to handle the problems of the world. The National Theatre's The Mysteries, a trilogy with God as a central character, was written by Tony Harrison and performed in England during the time period 1977-1985. The opening stage directions identified the context. They called for the company to enter dressed in a variety of uniforms which established them as blue collar workers. The company greeted the audience as they arrived. The band's leader welcomed the audience and began playing a polka tune. The audience clapped along while the company danced to the tune.*® When God arrived on a fork-lift truck, the audience was forewarned that liberties would be taken with the production elements.
*® Arthur Miller, Up From Paradise, music by Stanley Silveirman (New York: Samuel French, 1984) 10. *® Tony Harrison, The Mysteries (London: Faber and Faber, 1985) 11. 34 The representation of God as a blue-collar worker was related directly to the author ^ s advocacy of the legitimacy of regional dialects in England. Tony Harrison, who was born into the working class was, and continues to be, outspoken in his refusal to give in to class bias which he argues is the dominant force behind "standard" speech in England. He maintains that the upper class is robbing the working class of its cultural heritage by insisting they speak "correctly" if they wish to advance in society.*^ God portrayed as a blue- collar worker with a Northern dialect was consistent with Harrison's desire for the legitimization of regional dialects in England. Bernard Sahlins adapted The Mysteries for Chicago's Court Theatre. The Chicago version retained the portrayal of God as a blue-collar worker. The first part of the trilogy. Creation, had its American premiere in 1992. A year later Creation was revived and produced along with Part II, The Passion. Since God (as first person) did not appear in The Passion, the study focuses
Ken Worpole, "Scholarship Boy: The Poetry of Tony Harrison" Tony Harrison ed. Neil Astley, Bloodaxe Critical Anthologies: I (Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe, 1991) 69. 35 primarily on the first part of the London and Chicago trilogies. I examine the five plays and adaptations included in this study by considering all five playscripts, as well as production documents and other primary and secondary sources. Connelly's book of memoirs. Voices Offstage, contains a chapter on The Green Pastures in which he describes the production in detail. All three playwrights included in this study adapted their work from other sources. Marc Connelly's The Green Pastures was adapted from Ol' Man Adam an' His Chillun by Roark Bradford; Miller adapted Up From Paradise from his The Creation of the World and Other Business; and Bernard Sahlins adapted Chicago's The Mysteries: Creation from the London version. The Mysteries: The Nativity. Special consideration will be given to how the adaptations inform the view of God. Since I have only seen the live production of the
Chicago version of The Mysteries, I rely on other sources for the productions of the remaining four plays. I have also seen a videotape of London's The Mysteries as well as the film version of The Green Pastures which was written and directed by Marc Connelly. When a secondary source is used, the author of the material is 36 evaluated for inconsistencies, political and social biases, and connection with the production. As each source is used, I note any biases I have discovered. Finally, each individual production is examined for its use of structural devices and production elements which attempt to control the audience's perception of the representation of God. CHAPTER II MARC CONNELLY'S THE GREEN PASTURES
Introduction
The first major portrayal of God in the twentieth- century theatre was enacted by Richard B. Harrison in Marc Connelly's The Green Pastures in 1930. Harrison was an African-American actor who enjoyed critical and popular success with his predominantly white audience.
He, along with the entire African-American cast, encountered some racism among a minority of critics and other members of society. Overall, however, the production was widely accepted by audience members all over the country. The Green Pastures, written in 1929 and produced from 1930 to 1935 during the Depression, was an unusually popular play which has not received much scholarly attention. The reasons for this lack of scholarship could be attributed to the issues of race and religion found in the script. Paul T. Nolan, writing in 1969, suggested that the general feeling in
37 38 the academic community was that the play "is too simple for complex academic criticism, too soft for an age of revolution, and perhaps too patronizing for the new role of the Negro in the United States, too much like Uncle Tom's Cabin.The play, in fact, does raise issues of racism. Portraying an African-American God on the stage as seen through the eyes of Southern African- American schoolchildren runs the risk of becoming condescending and cute. Connelly, an agnostic, wrote in his memoirs that he made every attempt "to respect the faith of the black fundamentalists."“® The issue of racism is a difficult one to address fifty years later in a survey focusing on playing God in the theatre. Issues of race are raised in the perception of God on stage: critics viewed the role of God as charming and naive, suggesting that the African-American religion as it was shown on the stage was something to be viewed with amusement. Brooks Atkinson, a strong supporter of the production, wrote in his review that the story was
Paul T. Nolan, Marc Connelly (New York: Twayne, 1969) 83. Marc Connelly, Voices Offstage: A Book of Memoirs (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1968) 170. 39 told from the point of view of "ignorant religious negroes of the South. Nolan asserted that the bulk of existing scholarship was more concerned with The Green Pastures's stage history than with its "literary merit and ideational content. The one major study done of
The Green Pastures is Walter Daniel's 'De Lawd': Richard B. Harrison and The Green Pastures. Daniel's work provides background information on the play and a strong tribute to the talents of Harrison. It does not, however, delve into the broader ramifications of personifying the deity on stage. An investigation of the portrayal of God in the twentieth century theatre must address Harrison's characterization of 'De Lawd' in The Green Pastures. The cast was made up entirely of African-Americans, an unusual company for Broadway. Most germane for this study is the fact that a framing device was used to portray God as an African-American Sunday school class saw Him. This chapter investigates who 'De Lawd' of The Green Pastures was, and also, how this concept of God
“ Brooks Atkinson, "New Negro Drama of Sublime Beauty," New York Times 27 February 1930, 9:26. Nolan 83. 40 was communicated within the production by examining the play's stage history, plot, the role of God, and critical response.
Paul T. Nolan in God on Stage contended that Connelly was able to "create a character named God, as long as he suggested that he was dealing with a concept — a people's idea of God, rather than with the God B e i n g . The Green Pastures clearly portrayed "De Lawd" as a concept of the schoolchildren in the play.
The Green Pastures opened at the Mansfield Theatre in New York City on February 26, 1930, after five weeks of rehearsal. With the fall of the stock market the previous October, the successful run of a play with an all-black cast in an economically depressed country was an unlikely prospect. Audiences did not know what to expect, as there had been no out-of-town tryouts and no previews. Rehearsals had been closed to outsiders. The play was very well received by both the critics and the audience. It enjoyed 640 performances in New York City and five tours throughout the United States and
Canada.“ In May of 1930, the Pulitzer Prize Committee
“ Nolan, God on Stage 78. “ Walter C. Daniel, "De Lawd": Richard B. Harrison and The Green Pastures (New York: Greenwood, 1986) 95. 41 announced that The Green Pastures had been chosen to receive its drama award. The play's first run in New York extended until June 27, 1931, sixteen months after the play opened. From there, the production moved to Chicago on Labor Day of 1931. Opening night seats were sold out six weeks in advance. The play ran in Chicago for sixteen weeks, prompting the producer, Rowland Stebbins, to take The Green Pastures on a transcontinental tour. From Chicago, the production moved to St. Louis, where it played for two weeks before heading farther north.
Traveling through Minnesota, Montana and Wisconsin, the cast reached the Pacific Northwest by the spring of 1932. The play continued to enjoy strong reviews and popular support in Seattle and Portland.®"* The company ended its tour with a five-week run in Los Angeles and four weeks in San Francisco. From there, the cast returned to Harlem for a break in production. After a month and a half off. The Green Pastures opened in Boston on Labor Day, 1932. Being well received there, it moved to Philadelphia and then to
Baltimore. When it was scheduled to play at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., a problem arose
Daniel 116. 42 because of the theatre's racial policy; the National strictly forbade African-American spectators from attending any performance there.®® This policy led to friction between members of the cast and management who were urged by the NAACP to cancel the production. With the cast bound by contract to continue. The Green Pastures management arranged a situation whereby the National agreed to a special showing for African- Americans at the theatre. This did little to dispel the anger of African-Americans over the racial policy enforced for a play with an African-American cast. The company was divided between feelings of loyalty to the production, not to mention fulfilling their contractual obligations, and outrage that the African-American community was excluded. After the Washington controversy, the cast traveled to Delaware, Pennsylvania and Western New York. The week of March 20, the cast of The Green Pastures performed in Toronto before the play's first Canadian audience. The tour then moved to
Cleveland and Detroit before ending the season in Easton, Pennsy1vania. Rowland Stebbins and Marc Connelly were not sure
where to go for the 1933-34 season. They considered
®® Daniel 128. 43 going back to Broadway, making a tour of Europe or going to the American South. Walter Daniel indicated their concern with performing in the South: "Seeing a black God on stage was a new experience for all Americans. It might be traumatic for Southerners.After several Southern journalists, who had viewed The Green Pastures in Washington the previous season, recommended production in the South, Stebbins decided to open its fourth season in Roanoke on October 4, 1933. The southern tour was warmly received in such cities as Greensboro, North Carolina; Memphis, Tennessee; Atlanta, Georgia; Oklahoma City; Dallas and Houston, Texas; and the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. The two cities where the production did not sell out were Louisville, Kentucky and New Orleans, Louisiana. By contrast, Dallas was the greatest success on the southern tour. In the same season. The Green Pastures headed toward the Midwest through Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Western New York. While the tour had planned to include Canada, arrangements were canceled due to a Canadian stagehands' strike. The fourth road tour began at Norfolk, Virginia, on September 29, 1934. In October, the play toured to
Daniel 138. 44
London, Ontario, before returning to New York in February of 1935. While on tour, the only states where the play had not been performed were Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New Mexico, Wyoming, Arizona, Nevada and North Dakota. Four days after The Green Pastures opened again in New York, Harrison collapsed as he prepared to go on stage for the l,659th performance. Two weeks later, he passed away, and with his death came the end of The Green Pastures. Although it was revived briefly in 1951, it never again enjoyed the success it had with
Harrison as "De Lawd." There are many reasons as to why the success was unique to the production of the 1930's. For many, Harrison "was The Green Pastures. Theophilus Lewis identified The Green Pastures as "an actor-made play."®® Furthermore, the play was a product of its own times. The Depression affected The Green Pastures' audiences who perhaps were reaching out to this hopeful view of the deity.
Daniel 157.
Daniel 166. ®® Theophilus Lewis, "About 'The Green Pastures' 21 Years Later," Interracial Review, May 1951: 79. 45
À major debate being held at the time of the play provides an interesting backdrop which is relevant to the perception of God in The Green Pastures. The whole way of determining one's conception of the deity was being challenged by the notion of progressive revelation, whose proponents argued that God was revealed in stages corresponding to humanity's capacity to understand Him. It involved a method of approaching
the Bible "at a time when the idea of progress was being transfixed from the natural sciences to human history,"®® when such elements as evolution and the Bible were being adjusted. "Fit the above viewpoint into the idea of progress, apply both to the Bible, and the conception of 'progressive revelation' emerges."®^ The principle of progressive revelation implies that God
revealed Himself to people in stages: as they became more capable of seeing Him as all-good. He would show Himself as kind and gentle. As William Walker explained, "We see one revelation is added to the
previous one until we finally receive the complete
®° George Ernest Wright, "Progressive Revelation," The Christian Scholar March 1956: 61. Wright 62. 46 picture of God."“ This method of viewing revelation, as it will be shown later, provided an interesting background for the transformation of "De Lawd" from a
God of wrath to a God of mercy. The setting for The Green Pastures, according to the stage directions in the playtext, was a "corner in a Negro church"®^ in a Louisiana town. Mr. Deshee was teaching his Sunday school students about the Bible. One of them asked what God looked like and the teacher responded, "Well, nobody knows exactly what God looked like. But when I was a little boy I used to imagine dat he looked like de Reverend Dubois."®“ This opening scene was significant because it established that the audience would be viewing the events and God on stage as they appeared in the mind's eye of the schoolchildren. This allowed a distance from the personification of the deity as the audience would not expect 'de Lawd' to match their own conception of the deity. The second scene was set at a heavenly fish-fry.
After several short scenes, Gabriel entered and
William H. Walker, Progressive Revelation (Cherokee; Spanish, 1971) 7. Connelly, Pastures 3. Connelly, Pastures 8. 47 announced the coining of the Lord: "Gangway 1 Gangway for de Lawd God Jehovah!"®® God played with the young angels and even allowed a small Cherub to use His coat tail as a trapeze. The viewer's first impression of God was that He was a warm and easy-going ruler who was concerned for His people. God decided to create the earth because the custard needs more "firmament." When He created too much water. He then needed to create the earth: Dat's always de trouble wid miracles. When you pass one you always gotta r'ar back an' pass another. (There is a hush). Let dere be a place to dreen off dis firmament. Let dere be mountains and valleys an' let dere be oceans an' lakes. An' let dere be rivers and bayous to dreen it off in, too. As a matter of fac' let dere be de earth. An' when dat's done let dere be de sun, an' let it come out and dry my Cherubs' wings.®® After creating the earth, God made Adam and Eve to enjoy His creation. Mr. Deshee's voice interrupted the onstage action. He asked the children to explain what happened next, and one of the girls told how Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, were exiled from the garden, and eventually had Cain and Abel.
®® Connelly, Pastures 19. ®® Connelly Pastures 26. 48 The next two scenes involved Cain's fall from grace and God's growing awareness of the sinfulness of humanity. After a short scene in His office, God visited the earth and met Noah, who invited Him to dinner. God told him that there would be a great flood
and that Noah must build an ark to save himself and his family. Noah builds the ark according to God's specifications and after the flood, God told His angel, Gabriel, that He was glad to have a fresh start with humanity. The next major scenes involved Moses and his preparation for leading the Israelites out of Egypt. After Moses performed several tricks for the Pharaoh,
the Israelites began their march on a treadmill. When they reached the promised land, Mr. Deshee interrupted the scene again and explained to the children how "after dey got into the Land of Canaan dey went to de dogs
again. After God visited a night club, where a prophet had just been shot. He renounced humanity. After He returned to heaven. He was urged by the prophet Hosea to have mercy on His people. A major shift in God's character development occurred when He visits the man.
Connelly, Pastures 148. 49 Hezdrel. He learned that the people's vision of God had
changed from a God of wrath to a God of mercy. Hezdrel explained, "I don' know. I ain't bothered to think much about it. Maybe dey is. Maybe our God is de same ol' God. I guess we jest got tired of his appearance dat ol' way."®® Hezdrel suggested that it was humanity's perception which defined God. Through talking to Hezdrel, God learned that He was the God of Hosea, the God of mercy through suffering. In the final scene of the play, God realized He, Himself, must suffer. "God continues to look out over the audience for a moment and then a look of surprise comes into his face. He sighs."®® In the distance, God heard a voice crying out for Jesus on the Cross. All the angels sang, "Hallelujah, King Jesus" as the play ended. The play was loosely based on Roark Bradford's Ol' Man Adam an' His Chillun, a series of thirty sketches on Biblical characters. As the sketches would be too long if presented in full, Connelly chose not to include about fifteen of these scenes in his play. Scenes which perhaps would have been too difficult to stage in an
®® Connelly, Pastures 167. ®® Connelly, Pastures 172. 50 episodic play, include: the Tower of Babel; the parting of the Red Sea; the fall of Jericho; David and Goliath; and Daniel being fed to the lions. It is unclear why Connelly chose not to stage Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac and the rivalry between Esau and Jacob. Several scenes from Ol' Man Adam an' His Chillun do not seem to fit with Connelly's play: those involving Job; David and Goliath; and Solomon. Bradford's sketches of these men focused on the greatness of the humans involved and do not fit with Connelly's "Lawd" who was frustrated by the constant failings of His people. There was one New Testament scene in Ol' Man Adam an' His Chillun involving Salome & John the Baptist, but Connelly chose only to suggest the New Testament in the last line of The Green Pastures. The final scene of Ol' Man Adam an'
His Chillun was entitled "Nigger Deemus" and would certainly not have worked in The Green Pastures. Deemus believed it would be inappropriate for him to join de
Lawd: But, Lawd, you knows and I knows I ain't got no business goin' round de wilderness wid you and all dem white folks. I knows my place in dis man's town. . . . So I'm jest gonter fish along and have a good time thinkin' bout what I'm gonter do when I gets to heaven and gits 51 in my long white robe and won't nobody know is I white or black. This passage implied that God and His followers were white, while Deemus segregated himself from de Lawd's community. This would have completely changed Connelly's concept of an all-African-American cast led by a black "God." The sections that Connelly added are significant to this topic: the framing device with the schoolchildren;
God's office in Heaven; and the character of Hezdrel who taught God that He must suffer in order to l eam mercy were the playwright's additions. All of these devices helped to portray God in an anthropomorphized view: God, in the vision of schoolchildren looked like their preacher; God had an office, like other men; and God, too, must learn, must suffer and must be merciful. Connelly's 'Lawd' seems much more emotionally involved with His people than Bradford's God. This involvement was central to the child-like view of God. While
Bradford's God was aloof, Connelly's God walked the earth like "a natchel man.
Roark Bradford, Ol' Man Adam an' His Chillun, (Harrisburg: Military Service, 1928) 185.
Connelly Pastures 8. 52
The reactions of reviewers to The Green Pastures are a significant guide to the perceptions of a small but influential portion of the audience: the critics. As the play traveled through 40 states and parts of Canada, reactions by reviewers varied. While the majority of reviews were consistently positive, the thrust of the articles varied greatly. Many critics chose to focus on the character of "De Lawd," while others wrestled with the importance of the framing device. The issues of race, authorship, genre, and music were also important topics. Some reviewers cited the benefits which The Green Pastures provided the country during the Depression. As the critic for The New York Times, Brooks Atkinson exemplified the critical praise showered on the opening night performance of The Green Pastures. After calling it "a play of surpassing beauty, Atkinson identified Connelly's treatment of "De Lawd" as the strength of the production: "Putting the Lord on the stage in such simple terms that your imagination is stimulated into a transfigurating conception of sheer universal goodness— that is Mr. Connelly's finest
Atkinson, "Negro Drama" 26. 53 achievement."^' Atkinson continued to support the play throughout its five-year run, calling it "the divine comedy of the modern theatre.In addition to his review, Atkinson also wrote a feature on The Green
Pastures in the same issue. After giving a detailed plot summary, Atkinson prepared his reader for the central character whom he argued gave The Green Pastures
"a religious exaltation beyond any play I have ever seen. described how the audience changed its view of "De Lawd": while in the beginning He was, as Atkinson termed it, the "Negro's" God, before the play was over He had "become a God of such nobility of character that you no longer conceive(d) of Him as the Negro's Heavenly Father. He (was) the Lord of creation, the Ruler over all people. . . Atkinson here portrayed a bias shown by other reviewers as well. He suggested that God changed from the African-American God to a superior God who demonstrated such "nobility of character," that He became for Atkinson the true Lord of
Atkinson, "Negro Drama" 26.
Atkinson, "Negro Drama" 26. Brooks Atkinson, "The Green Pastures," New York Times, 27 February 1930: 23. Atkinson, "The Green Pastures" 23. 54 Creation. Although he wrote very warmly about the production, Atkinson was condescending toward the
African-American portrayal of God in the play. Atkinson went so far as to call the portrayal "the fusion of all the dumb, artless hopes of an ignorant people."’’^
Atkinson again wrote a positive review in February of 1935, when the play returned to New York City for its final run. He especially praised Harrison's portrayal of "De Lawd" which he felt had grown stronger through
the years on tour.™ Atkinson was still supportive of The Green Pastures in 1951 when it was briefly revived with William Marshall as "De Lawd." Although it was a favorable notice, he suggested that "there will never be
(Harrison's) equal in Marc Connelly's incomparable play."™ Atkinson's reverence for Harrison's work in the role is interesting in light of the racist remarks he made about Connelly's conception of "De Lawd" years
earlier. The press became embroiled in racial issues as they covered the production of The Green Pastures. James A.
™ Atkinson "Negro Drama" 26. ™ Brooks Atkinson, "The Play," New York Times, 27 February 1935; 16. ™ Brooks Atkinson, "First Night At the Theatre," New York Times, 16 March 1951: 8. 55
(Billboard) Jackson wrote an article for the New York Amsterdam News in which he chastised members of the press for crediting the playwright, Marc Connelly and the producer, Rowland Stebbins, with "discovering” talent for The Green Pastures. Jackson listed ten leading characters who had had professional experience- Jackson suggested that by praising producers for the actors' talents, performers never reached star status and the financial rewards that accompany it.®° Stark Young was guilty of undermining the status of African-American actors; he was an example of that which Billboard Jackson reviled; "Most Negroes are good acting mediums, but hardly actors at all. The company on the whole, however, acted better than the usual colored group of the serious stage.He continued by crediting Connelly and Bradford for the positive light in which they cast the "Negro": "It is time to hear more of their fancy, humor and patience, their devotion, easy temper and rich sensuous gifts, their lazy and imaginative love of life and their simple, natural
®° James A. (Billboard) Jackson, "'Green Pastures' Holds Critics' Fancy," New York Amsterdam News, 12 March 1930, sec. 1: 8. Stark Young, "The Green Pastures," New Republic, LXII, 19 March 1930: 128. 56 goodness.®^ Young's comments were blatantly racist: he used the word "lazy" to refer to actors who were touring for five years performing on the road eight times a week. Other critics avoided issues of race altogether and focused on the framing device of the Sunday schoolchildren. The critic for the Roanoke Times wrote: "The opening moments of the play have the importance of a prologue in establishing the psychology of the narrative."®® Fred Beecher, a theatre manager in Sioux Falls urged readers of the Argus Leader planning to attend The Green Pastures to arrive early so as not to miss the opening scene. "The story is explained in the prologue and those missing this important part of the performance run the chance of misunderstanding much that follows."®" It is clear that the critics appreciated the importance of the framing device in understanding the play. Another problem that critics faced in trying to review The Green Pastures was in distinguishing the work
Young 129. 83 MXThe Green Pastures' Enthralls Audience at First Performance," Roanoke Times, 5 October 1933: 2. ®" "'De Lawd' Likes Nice Day," Sioux Falls Argus Leader, 19 January 1934: 4. 57 of the playwright/adapter Marc Connelly from that of Roark Bradford, the author of the sketches, Ol' Man Adam an' His Chillun, upon which Connelly based his play. Stark Young wrote in The New Republic how "the basic interpretation of the Negro mind and spirit— the conception of God . . . (was) Mr. Bradford's" while the play's structure and framing device involving the Sunday schoolchildren belonged to Connelly.®^
After The Green Pastures won the Pulitzer Prize, the question of Roark Bradford's contribution again rose in importance. Brooks Atkinson took up the issue by comparing Connelly's play to Bradford's sketches. Atkinson argued that the two points which earned Connelly the Pulitzer and distinguished his play from the sketches were the framing device and the "remarkably
fresh conception of the Lord."®® He summed up his comparison in favor of Connelly: All that is so inexplicably transfiguring about "The Green Pastures" is Mr. Connelly's personal contribution. If the play were merely an adaptation or dramatization of the volume of sketches, it would be hardly more than Negro burlesque. Taking material liberally from the book, 01' Marc Connelly has r'ared back and passed a miracle. It is the
®® Young 128. ®® Atkinson, "Sketchbook" 1. 58 miracle that counts; it is the miracle that won the prize. In addition to the issue of authorship, critics seemed to have trouble identifying the genre of The Green Pastures. Edward A. Steiner in The Christian Century labeled it as "a passion play without Jesus."®® Olin Downes wrote what it was not: "This is not grand opera [but] something of the nature of music drama."®®
Atkinson called it "comedy, fantasy, folklore, religion, poetry, theatre, it hardly matters which."®° A year after The Green Pastures opened, Atkinson wrote, "Now it is frankly a miracle play.The critic for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch called The Green Pastures "Marc Connelly's Negro Spiritual which brings heaven and earth together in the shape of an episodical dramatic fantasy."®^ When considering the play's religious
®‘' Atkinson, "Sketchbook" 2. ®® Edward A. Steiner, "The Fashion Play of 1930," Christian Century, 12 August 1930: 983-984. ®® Olin Downes, "Future Opera: Negro Choir in 'The Green Pastures'," New York Times, 29 June 1930, sec. 8: 3. ®° Atkinson, Negro Drama 26. ®^ Brooks Atkinson, "They Are Still Green," New York Times, 1 March 1931, sec. 8: 1.
® 2 H'The Green Pastures' Fine Negro Fantasy," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1 March 1932: 3B. 59 subject matter and episodic structure, "miracle play" seems to be the most descriptive label- Another issue the critics addressed was the importance of music to The Green Pastures. Olin Downes contended that the principal reason several New York producers rejected the play as written was the absence of the spirituals in the written text: If it is true that the manuscript play was refused by more than one manager before it saw the stage, the fact is easy to explain. It can be added that only half its effect could be realized without the sound of the spirituals in the mind of the reader/" Downes described how the music binds the play's episodes together "and carries on and completes the emotion at the place where the action stops.
Two months after The Green Pastures opened, the play received a different kind of notoriety in the press: Rowland Stebbins contributed five hundred dollars to The Florence Mills Theatrical Association, an organization founded to help actors survive the Depression. This was not the only charitable organization the company assisted. The cast of The Green Pastures gave a benefit for The Southern
Downes 3. Downes 3. 60
California Institute of Negro Social Work which aided destitute families in the region. These benefits were noteworthy as they established the philanthropic activities of the cast and production personnel. The play's image as a noble and religious experience in a depressed environment was helped by this positive press. The Green Pastures received ample publicity. In comparing the similarities of articles in papers as far away as Roanoke and Sioux Falls, it is clear that management made every effort to supply journalists with plenty of material to write their articles. They succeeded in keeping The Green Pastures at the forefront of American thought in the most positive light possible.
The Role of God In the Text
The concept of God which was portrayed in The Green Pastures was supported by a framing device which worked as a lens through which the audience viewed the play.
The Green Pastures was framed by a southern African- American Sunday school class. The Sunday school class, and their teacher, Mr. Deshee appeared three times: in Part I, scene one, in scene three, after God told Adam and Eve not to eat the apple; and again in Part II, scene 4, when the Israelites reached the promised land. 61
Throughout the play, the Sunday school framing device reminded the audience that they were watching the children's perceptions of God. Their view, while very reverent, was also enhanced by humor. Connelly in his "Author's Note," described God as the promised comforter, a just but compassionate patriarch, and the summation of all the virtues His people have observed in the human beings around them. Connelly went on to say that the Lord may look like the Reverend Mr. Dubois as the Sunday School teacher suggested in the play, or He may resemble another believer's own grandfather.^' He was "the tallest and biggest" character on stage who spoke in a rich, bass voice.** Analyzing His speech allows one to track "de
Lawd's" range of emotions. The dominant trait He showed throughout most of the play was wrath. He demonstrated this in an obvious way with the flood. He also punished
Moses for breaking the tablet containing the Ten Commandments. His last renunciation of humanity came with the fabricated scene involving the nightclub in Babylon.
** Connelly, The Green Pastures xv-xvi, ** Connelly, Pastures 19. 62
After this incident, God's character seemed to make a major shift. God confided in Gabriel His frustration with His pet project of humanity, "Even bein' Gawd ain't a bed of roses. He also told the archangel how He was been haunted by Hosea, one of the only newcomers to heaven since God last renounced humanity. Every time Hosea appeared in the doorway of God's office, God heard
from Hezdrel, a follower of Hosea who was still on earth. Hosea and Hezdrel were important contributors to God's transformation as they taught Him about mercy. God, although He had vowed to renounce humanity, relented, and paid one last visit to earth. Hezdrel taught God about humanity when the man informed God, who he thinks is just a preacher, that he
still has faith. When God reminded Hezdrel that He had abandoned the people of the earth, Hezdrel countered with, "Who say dat? Who dare say dat of de Lawd God of Hosea?"®® It was this line which surprised God and
started Him on His way toward becoming a new character, one defined by a human being. The conversation that followed showed God that He had lost His image as the
God of Wrath as He was known during the time of Moses.
Connelly, Pastures 161. ®® Connelly, Pastures 165. 63
Instead, Hezdrel explained, God was now considered to be the God of Mercy, the view that Hosea taught them. When God asked Hezdrel how Hosea found mercy, the man replied, "De only way anyone kin find it . . . Through
sufferin' After this discussion, God thanked Hezdrel for telling Him so much. He confided to Hezdrel, "You see I been so far away, I guess I was jest way behin' de times.While in Heaven, God mulled over everything Hezdrel told Him. It finally dawned on God what it meant for Him; He told Gabriel, "Did he mean dat even God must suffer?.A voice offstage provided the answer: "Oh, look at himl Oh, look, de goin' to make him carry it up dat high hill! Dey goin' to nail him to it! Oh, dat's a terrible burden for one man to carry!"^°^ With this line, the play closed. The character of God had been revealed through his own speech. Other characters spoke about God throughout the
play. In addition to God's physical appearance, many characters commented on "de Lawd's" moods. One of God's
Connelly, Pastures 166-167.
Connelly, Pastures 169. Connelly, Pastures 172. Connelly, Pastures 173. 64 office cleaners remarked about the thunderbolts in the distance: "Doggone, de Lawd mus' be mad fo' sho', dis mo'nin. Dat's de fo'ty-six thunde'-bolt since breakfast.The cleaners proceeded to discuss how unhappy God has been because of the behavior of the humans. After this discussion ran its course, the conversation moved to the simple decor of God's office and more indication of His character: "De Lawd's kind o' ol' fashioned in some ways. I s'pose He keeps dis office plain an' simple on purpose. . . . 'Most evahthin' else in heaven's so fin' 'n' gran', maybe ev'ry now an den He jest gits sick an' tired of de glory.Again, the play reinforced a simple conception of God, one devoid of "de glory." Other characters reflected on the trustworthy nature of God. As Moses told Zipporah, "De Lawd's looked after me so far, I don't 'spect him to fall down on me now. Moses later told de Lawd that although he knew God was taking care of him, he never expected God to talk with him personally, calling attention to the special relationship "de Lawd" had with His people.
Connelly, Pastures 97. Connelly, Pastures 100-101.
105 Connelly, Pastures 113. 65
Gabriel's character, at the end of the play, helped to establish that there had been a major change in de Lawd, "You look a little pensive, Lawd. . . . You look awful pensive, Lawd. You been sittin' yere, lookin' dis way an awful long time. Is it somethin' serious, Lawd?"^°® Gabriel's comments about "de Lawd's" somber emotional state set up God's decision to sacrifice His son. In this way, Gabriel was used to identify the change in God's character and allowed the Lord to reveal that He had been transformed from the God of Wrath to the God of mercy. What God says to and about other characters is also indicative of His man-made personality. He is a God who is capable of a great range of human emotions. At different points in the play. He alternately showed kindness, frustration, anger and finally, humility. His dialogue, as it revealed his attitudes toward human beings, is also significant. When Adam was first created, God told him, "Yo' a nice job" indicating His pleasure with His new creation.This delight changed, however, when humanity started to fall away from God. After Adam and Eve ate the apple and then
Connelly, Pastures 171. Connelly, Pastures 31. 66
Cain killed Abel, God began to worry: "Bad business. I don' like de way things is goin' atall."“ ® In the play, de Lawd's view of humanity appears to be both simplistic and idealistic: people are either all-good or all-bad. When God returned to Heaven, after His frustrating visit to earth. He told Gabriel how He had become displeased with humanity. Later He said that while the flowers and birds were pleasing, "it's only de human bein's makes me downhearted.The more God traveled the earth, the more this feeling was deepened: "All I gotta say dis yere mankind I been peoplin' my earth wid sho' ain't much."^“ In spite of this, though, "de Lawd" refused give up: "Mankind's jest right for my earth, if he wasn't so doggone sinful. I'd rather have my earth peopled wit' a bunch of channel catfish, dan I would mankin' an' his sin. I jest cain't Stan' sin."“^ After de Lawd flooded the earth, in an effort to wipe out this sinfulness, God was confident that a fresh start would lead to a better human race.
Connelly, Pastures 43.
Connelly, Pastures 55. Connelly, Pastures 60. Connelly, Pastures 60. 67 As He told Gabriel, He only hoped it would work out all right. That this simplistic portrayal of God was
successful both in New York and throughout its four-year tour is indicative of the willingness of the audience to give over to the kindheartedness of "de Lawd" with the hope that humanity would again be given a fresh start once the Depression lifted. Also, the production was an amusing diversion from the harsh realities that faced the audience. When humanity fell away from God's good graces again, Connelly's God briefly became a stereotypical despot who punished His subjects. He turned to the use of thunderbolts, but found that that did not help matters. At this point, God would not desert humanity because He saw people as a kind of pet of His: "Doggone, mankin' mas' be all right at de core or else why did I ever bother wid him in de first place?He finally decided that humans need to work harder, so that they would appreciate what they have, and would stay out of trouble. So, He decided to take them to the Promised Land. After their long journey and all the battles they
Connelly, Pastures 93. Connelly, Pastures 103. 68 fought to earn the land, God was sure that humanity would repent from their evil ways. When He found that even that did not not work, God finally renounced humanity. It was not until the end of the play that God had another change of heart and visited Hezdrel. Here, the progression of God's character supports the notion of progressive revelation by showing people who view God in a progressively more noble way. Accordingly, God must be represented by the ideals of goodness, love and beauty. "Hence wherever one encounters material in the Bible that does not appear to be lovely, beautiful or good, then we cannot assume that it is a revelation of the true God.Whether or not Connelly or a majority of the audience was aware of the theological precepts being debated by theologians at the time, the play addressed many of the same issues: the perceptions of God's ideals, and His development as a dramatic character. Not every theologian accepts the idea of progressive revelation without qualification. Ernest Findlay Scott, a professor at Union Theological Seminary, cautions that "it is so formulated as to bring revelation into the same class as ordinary knowledge.
Wright 61. 69 making it subject to the same evolutionary process. Scott objects to the idea that revelation is the result of human progress as opposed to an act of God.^^® The debate is one of power over who controls the image of God: humanity; or "God," whose earthly representative is the priest or minister. Through the playwright's description of God and all of the characters' speeches, God was revealed as made in the image of humanity: first by Connelly's stage directions, then Mr. Deshee's physical description of Him, and finally, through Hezdrel's counsel that "De Lawd" had changed from the God of wrath to the God of mercy. It was not until the end of the play, however, that God fully became the God of mercy: He took human form and suffered on the cross, for love of His people. This anthropomorphized view of a God of mercy and compassion, as indicated by the popular and critical success of The Green Pastures in general and Richard Harrison's portrayal of God in particular, was appealing to an audience struggling during the Great Depression, economically and spiritually.
Ernest Findlay Scott, The New Testament Idea of Revelation (New York: Scribner, 1944) 211. Scott 211. 70 The play showed God ultimately in a positive light:
He addressed the needs of His people and was merciful when they were destitute. The audience, grappling with their own misfortunes, had to relate to the plight of humanity in the play. Furthermore, after God met the needs of all His people, humanity turned its back on
Him. In spite of this, and due to the intervention of a human being (Hezdrel), God was transformed into a God of mercy. Paul T. Nolan contends that after the Stockmarket Crash of 1929, theatre-going Americans, judging from the plays of the 1930's, were involved in "soul searching, in testing their dreams, their illusions, their biases against the hard realities of the new world.For a community feeling powerless, the ability for a man (Hezdrel) to seek out and change a Supreme Being would have been appealing. The disillusionment of writers from the 1930's "showed America as the land where despair ought to reign if it didn't. (They) made Americans ready for a reminder of
Nolan, "Marc Connelly's Divine Comedy Revisited" 216. 71 hope and faith. Unconsciously, of course, but truly, America needed The Green Pastures
The Role of God In Performance
Marc Connelly and Rowland Stebbins had a great deal of difficulty in casting "De Lawd": Filling the role of "De Lawd" presented the most serious problems. . . . they had specific qualifications for the principal character. He had to be physically big, have a dignified and noble bearing, and a voice that was rich with authority and capable of thunderous wrath." After auditioning actors all through Harlem and various parts of the United States, Harrison arrived. Although the African-American performer had no theatrical experience, his skills as an elocutionist were widely known throughout the African-American community. Connelly knew on first sight that he had found 'de Lawd.' In Connelly's memoirs, he used a quote from James Stephens's Here Are Ladies to describe his first impression of Richard Harrison: "God came down the
E. Bradlee Watson and Befield Pressey, Contemporary Drama: Eleven Plays (New York: Scribner 1956) 45. Walter C. Daniel, "De Lawd": Richard B. Harrison and The Green Pastures, Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies Ser. 99 (New York: Greenwood, 1986) 72. 72 street like a man and a half."“° Having met Harrison, Connelly wanted to cast him as soon as possible. Although Harrison was offered the role, he was not
sure he wanted to take the job. Not only was he concerned about the religious ramifications of personifying the deity, he was afraid the script might offend the African-American community; A deeply religious man, Harrison balked at playing God on the stage. He feared that audiences would consider the role sacrilegious. And he simply did not relish trying his hand at so demanding a task to be undertaken in his sixty-fifth year."^^^
After consulting with Herbert Shipman, the Suffragan
Bishop of New York, Harrison agreed to join the company. Connelly's decision to cast him and the actor's acceptance of the role proved to be one of the more fortunate aspects of The Green Pastures. Harrison received favorable reviews all over the country, both throughout the long runs in New York and on their grueling tours. These notices provide helpful
information in analyzing the character of "De Lawd" by describing the actor's appearance, vocal techniques and
characterization. Brooks Atkinson was an ardent
Marc Connelly, Voices Offstage: A Book of Memoirs (New York; Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1968) 170. Connelly, Voices 71. 73 supporter of The Green Pastures and Harrison in particular. In comparing the play to the book on which it is based, Atkinson credited the success of the play to Harrison's 'Lawd.' The Green Pastures transcends "02' Man Adam an' His Chillun" most remarkably in its fresh conception of the Lord. Much of it comes by way of the sweet paternal personality of Richard B. Harrison, who gives the Lord an endearing nobility by making no personal pretence in his acting. Joe Link provided details on the actor's appearance by describing Harrison as "a great tragedian of heroic size, with flowing white hair, a thrilling voice and an emotional mirror for a face."^“ Walter A. Simmons more specifically described him as a five foot, ten and a half inch man who weighs 228 pounds "with a voice of rare depth and authority : "It rumbles genially, like a booming from the happy caverns in the basement of the world. Simmons described Harrison's Lawd as clean shaven, with "a benign force (flowing) from his
Brooks Atkinson, "Sketch-book to Miracle Play," New York Times, 8 June, 1930, sec. 2: 1. Joe Link, "'Green Pastures' One of Truly Great Theatrical Offerings for Dallas Drama Followers," Dallas Times-Herald, 26 December 1933: 6. Walter A. Simmons, "'De Lawd' Likes Nice Day," Sioux Falls Argus Leader, 19 January 1934: 4. Simmons 4. 74 long white hair, powerful frame and the habit he has of looking at you as if you were shorter than he is^^®. It is noteworthy that many critics mentioned Harrison's size, white hair and voice; as if to suggest that God has certain "given" qualities: He (God's gender is also seemingly a given) must be physically big, have a deep voice and long flowing white hair. These critics suggested that Harrison had an imposing presence which was both physical and psychological. Some critics compared Harrison with what they thought the audience might expect for a portrayal of
God. Walter Daniel argued that Harrison fulfilled the audience's expectations: Harrison's "regal bearing alone brought a visage to the stage that was, after all, pretty close to what many Americans thought God would be like if they tried to picture Him on the stage of their minds.This argument is problematic as Daniel would have no way of knowing each individual audience member's conception of the deity. He continued by suggesting that the audience may not have thought of God in physical terms before and that The Green Pastures "formed the image for them and they believed it for the
Simmons 4. Daniel 165. 75 two hours they were in the theater.^* This second point is more easily supported, at least in general terms. The abundance of positive reviews of The Green
Pastures and Harrison, as well as its overwhelming popularity suggest that the performance of "De Lawd" was credible to a large number of critics and patrons. The design elements for The Green Pastures further reinforced the framing device for the play. Robert
Edmond Jones designed the sets, which according to Joe Link, the reviewer for The Dallas Times-Herald, looked "sometimes like kindergarten drawings. The costumes, too, helped to establish "De Lawd" as made in the imagination of Mr. Deshee and his students: De Lawd wears a preacher's garb, as suggested by the opening scene. The music consisted of spirituals, highlighting that the production concept involved the world of the African-American. The design elements, when analyzed for their contribution to the performance text, helped
support the framing device by establishing that the play unfolds through the eyes of the Sunday school class.
Daniel 165. Joe Link, "'Green Pastures One of Truly Great Theatrical Offerings for Dallas Drama Followers," Dallas Times-Herald, 26 December 1933: 6. 76 That the settings reflected the children's point of view was perhaps most evident in the scenes involving heaven. The celestial scenes relied on a representational setting which was noteworthy in its attention to detail. In the fish-fry scenes, there were trees on stage complete with branches and leaves. The banquet in this scene further established the realistic mise-en-scene with its ample display of food. God's office in heaven resembled that of a lawyer's office; it contained a roll-top desk, law books and other office paraphernalia. Bernard Hewitt credited this concrete depiction of
Heaven as an actual place as proof of African-American people's faith: ". . . the fact that they conceived of God as a man and of Heaven as a place is the one convincing evidence that they really believed in the existence of either.Hewitt cited "sophisticated" religion's fear of giving specific features to divine persons and places as "merely the result of a skepticism unwilling to confess that it is forced to doubt anything which it allows itself definitely to conceive . . . for art must have faith strong enough to embody itself in
Bernard Hewitt, "Images of Faith," Theatre U.S.A.: 1668 to 1957 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959) 381. 77 concrete images.Dorothy Sayers, in her introduction to Man Born to Be King supported setting plays which are based on Biblical subjects in realistic terms. She insisted that the author "has to display the words and actions of actual people engaged in living through a piece of recorded history" rather than opting for the abstract and "universal" view.^^^ As suggested above, Jones's sets were reviewed not only for their function as design, but for their contribution to the overall impact of the play. Brooks Atkinson wrote that Jones's designs "lift the play."^^^ Atkinson argued in another article, that the settings
"give the theme a vaulting impetus. The scenes on earth reflected a child's conception of the biblical scenes, especially those involving Cain, Noah and Moses. Cain stood on farm land which had already been plowed. There were deep grooves in the ground and a plow nearby to suggest Cain had been hard at work. Noah's environment was also realistic both
Hewitt 381. Sayers 21. Brooks Atkinson, "Sketch-Book to Miracle Play," New York Times, 8 June 1930, sec. 9: 1. Brooks Atkinson, "New Negro Drama of Sublime Beauty," New York Times, 27 February 1930, sec. 9: 26. 78 within and outside his house. Inside were tables, chairs, rugs, wall hangings, dishes and a lamp. Outside, Noah's farm was enclosed by a gate and was surrounded by large trees which were rich in detail. Noah's ark had a roof, chimney, windows and a crow's nest. A ramp was attached to allow the animals to climb aboard. Before the voyage, various animals surrounded the boat, eating hay. Once the ark set sail, waves moved in front of the ark to suggest the motion of the ship. The march out of Israel, led by Moses, continued in this representational style. The huge cast, on a treadmill, carried wrappings, spears and canes to help them through their journey. As Bernard Hewitt indicated, these concrete images suggest the schoolchildren's solid faith in their God and His world. Robert Edmond Jones, in his book. The Dramatic
Imagination, discussed the nature of acting as being spiritually possessed: "that another's voice ever and again speaks through (the actorIn the case of an actor playing God, from Jones's point of view about acting, the performance would be a representation of the
Robert Edmond Jones, The Dramatic Imagination: Reflections and Speculations on The Art of the Theatre (New York: Theatre Arts, 1941) 58. 79 deity whereby another's voice speaks through the actor.
Similarly, Jones believed the designer should present the spiritual side of life: "The artist should omit the details, the prose of nature, and give us only the spirit and the splendor.For The Green Pastures, however, Jones provided ample details in the set design.
For designers like Jones, truth in the theatre went beyond mere accuracy to factual representation. "Real life died in the theatre unless it was recast on stage and it was transformed into art."^®’ This transformation of the set design was consistent with Jones's transformation (incarnation) of the actor. The details in the set design and the specific choices of the actor were subordinate, in his view, to the overall spiritual qualities of a production. The costumes complemented the set design in reflecting the schoolchildren's image of "De Lawd."
Fred Eastman in Christ in the Drama gave a good description of the central character's costume: "'De Lawd' is dressed as a Negro preacher would dress in a
Jones 82. Constantinidis 128. 80
long Prince Albert coat of black alpaca, black trousers, congress gaiters, white shirt and white bow tie. The other characters were dressed appropriately for their place in the world of the children's minds: Adam, a farmer, wears an undershirt and work pants while Eve wore a gingham dress with an apron. In the march out of Israel, the Hebrew people wore costumes that looked worn and ragged. The angels, on the other hand, wore neat white robes with feathers for wings; in the fish-fry, some angels wore chef's hats. The chef's hats and other costume accessories not only provided humor, but they
supported the children's world view. The music was the final element which contributed to the world of the play. The spirituals served both to cover scene changes and also to comment on the action. Atkinson credited the spirituals with linking the scenes and carrying the mood forward through the change in scenery.^^9 John Hutchens attributed to the spirituals the play's tone and recurrent motif: It is theatrically important that the play has the essential quality of the spirituals which are its tonal background and its recurrent motif; that it has primal rhythms, sonorous
133 Fred Eastman, Christ in the Drama, (New York: Macmillan, 1957) 106. Atkinson, "Negro Drama" 26. 81
and indicated, and a pulse that is close to the edge of song.^“° The music was an integral part of the production
concept: it underscored the basic beliefs of the children whose God was depicted on stage. In being invited into the realm of the spiritual, the audience was asked to share in the pain and beauty of the song which has traditionally been sung by an oppressed people. The design elements all supported the framing device and the anthropomorphized representation of the deity. The costumes and sets depicted real people and places as understood by the Sunday school class and their teacher. The spirituals further supported this device by locating the African-American experience in the world of the play. Throughout the play, God was defined by human beings: first, through the Sunday school class and finally by Hezdrel. The personification of the deity was supported by the framing device which allowed the audience to view the action as set "one extra remove from reality by being made the dream-like representation
John Hutchens, "The Black Miracle," Theatre Arts Monthly May 1930: 369. 82 of (Mr.) Deshhee's teachings.This stepping back from reality reminded the audience of the theatricality of the event while further defining the "reality" of the children's experience. They saw and heard God in a realistic setting. Robert Wilkington went so far as to say that the reason the audience does not mind 'de Lawd' is because He is not what the viewer expected; "We might object to a (re)presentation of God, if the figure were more like our conception of Him. The problem here lies with defining one's conception of God: since people's beliefs are so personal, it is virtually impossible to predict an audience's pre-conception of
God as a character. In considering The Green Pastures, one's view of "de Lawd" is a combination of the play's impact with one's own conception of the deity, which makes it difficult to analyze the character in any objective way. That being stated, one can look at "de Lawd" in terms of His journey. God, at the beginning of the play, seemed happy and serene as he enjoyed the fish-fry. After
Alan Reynolds Thompson, "A Varied Shelf," Bookman 1930, 340. Robert Wilkington, "Notes on the Corpus Christi Plays and The Green Pastures" Shakespeare Association IX, 195. 83 creating Adam and Eve, He seemed only mildly disappointed with them for eating the apple. It is after Cain killed Abel that "de Lawd" was shown to be a god of wrath. This image was continued throughout God's dealings with humanity's sins. From time to time, God showed glimpses of mercy: allowing Noah to be spared and the Israelites to escape from bondage. For the most part, though, the dominant concept of God throughout the play was that He was a god of vengeance. Connelly wrote
in his memoirs that, although himself an agnostic, he respected the faith of the black fundamentalists. Accordingly, the characterization of de Lawd parallelled the biblical view found throughout most of the Old
Testament. It was not until God met Hezdrel at the end of the play that He learned to be the God of Hosea. Hezdrel taught God how to find mercy through suffering
as a human being. It is comforting to think that humans
can teach an all-powerful God how to be both merciful and more human. It allows the audience to have confidence in Hezdrel, a human being who in a sense is a superior character to "De Lawd": he has the power to
improve upon God. Lemoncelli attributed this aspect of the play to the skepticism of Connelly's time:
Connelly, Voices 148. 84 For if God is anthropomorphized in the extreme, if he is made to assume attributes which lessen his distinctive nature as deity, if he is superseded in understanding or kindness by human beings such as Hezdrel, then he is not God.^‘“‘ Lemoncelli continued by suggesting that "De Lawd" became more like a pagan God who was imperfect and in need of change. Because of His flaws, Lemoncelli implied, modern society became skeptical of His characteristics and even of His existence: "Connelly, therefore, reflects the skepticism of his time: he presents not the orthodox deity, but the skeptic's facsimile that replaces the totality and perfection of God's nature.
Other critics, however, cited the anthropomorphism as a vital aspect of the Christian faith and the play as a whole. Vincent Long, in his conclusion to The Green Pastures, considered this anthropomorphism a natural extension of faith: The inescapable fact is that we cannot feel or think except anthropomorphically. . . . We should expect this to be more obviously true of religion, which synthesizes the scientific and artistic aspects of our nature and relates them to our experience of community.
Lemoncelli 135. Lemoncelli 135.
Long 91. 85 Bellamy went further by citing anthropomorphism as the key to the drama, "the truth that the Lord is no
abstraction in the play. This is the familiar Lord. . . . The God on the stage takes the form of a man. In conclusion, the God of The Green Pastures was shown through an anthropomorphized view held by the schoolchildren. This allowed the audience to see God as someone else's concept. That He was portrayed by a man does not make it a skeptical view. On the contrary, God was presented in realistic terms. He was supported by
everyday language, detailed sets and costumes (in spite of Jones's theory that artists should omit the details of nature), and spirituals which placed God in the context of a living African-American religion. All of the efforts to locate God in the specific frame
identified by the schoolchildren made Him more real within that context. The framing device freed the audience from the need to see their own personal God and allowed them to encounter "De Lawd" of the children.
Francis R. Bellamy, "The Theatre," Outlook, 12 March 1930: 429. CHAPTER III ARTHUR MILLER'S CREATION OF THE WORLD AND OTHER BUSINESS AND UP FROM PARADISE
Introduction "If man will not kill man, God is unnecessary! Lucifer's comment in Arthur Miller's The Creation of the
World and Other Business is one of the more surprising lines in the play, especially since his objective is to prevent Cain from killing Abel. His argument is that
God encourages wars and murder to keep people trapped by guilt and dependence on the deity. This argument is particularly formidable in light of the events of the late 1960's and early 1970's. In the decade preceding the play's opening in 1972, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King were all assassinated. Furthermore, the United States was heavily torn by the controversy over its involvement in the Vietnam War. While Lucifer clearly has his own
Arthur Miller, The Creation of the World and Other Business (New York; Viking, 1973) 94.
86 87 agenda in the play (to take over the world, or at least, to share power equally with God), his comments about God are often credible. After The Creation of the World and Other Business opened in 1972, Miller revised the play two years later into the musical. Up From Paradise with music by Stanley
Silverman. In Arthur Miller's autobiography, Timebends, he discussed his genesis plays and people's need to create God. He wrote that over the years, the question of God's existence gave rise to another mystery: "Why are men, generation after generation, pressed to invent Him again?"“® Miller continued along this vein by suggesting that God is more "real" for the person who invents a deity than for the person who considers himself/herself a true believer, because the inventor can never "tear his invention out of his heart and set him in stone" where he can evade his creation: It was the imperishability of this procedure that went into The Creation of the World and Other Business, a play that asks, among other questions, what sort of psychological situation must have given rise to the creation of God in the first place. And in the second place, right now."^“
Arthur Miller, Timebends: A Life (New York: Grove, 1987) 559. Miller, Timebends 559. 88
The question which Miller asks in his play is similar to the investigative question of this study: how is God re created on the twentieth century American stage? In Creation^ there was no framing device as there was in The Green Pastures. There was no preparation for the arrival of God on stage; He just appeared in a dialogue with Adam. However, social and political events happening in the early 1970's served as an important framing device: the play characterized the icon, God, at a time when society was challenging icons and tradition in general. An important movement which confronted beliefs in the Christian God was "Radical Theology" or "Death of
God Theology," which was prevalent among theologians and the general populace in the middle of the 1960s. Two of its primary proponents were Thomas Altizer and William
Hamilton. Radical theology "is an attempt to set an atheist point of view within the spectrum of Christian possiblilities."^^ According to Altizer and Hamilton, a single definition of radical or "death of God" theology is elusive. One description that they offer is
Thomas J. J. Altizer and William Hamilton, Radical Theology and the Death of God (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill 1966) ix. 89 that there is no longer a God "to whom adoration, praise and trust" is appropriate or necessary; It is an atheist position, but with a difference. If there was a God, and if there now isn't, it should be possible to indicate why this change took place, when it took place, and who was responsible for it."^“
Altizer and Hamilton are among the radical theologians who ascribe to the possibility that God existed once but has died at some point (at which point, they do not agree) in history. Thomas Altizer maintains that it was the Incarnation that "laid the ground for an inevitable willing of the death of God" because it transformed (God's) eternity into (human) time.^“ Death of God theology recognizes the loss of God in the late twentieth-century society. Thomas Altizer, in labeling the 1960s as a "post- Christian age," argues that "before contemporary theology can become itself, it must first exist in silence."^®* He further states that theology must
Altizer and Hamilton x. Thomas Altizer, "Theology and the Death of God," Radical Theology and the Death of God, ed. Thomas Altizer and William Hamilton (Indianapolis: Bobbs- Merrill, 1966) 28. Thomas Altizer, "America and the Future of Theology," Radical Theology and the Death of God, ed. Thomas Altizer and William Hamilton (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966) 15. 90 cultivate the silence of death, not only accepting the death of God but willing it. Theology, if it is to be reborn, must freely choose its own death and dissolution. William Hamilton, in linking the death of God with the prohibition against idols and humanity's need-driven images of the deity, provides a useful basis for discussing God in the selected plays: What does it mean to say that God is dead? Is this any more than a rather romantic way of pointing to the traditional difficulty of speaking about the holy God in human terms? Is it any more than a warning against all idols, all divinities fashioned out of human need, human ideologies? . . . It surely means all this, and more.”^®® This Radical Theology can also be linked with images of God on stage. If God is made in the image of humanity's needs, as He has been shown to have been in the plays included in this study. He is, in that sense, dead. Hamilton states that radical theologians claim to be Christians.^®’ What separates these theologians
Altizer 15. William Hamilton, "The Death of God Theologies Today," Radical Theology and the Death of God, ed. Thomas Altizer and William Hamilton (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966) 27. William Hamilton, "Death of God Theologies Today," Radical Theology and the Death of God, ed. Thomas Altizer and William Hamilton (Indianapolis: 91 from classical atheism is what Hamilton terms as an element of "expectation, even hope.If, instead of turning to God for help, humanity looks to itself for its needs and problems, then, according to Hamilton, God may eventually be "enjoyed and delighted in."^®® It is the loss of God which reconciles and unites humanity. This same line of thinking is evident in The Creation of the World and Other Business: when God removes Himself from the world, the human characters are forced to look to themselves for answers to their problems. The progression of the scripts from The Creation of the World and Other Business to Up From Paradise indicates the troubled history of these productions. Rehearsals of Creation began on August 29, 1972, in a "dank" New Amsterdam Roof on West 42nd Street, "a dismal and musty place that the cast disliked."^®® Problems emerged between the cast and the director, Harold Clurman. By the fourth week of rehearsals, Barbara Harris was having great difficulty with the role of Eve
Bobbs-Merrill, 1966) 28. Hamilton, "Death of God Theologies Today" 41. Hamilton, "Death of God Theologies Today" 41.
Tom Buckley, "In the Beginning, Miller's 'Creation'," New York Times 5 December 1972: 49. 92 and resigned. She was replaced by Susan Batson, a young African-American actress who had no experience with a major role on Broadway. Batson continued in the role throughout the previews in Boston and Washington. Creation opened at the Colonial Theatre in Boston on October 2. While the company was in Boston, Clurman resigned as director because of "differences of opinion over [the play's] interpretation. While still in previews, Gerald Freedman took over the direction. The play opened at Eisenhower Theatre at the Kennedy Center in Washington on October 17. While there, Hal Holbrook asked to be replaced as Lucifer, a role Miller says "he simply couldn't align his own personality with."^“ At the same time, the decision was made to replace Batson with Zoe Caldwell. This led to charges of racism, as
Batson contended that she was replaced because of her skin color. Miller countered that the decision was based on professional reasons. Batson was very bitter about being replaced and threatened to leave the show before Zoe Caldwell could learn the role. After consulting a lawyer about her contractual obligations
Louis Calta, "Clurman Quits Creation," New York Times, 17 October 1972: 35.
Buckley, "Beginning" 67. 93 and unsuccessfully filing a complaint with Actors Equity, she continued in her role for two weeks. The combination of the late changes in casting with the loss of Harold Clurman as director led to speculation that the play was in trouble even before it reached New
York. Under Freedman's direction with George Grizzard as the new Lucifer and Zoe Caldwell as Eve, the cast finally started to coalesce into a company. On
November 30, 1972, Creation opened at the Schubert Theatre only to close twenty performances later on December 16, 1972. The play was panned by the New York critics. Miller left New York in frustration shortly after its opening. He suggested that the play probably needed to be produced again so that the critics would discuss what the play was about: The ignorance of the critics about the Bible amazed me. One criticized my bad writing for having God say something "sets my teeth on edge." It comes right from Jeremiah and Ezekiel. It's obviously a dead document. That's the only surprise I've had in 25 years of playwriting.
Buckley, "Beginning" 67. Buckley, "Beginning" 67.
165 Buckley "Beginning" 67. 94 Miller pointed out a problem common to any portrayal of the Christian God: critics (and audience members) base their expectations of God on their own (often limited) knowledge of the Bible. Miller rewrote The Creation of the World and Other Business into the musical. Up From Paradise with Stanley Silverman as composer. Paradise was first performed on April 23-28, 1974 at the Power Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Michigan. In 1977, a concert version of Paradise appeared at the Kennedy Center's Music Theatre Lab in Washington, D.C. Another concert version appeared four years later at the Whitney Museum in New York. It was not until October 25, 1983, that a
full, revised, production was given off-Broadway at Manhattan's Jewish Repertory Theatre. It was this production that seemed to enjoy the most success throughout its four week run. From the start. Miller made it clear that he was not seeking a commercial "success": "There's a lot of joy in this piece. No one's going to make any money on it. This isn't Broadway. It's supposed to run, what, a month? That's great. He continued by arguing that the word
Samuel G. Freedman, "Miller Tries a New Form For an Old Play," New York Times 23 October 1983, H-5. 95
"play" means "play," but when Broadway became too commercial, it lost its sense of play.^®"^ Arthur Miller's The Creation of the World and Other Business is a play in three acts with no scene divisions. Act I opens on Paradise with God looking down on Adam, his newly made creature. Adam tells God that he noticed all the other creatures have a mate.
God responds by creating the woman. Eve; He makes a point of telling Adam that she is just an experiment. God instructs them both not to eat the apple on the Tree of Knowledge. Later, God and Lucifer have a discussion about why Adam and Eve are not multiplying. Lucifer tells God the reason Adam is not interested in sex is because
everything in Eden is equally perfect, so there is no incentive for "investigating Eve."^®® Lucifer suggests that if Adam eats an apple, he will "know the difference between good and better. And once he knows that, he'll
be all over her.
Freedman H-5. ^®® Arthur Miller, The Creation of the World and Other Business (New York: Viking^ 1973) 17. Miller, Creation 2. 96
Lucifer initially fails to tempt Adam and Eve to eat the apple from the forbidden tree. They leave to go swimming but Eve returns and takes a bite of the apple. Adam comes back to find Eve becoming sexually aware; Eve forces the apple into Adam's mouth and he chews it. God enters and the humans hide in the garden. God punishes Eve by telling her that she will bear children in sorrow and that she is no longer equal to Adam. After telling Adam that he will now know mortality. He exiles Adam and Eve from Eden. After the couple leaves, God becomes bored by talking with the angels and He calls for Lucifer. The devil reports that Eve is pregnant which pleases God.
God and Lucifer debate the devil's place in the world, with the fallen angel arguing that his role is to serve as "God's corrective symmetry.Lucifer suggests that he and God be partners, the Lord all good and the devil all bad as an example of God's mercy; "If God can love the Devil, He can love absolutely anybody. God condemns Lucifer to hell. When the fallen angel leaves, God confesses that He will miss Lucifer.
Miller, Creation 37. Miller, Creation 39. 97
The opening of Act II reveals Adam and Eve, asleep on the stage floor. Lucifer looks down on Eve, who is pregnant. Lucifer reveals to Eve that he came to her about nine months ago, implying that he is responsible for her condition. Eve does not know yet that she is pregnant with a child, she thinks she is sick from eating too many clams. After Lucifer explains that she is to have a son. Eve experiences the first pain of labor. When the pain subsides, Lucifer tries to persuade her to kill the baby but she resists. As Lucifer leaves, Adam awakes and tells Eve that he was dreaming about Paradise again. Eve explains to her husband that she is pregnant. At first, Adam is skeptical but then becomes overjoyed with the news. Eve goes into labor and starts calling for Lucifer. God appears with Azrael, the Angel of Death, and Chemuel, the Angel of Mercy. After Azrael puts Eve to sleep, Chemuel delivers the baby. A few minutes later, a boy of sixteen appears and God names him Cain. Eve begs God for mercy and pledges her fidelity to Him. God and Eve begin to waltz and exit offstage, with Adam trailing behind. Lucifer enters, looking at Cain, and tells the boy that upon his shoulders, will the devil climb the 98 throne.While some of the scenes in this play may appear "silly" to a modern reader, it is worth analyzing as a play, written by a major playwright, which has strong overtones both of Death of God theology and the general questioning that was prevalent in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The play's decidedly negative view of God provides an important contrast to that of The Creation of the World and Other Business and The Mysteries: Creation.
The Act III curtain rises on Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel, all of whom are fast asleep. God and Lucifer both complain that they are no longer needed. God decides to send Azrael down to blow visions of death and murder
into His people's dreams. This, He believes, will put the fear of God back into them. Lucifer discovers His plan and tries to prevent the murder from taking place. All of a sudden, Cain becomes very curious about the reasons his parents left the garden. Later, Cain, a farmer; and Abel, a shepherd; argue about their duties. God drops a snake in their midst from heaven which Adam interprets as a sign that he must tell the boys the truth about their exile from the garden. Adam tells them that after he and Eve ate the
Miller, Creation 66. 99 forbidden apple, they realized that they were naked. Cain believes that their nakedness is the reason they were exiled and also why they dreamed of death. Cain suggests that they offer a sacrifice to God for forgiveness. While they are praying, Lucifer appears to Abel, warning him of the impending murder. Cain decides to prepare a plate of his vegetables for the sacrifice. Eve suggests that Abel make an offering, too. Abel goes off and kills a lamb to be sacrificed. After they pray for God to appear, Lucifer appears in the form of a bull. Adam starts to attack him but Eve tries to protect the devil, saying she prefers him to God. Eve dances wildly, first with Lucifer and then with Abel and Cain. At Lucifer's prodding, Cain has sex with Eve, while Adam and Abel watch. As this is happening, God appears, and asks about the sacrifices. God grants lukewarm praise to Cain's onion and then congratulates Abel for his outstanding lamb. Cain is crushed at God's favoritism toward his brother. After God leaves with Adam and Eve, Abel asks Cain to follow them. Cain kills Abel and explains to his parents that he murdered Abel because God preferred the lamb offering. Lucifer reveals that God sent the Angel of Death, thus inciting the murder; 1 0 0
Eve is outraged and blames God. Adam grapples with the situation, trying to reconcile God and Eve. God becomes furious and relinquishes control of humanity to Lucifer and everything he stands for. After Lucifer takes charge. Eve asks what they should do about Cain. When the devil justifies Cain's actions. Eve becomes repulsed and argues that Lucifer cannot be God. Eve contends that because the devil does not seek retribution for Abel's murder, he does not love them; therefore, he cannot be God. When Adam and Eve turn to God for help, God sentences Cain to be an outcast forever, to be a smiling man with desperate eyes. God tells Adam and Eve that they will never see His face again. Eve faces
Cain, admitting that she loved Abel more than him. Adam tries desperately for Cain and Eve to reconcile and cries out, "Mercy" as the curtain falls. The plot of the musical version. Up From Paradise, is very similar to The Creation of the World and Other Business with a few notable exceptions. A narrator is added to provide a prologue. Also, the beginning of Act II shows Eve preferring Abel's lamb to Cain's spinach.
This foreshadows a later scene when Cain feels that God is showing favoritism toward Abel. Another significant
Miller, Creation 106. 10 1 change follows Cain and Abel's sacrifice. In Paradise,
Lucifer briefly appears only to Cain, while God reveals himself to all. In this version, then, Lucifer is not able to turn the sacrifice into an orgiastic dance as he does in Creation. The final significant change is that in Paradise, God does not give the world to Lucifer at the end of the play. Adam dismisses Lucifer without first tasting life under his rule, immediately seeking to reconcile himself and his wife to God. These changes are significant because Paradise emphasizes the attempt at mending the rift in the relationship between God and His people, with Adam trying to regain God's favor at the end of the play. More importantly, if God is not in charge, and
Lucifer's leadership is not an option, then Adam and Eve must forge their way ahead alone, which clearly they are not able to do. Humanity is shown to be helpless in the absence of God. Creation ends with Adam trying to reconcile Eve and Cain, apparently having given up on an ultimate reconciliation with God. Overall, Paradise is a more hopeful picture of the relationship between God and humanity. At the end of Creation, Adam and Eve are on their own with no hope of help from God: He has completely withdrawn himself from His people. In 1 0 2
Paradise, however, Adam tells Eve that they need to
return to God's grace, to where they were before their
exile from the garden. Reactions of reviewers to The Creation of the World and Other Business were uniformly negative. Television
reviewers were the first of the New York theatre critics to reach the public with their impressions of the production. WABC-TV critic Kevin Sanders called the production the "Flintstones version of the book of
Genesis. The NBC critic had a similar reaction while the CBS critic, Leonard Harris was slightly more kind: "This is not Miller's best work, but he has written an amusing minor play."^’® Harris's faint
praise for the production made his review one of the more positive notices to appear. The remarks of the newspaper and magazine critics ranged from apologetic to scathing. Richard Watts of
the New York Post, T.E. Kalem from Time and Martin Gottfried from Women's Wear Daily all acknowledged
Kevin Sanders, "The Creation of the World and Other Business," WABC-TV, 30 November 1972 reprinted in New York Theatre Critics' Reviews 33, 1 December 1972: 150-154. Leonard Harris, "The Creation of the World and Other Business," 30 November 1972 reprinted in New York Theatre Critics' Reviews 33, 150-154. 103
Arthur Miller's great talent while proceeding to pan the production. As Kalem wrote, "When a mature dramatist of international distinction writes a feeble, pointless play, a feeling of sadness and embarrassment clings to the event.Clive Barnes wrote a mixed review in The New York Times, He encouraged his readers to see the play if only because Arthur Miller deserved the world's attention. He pointed out the inconsistency of the writing but praised Freedman's direction, Boris Aronson's set design, Hal George's costumes and the acting. Barnes concluded his review by saying the play has "the air of a comic strip version of Genesis. A week and a half later, Walter Kerr's review of the production appeared in the New York Times. Kerr's article treated the philosophical aspects of the play.
He, too, recommended seeing the play "not because it is ultimately satisfying" but because it is an experiment by an "able" American writer.
T.E. Kalem, "Adam and Evil," Time 100, 11 December 1972: 122. Clive Barnes, "Arthur Miller's Creation of the World," New York Times, 1 December 1972: 28. Walter Kerr, "Arthur Miller, Stuck with The Book," New York Times, 10 December 1972, sec. 2: 5. 104
Other magazine reviews were far more scathing.
Gerald Weales labeled Creation not only Miller's worst play but "the dullest, the least dramatic, the most pretentious and the most vulgar reworking of the
Biblical material that [he] can recall.Jack Richardson in Commentary credited Creation with purging him of his complacency. After acknowledging his previous attacks on Miller's plays, he wrote that the playwright reawakened in him "that wonderful feeling of anger.The play reminded Richardson of what he believes is Miller's tendency to cheapen life and its struggles in his plays. Jack Kroll was even more caustic. His one paragraph review in Newsweek offered the most biting and succinct commentary: "... quite simply, [Miller's] pastiche of the Book of Genesis deserves no comment or any attempt to unravel its stuptefyingly boring muddleheadedness . . . Criticisms such as these account for the mere twenty performances of a play by an established American
Gerald Weales, "Cliches in the Garden," Commonweal 97, 22 December 1972: 276. Jack Richardson, "Arthur Miller's Eden," Commentary 55 (February): 83. Jack Kroll, "Double Trouble," Newsweek 80, 11 December 1972: 71. 105 playwright. The troubled history of the production in rehearsal foreshadowed the discouraging reception it was to receive in performance. The reviews of Up From Paradise were far more positive. In the Saturday Review of the Arts, Henry Hewes wrote that Up From Paradise was a "definite improvement" over The Creation of the World and Other B u s i n e s s . Hewes credited the addition of the narration, the music and the overall simplicity of the production for its success. Frank Rich called the 1983 New York production of Paradise a "casual, warm-spirited and innocuous musical. Up From Paradise received less critical attention than The Creation of the World and Other Business but the press was generally more favorable. That Arthur Miller was considered a commercial failure in his genesis plays is not surprising. It is unlikely that any playwright will achieve commercial success with every play s/he writes. What makes this particular project interesting is that Miller worked on it over a period of 11 years, feeling that the material
Henry Hewes, "Arthur Miller's Cosmic Chuckles," Saturday Review of the Arts 1, January 1973: 57.
Frank Rich, "Stage: Miller's Up From Paradise," New York Times, 26 October 1983: C22. 106 was constantly misunderstood. He refused to give up on a play that never reached the commercial successes of many of his other works: he re-wrote the play several times, even performing in one version as the narrator. Samuel Freedman writes of Miller's frustrations with the play in October of 1983: "Like a lot of writers," Mr. Miller said after a recent rehearsal, "it's those rejected babies that are very often closest to you. I open up the text of that play (The Creation of the World and Other Business) and I think it's still got its charms. I felt, and I still do, that there was a way to do that play— a theatrically fascinating way. But we didn't achieve it."^®* By this point. Miller had re-written the play into a musical and was pleased with the result.^®®
The Role of God in the Text In The Creation of the World and Other Business, the play opens with no preparation for the entrance of
God. As the reviewers note, there is a focus problem with the play in general, and the role of God in particular. In the revised version, the musical. Up From Paradise, Miller includes a narrator who serves as
^®" Freedman H-5. ^®® Robert A. Martin, ed. and intro., Arthur Miller: New Perspectives (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1982) 116. 107 the prologue and provides a frame of reference for the audience. In this version, there is a description of
God in the song, "The Lord Is Perfectly Adorable." God is many things to many people: in essence. He is whatever an individual wants Him to be. The only clear- cut attribute of God that is apparent in the introductory song is God's gender: the pronoun "He" is used exclusively. Uriel, the angel of philosophy, suggests, "It is also possible that in the Beginning, Man created God and all his attributes."^®® These comments are not found in the play. The Creation of the World and Other Business. While the play has no overt commentary on God, there are ample descriptions of God throughout the musical version. The audience is encouraged to question whether humans are made in the image of God or God is born in the imagination of humans. Characterization of God must be examined in terms of the dialogue in the play: what God says about Himself and others and what other characters say about Him. There are almost no stage directions or descriptions
^®® Arthur Miller, Up From Paradise, music by Stanley Silverman (New York: Samuel French, 1984) 10. 108 given by the playwright which provide clues to the
character. God seems to suggest that humans are sometimes superior to Him. Early in the play. He praises Adam for thinking up the word, "caterpillar," a word He would not
have formulated "in a million years.Shortly thereafter. He admits that He does not always know the reasons for His actions, that it is only after He has done something that He discovers why He did it. After creating a monkey. He had some clay left over and decided to create a man. Man was created out of God's
instinct rather than by design. Furthermore, God created an extra rib just in case Adam needed it, and conveniently uses the extra rib to create Eve. God marvels at His female creation, musing that He does not
know how He does it. Perhaps God's most interesting characteristic is the ambivalence He feels toward Lucifer: He seeks advice
from the angel, yet rejects his suggestions; He banishes Lucifer, then instantly says He misses him. God's first
skirmish with Lucifer begins to reveal His character. God asks Lucifer for guidance; He is perplexed as to why Adam and Eve are not multiplying. Lucifer replies that
Arthur Miller, Creation 5. 109 it is because God has made everything equally good and the humans are too innocent. God becomes defensive when Lucifer hints that the apples could solve the problem. The angel suggests that if the humans eat the apples, they will praise God even more for the greater knowledge they possess. Lucifer says that that is why God planted the tree, "It was Your fantastic inner urge to magnify Your glory to the last degree. In six words. Lord, You wanted full credit for everything."^®® After arguing this point further, God warns Lucifer not to get involved with the humans. God tells the angel that He is not in conflict about the matter surrounding the tree. God explains that He did not plant the tree to test Adam, but rather. He did so to tempt Himself. When Adam was created, God loved him beyond all else and considered revealing to him the secrets of life. He changed His mind when He thought of Lucifer and his plots to take control of the world. God realizes that the more humans know, the less they will need Him. After God leaves, the devil decides to "help out" by visiting the humans and enticing them to eat the apple.
Lucifer, the most interesting character in the play, is shown trying to do good deeds for God. Of course, he
Miller, Creation 16- 11 0 does not obey God's orders and is eventually banished
from Heaven for his actions. Azrael, the angel of death, offers another insight into God's character when he implies that God is merciful to the humans because He is narcissistic: "I have to say. Lord, I warned you at the time: You mustn't make a creature that looks like You, or You'll never let me kill him."^®® God tells Azrael the reason He will not let the angel kill the humans is because they are the only ones who need Him. Miller's God is a god in conflict with Himself: while He loves His creatures, they have wronged Him and must be punished. Another inner conflict involves His fascination with Lucifer whom He finds the most interesting angel. Lucifer refers to himself as "God's corrective symmetry, and suggests that God and the devil stand together in perfect balance between good and evil. God, however, shows that He wants total power and thus refuses to share His throne with Lucifer. God tells Lucifer that He does not love him because if "God could love the Devil, then God has died.He is limited by the
Miller Creation 30. Miller, Creation 36. Miller, Creation 41. Ill boundaries of good and evil. God threatens to destroy the earth if Lucifer tries to take the world. Lucifer tries to convince Eve that God's sense of justice is flawed: while Eve must bear the pain of childbirth, Adam is unharmed. Eve later tells Adam that this is proof that God is furious with her while only somewhat disappointed with him. Adam counters this claim later when Cain is vying with Abel for God's favor: "... He's fair, Cain, you'll see.The play, however, suggests just the opposite: God does have favorites. He praises Abel's work over Cain's and punishes Eve more severely than Adam. Toward the end of the play, after Cain and Abel's sacrifices. Eve further argues that "except for one short dance (after the birth of Cain), God never showed me any kindness."^®® This conception of a God who shows favorites is in direct contrast with the Biblical God who allows the sun to shine on the good and the bad.“ “ Lucifer appears and tries to turn the first family away from God. He tries to prevent Cain from killing Abel by convincing Cain that God wants a murder from
Miller, Creation 83. Miller, Creation 87.
194 Matthew 5: 45; New American Bible. 1 1 2 him. Lucifer explains that this will allow God to stand above Cain's crime and so will secure His power. Cain questions the favoritism of God to which Lucifer responds that God has no favorites. He wants only power. This, of course, directly contradicts what Lucifer has already told Eve. The devil believes that by killing
Abel, Cain will prove God's power over him: "I swear this, Cain— if man will not kill man, God is unnecessary!"^®^ It is ironic that it was God who tempted Cain to kill Abel and that Lucifer was the one who tried so hard to prevent it. After Cain kills Abel, he justifies his actions as being revenge for God's apparent contempt for his offering. God reveals that his preference for Abel's sacrifice was merely a matter of taste: God likes mutton better than onions. Lucifer argues that God is the one responsible for Abel's death: He sent the angel of death. God explains how He only wanted people to choose the way of life over death. Although He saw that Cain was pious. He saw envy in him, too. "And so I thought, if Cain was so enraged that he lift his hand against his brother, but then remembering his love for Abel and for
Miller, Creation 94. 113 me, even in his fury lay down his arms?"^®® This, God claims, would have been His ultimate victory. Miller's God seems to set up seemingly impossible situations for His people to confront. At the end of the play, they have failed. Eve reacts by blaming God; Adam tries to be optimistic about the good in the world; and Cain shows no remorse for his murder. God, unhappy with all three responses, calls them all worthless and gives the world to Lucifer. "This is the chaos you want, and him you shall have— the God who judges nothing, the God of infinite permission."^®’ Miller's God seems to attack the permissiveness of a theology which at its extreme can even justify fratricide. The humans realize that Lucifer not only is without love, but craves power over justice. When the devil says that the murderer of Abel will go unpunished, the humans return to God, or "Father Guilt" as Lucifer calls Him. In essence, God's plan has worked in part; although Abel is dead and Cain is an outcast, Adam and Eve recognize their need for God and His power is restored. It seems implausible that the humans would reject Lucifer for being without love and turn to God instead.
Miller, Creation 98. Miller, Creation 99. 114 presumably because He embodies perfect love. God rarely demonstrates His love for the first family. Although He is friendly with Adam at the beginning of the play. He seems stern with Eve and sets up their eventual downfall. In a similar way, He praises Abel's
sacrificial lamb while brushing aside Cain's onion; thus provoking Cain's anger and subsequent murder of Abel. God seems to favor Lucifer over the other angels whom He finds to be boring. The character of God as written seems more interested in entertaining Himself than in demonstrating love for His people. Eve sympathizes with Cain and agrees that God is not always fair. Although she knows the pain of being treated unfairly, she says this does not justify murder. Adam, too, confronts Cain with his responsibility: "Boy, we are all that's left responsible!— Ask her pardon!"^®® The play ends without the reconciliation Adam craves. Cain leaves without his mother's forgiveness, and his parents face a world without the
presence of God. Miller's treatment of God at the end of the play coincides with the ideas put forth by George Steiner, whose concepts were incorporated into the Death of God movement: God withdrew Himself from the world
Miller, Creation 106. 115 because He "grew weary of the savagery of man" and could no longer control humanity or "recognize his image in the mirror of creation. The view of God in this play is multi-faceted. He seems to dare His creatures to fail: first in the garden of Eden and then in planting murderous ideas into Cain. He is established as a power-hungry, capricious God who uses His creatures to satisfy His own ego. This play highlights the God who tests His people in extreme situations. The play focuses on Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel, from whom God seeks unconditional praise and obedience. The first family fails to obey God; it is this failure, and the justification for it which permeates the play. God is seen as an opponent with an unfair advantage while the humans struggle against impossible odds.
J.n Up From Paradise, the view of God is changed substantially. This time, a description of God is put into song. In the lyrics to "The Lord is Perfectly Adorable," He is given such contradictory traits as tall and short; noise and silence; wide and narrow. After
Adam and Eve are exiled from the garden, God sings that
199 George Steiner, The Death of Tragedy (New York: Knopf, 1961) 353. 116 He is lonely. God seems less biased in Paradisez He gives no greater emphasis to His praise for Abel's lamb than He does for Cain's spinach. In the final moments of the play, Adam and Eve sing of God's sorrow. In Paradise, greater emphasis is placed on God's feelings than in Creation. While Creation ended with God's seeming desertion of the world. Paradise ends with Adam and Eve's desire to praise God and to work together to please God as they did before their exile from Eden. The role of God in both texts is written to show the deity as an egocentric, power-hungry imbecile who is petulant when He fails to get His way: God is portrayed in this way to challenge people's perceptions of an all- loving father-figure who has only His children's best interests at heart. The character sets up impossible situations in which His creatures cannot possibly please
Him. While the creation of humanity is not dramatized, God confesses that Adam is a product of some left-over clay from when he was making a monkey. Eve is just an experiment: since all the other animals have mates, God guesses that Adam probably should have one as well. This haphazard approach to the creation of the human race is reflected in God's dealings with humanity throughout the play. Clearly God is not omniscient, yet 117
He is perturbed when things do not go as planned. God's character seems constantly in the process of being defined.
The Role of God in Performance
As the original director of the 1972 production of The Creation of the World and Other Business, Harold Clurman wrote his conception of God in a letter to the set designer, Boris Aronson: Physically he is massive, commanding, sometimes unctuous, quick-tempered, irate and given to changing his mind— variable. He is also as cute as a bear, playful and "sensuous" like a man in love with his large brood of troublesome kids. He is Love— which is also variable and can be turned to fierceness and tremendous mischief. . . . The author is on his side not because God is always "right," but because without him there is Nothing Clurman continues by comparing God to Lucifer. While God is heavy and slow-moving, Lucifer is slender and quick. God is a bass, while Lucifer is a tenor. While this may have been Clurman's intention, critics viewing the production saw a variety of other
"Gods", many of which were negative. Clive Barnes of the New York Times saw Miller's God as a "benevolent and
avuncular paranoiac madly hungry for praise," and
Harold Clurman, On Directing (New York: MacMillon, 1972) 293. 118 Stephen Elliott's portrayal of the character as "grizzled and slightly smug."^°^ Richard Watts of The New York Post and Leonard Probst of NBC-TV both wrote negatively of Miller's conception of God using such words as "disagreeable" and "annoying."
Critics generally faulted the writing of the character, God, more than the acting. Brendan Gill blamed Miller for characterizing God as "a groaner and ranter . . . straining titanically over the failed expectations of his egomania.He credited Elliott's determination to depict God "as grand and arbitrary as the Old Testament says He is" with holding together the first two acts. Martin Gottfried wrote that Elliott "had a tough time playing God (a thankless role no matter where), burdened with the bulk of Miller's wisdom making: and the attempts to make God "funny-Jewish.According to reviewers Douglas Watt and Richard Watts, Elliott seems to have made an impressive deity with a rich voice and an imposing
Barnes 28. Brendan Gill, "Here Come the Clowns," New Yorker, 9 December 1972: 109. Gill 109. Martin Gottfried, "Theatre," Women's Wear Daily 4 December 1972: 153. 119 presence. The critics found fault primarily with the character as written and staged. Kaufman blamed the director for Elliott's line readings. While the New York production of Up From Paradise generally received more favorable reviews than The
Creation of the World and Other Business, Len Cariou's performance of God was panned in The New York Timesz "No one is in top form. In his tuxedo, Len Cariou's rather puffy God looks and acts like a croupier on the day after they broke the bank at Monte Carlo. A production note at the beginning of the play, calling for a bare stage, simple costumes and few props, underscored the fact that this was not to be a naturalistic production. By eliminating a specific historical period for the set, the audience was left to its own imagination. This bare stage and other design elements contributed directly to the portrayal of God as a fantasy, a creation of humanity. In Clurman's letter to Aronson, he also identified his production concept for The Creation of the World and Other Business. Clurman wanted to avoid too much
Frank Rich, "Stage: Miller's Up From Paradise,” New York Times, 26 October 1983: C22. Arthur Miller, Up From Paradise, Music by Stanley Silverman (New York: Samuel French, 1984) 8. 1 2 0 realism in the design elements. "The Total Effect and Style is Magical."^" In keeping with this concept, Clurman sought to have God and Lucifer appear and disappear mysteriously. Clurman communicated to Aronson that Creation was a literary play that required little scenery. He sought simplicity in the other design elements as well. The director saw lighting as the most complex of the scenic elements in this production, yet he asked for simplicity and gentle colors in the design. Clurman's production concept was apparently perceived by viewers of the play. Harold Bloom and Orm Overland both called Creation Miller's "most radical departure from realism. "^°® Dennis Welland agreed that the play "studiously avoided" the conventions of realism.^* As Clurman told Aronson, he wanted the sense of the play to be more important than the spectacle, which he said should be simple. Aronson accommodated Clurman's wishes by designing a primarily bare, raked stage with a
Clurman 297. Orm Overland, "The Action and Its Significance: Arthur Miller's Struggle with Dramatic Form," Modern Drama 18 (1975); 8. Harold Bloom, Ed, Arthur Miller (New York: Delacorte, 1973) 62. Dennis Welland, Miller: The Playwright (London: Methuen, 1983) 129. 1 2 1 few rocks as set pieces. This "rather magical slanted clearing . . . kindles the imagination" according to Douglas Watt.^^° The scene changed from a "magical flowerlike garden" at the beginning of the play to a set that turned "heavily barren" after Adam and Eve's exile from the garden. Simplicity was also the rule for costumes and lights. Clurman wanted to suggest nudity for Adam and Eve, so as not to be too realistic. The actors wore flesh-colored leotards "on which their more private parts were outlined in comic strokes.God was dressed in what Kauffman described as pajamas which led to mixed reviews of the costumes. Both of these costumes highlighted the theatricality of the event, calling attention to the costumes themselves as comic devices. Changes in lighting were relied on heavily to suggest scene changes and add an air of mystery to the production. The design elements for the musical version. Up From Paradise were markedly different due to the
Douglas Watt, "Creation of the World is a Plodding Comedy-Drama," New York Daily News, 1 December 1972. Gottfried 153.
Watt 151. 1 2 2 addition of the music, which fostered an eclectic style.
Miller spoke enthusiastically of it as "a wild kind of thing musically . . . and every other way . . . There is every style of music in it . . . blues, jazz, spiritual — every style of music including some Monteverdi-type music that goes back to the Baroque period.This compilation of diverse music from different periods was used in conjunction with "projections of galaxies and abstraction.Furthermore, the actors were all dressed in black tie rather than in costumes "appropriate" to the first family. The costumes and the sets for both plays worked against a realistic approach to the supernatural or mythological subject matter.
The jarring nature of the sets and costumes called attention to how God was portrayed in the productions. Arthur Miller's The Creation of the World and Other Business and Up From Paradise are important plays to consider when investigating the performance of God on the twentieth century American stage. Creation was a commercial and critical failure while Paradise, intended for a short run, was better received. In comparing
Qtd. Welland 130. Hewes 45. Clurman 297. 123 these two plays, some conclusions can be drawn about how the performance of God was shaped by the play-scripts and production elements. One of the major problems with Creation is its lack of focus. Without the aid of a narrator, the play offers no device to introduce and sustain a view of God. In Paradise, a narrator is added who serves as a facilitating device for the audience; he suggests very clearly that God is made in the image of Adam. Thus, this view of God is localized. God can be anything Adam wants Him to be. As the opening song suggests, God can have a variety of characteristics, depending on what image people expect and develop. This suggestion contradicts, of course, the biblical view that God made man in His own image. God is shown to be idealistic in His confidence that people will not turn away from Him. This is demonstrated in God's hope that Adam and Eve would refrain from eating the apple out of love for Him. Similarly, God sent the angel of death to tempt Cain, again hoping that Cain would resist killing Abel, remembering his love both for God and his brother. God is shown to be fallible in both plays: He mistakenly makes a fish with fur until Lucifer points out the 124 impracticality of this design. The God of these plays is human in many respects: He gets bored, lonely and angry. He is sometimes whimsical and is always looking
for love and praise from His creatures. The character presented in the text is an anthropomorphized view of God. In performance, the production elements of both plays are similar. They both employ a playing space which is considerably bare, containing only minimal set pieces. The major difference between the two productions, predictably, is in the music used for Up From Paradise. In addition to the lyrics, the actual musical sounds help convey the point of the play. As Miller suggests in an interview with Christian-Albrecht Gollub, a message "is stronger in a musical because song
is terrific for driving home whatever is there.In another interview. Miller suggests that the musical version. Up From Paradise, may have been the story's more natural form.^^’
Christian-Albrecht Gollub, "Interview with Arthur Miller," Conversations with Arthur Miller (Jackson: UP Mississippi, 1987) 281. Robert A. Martin, ed., Arthur Miller: New Perspectives (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1982) 72, 125 In any case. The Creation of the World and Other Business and Up From Paradise both present a view of God which challenges the audience's perceptions of Him. Both plays wrestle with the question: Were humans made in the image of God or was God made in the image of humans? The play suggests that God was made in the image of man and that He was created for a number of reasons. Human beings have a need for justice: Eve wants Cain punished at the end of the play for his murder of Abel. Lucifer suggests that God is necessary because men kill other men and thus need a superior being to offer retribution. Murder, it would seem, affirms God's worth. This need for justice is evident in Miller's own stated personal and political beliefs. When he was cited by the House Un-American Activities Committee in the mid-1950s for contempt of Congress because he refused to tell the committee the names of people he saw at Communist writers' meetings. Miller was vocal about his opposition to what he saw as the excesses of the committee. Initially, Miller was convicted, fined $500, and given a suspended one month jail sentence. Miller appealed the verdict and was acquitted on a matter of legal procedure. Although he could have avoided further 126 legal fees by paying the fine. Miller pursued the case until he felt that justice was served.Miller continued to be an advocate for the freedom of individuals from tyranny of any kind throughout his career.
The end of the play demonstrates a shift in power from God to humanity. After God leaves the earth, vowing never to return, Adam tells Cain, "Boy, we are all that's left responsible."^^® He wants the boy to ask his mother's forgiveness. This is a major change from the Adam of the beginning of the play who seeks God's approval for every aspect of his life: he will not name the animals without first getting God's approval for each one. After their exile. Eve complains about the wind and the sand and suggests that Adam dig a hole for them, to protect them from the wind. Adam replies that if God wanted them to dig, he would have provided claws. After Eve has Cain, however, Adam does dig the hole, and starts on his way toward taking more responsibility for himself and his family. Not surprisingly, Adam and Eve's responsibility grows as
Benjamin Nelson, Arthur Miller: Portrait of a Playwright (London: Peter Owen, 1970) 196. Miller Creation 106. 127 God's diminishes. The climax of the play revolves around this sense of personal responsibility- While
Cain never admits he is to blame, and Lucifer blames God for the killing, Adam and Eve are forced to decide their own fate. Power and responsibility have shifted from
God to humanity. CHAPTER IV TONY HARRISON'S THE MYSTERIES: THE NATIVITY AND BERNARD SAHLIN'S THE MYSTERIES: CREATION
Introduction "God" appeared on stage most recently in the 1993
Court Theatre's production of The Mysteries which was adapted by Bernard Sahlins who also co-directed the production with Nicholas Rudall.^=° This production is significant to this study for its unique way of supporting the view of God. It uses a framing device whereby actors, dressed in various uniforms of contemporary blue collar workers, greet the audience as they arrive, immediately breaking the convention of fourth wall naturalism. Related to this, direct address is used throughout the production to include the audience in the action. The production uses a dialect which is rich in alliteration and rhyming verse. In
I saw the Court Theatre's production of The Mysteries on February 20, 1993. The Court Theatre's publicity office also loaned me a videotape of the productions to use for my research. 128 129 addition to frequent anachronisms in the language and production elements. The Mysteries presents symbolic and highly theatricalized set pieces and characterizations. Finally, the music works both to offer the audience a chance to reflect on the action and also to engage their full participation in the means of production. The Court Theatre's production which ran for four weeks in January of 1992 was revived a year later. The script is based on Tony Harrison's adaptation of the medieval cycle plays. Harrison's version was produced by The National Theatre of Great Britain in the mid- 1980's. The National first produced The Passion, the second part of the trilogy, in 1977. The Nativity (Part I) was added in 1980; and the third part. Doomsday was first performed in 1985, when all three plays were offered as a trilogy.The London production, as
Bernard Sahlins and Nicholas Rudall indicate in their introduction to the published script, "rescued [the medieval plays] from being museum pieces, dutifully
Jack Shepherd, "The 'Scholar' Me: An Actor's View," Tony Harrison, ed. Neil Astley Bloodaxe Critical Anthologies: I (Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe, 1991) 425. 130 . . . performed as costumed, antiquarian artifacts."=== Sahlins and Rudall continue by claiming that the driving force behind the National's production "was that these plays were done by working people for working people. "2*3
Playing God as a blue-collar worker who speaks in a Northern dialect had a specific agenda behind it. Tony Harrison, who grew up in a working class family in the North, was a "scholarship boy" in an elite school in the south of England. He was constantly badgered by his teachers who wanted Harrison to learn to speak "correctly." Harrison in his adult years began a crusade against using standard British speech as a criterion for determining cultural legitimacy. He suggested that in controlling someone's speech, the person in power is asserting a superiority of class. By insisting that God speak in a Yorkshire accent, Harrison battled the conception that to speak "correctly," as presumably God would. He would have to speak with a proper accent: "Tony had the idea that since the play was written in York, it should be done with Yorkshire
Bernard Sahlins and Nicholas Rudall, intro.. The Mysteries: Creation (Chicago: Ivan Dee, 1992) 3.
Sahlins and Rudall 3. 131 accents. Hitherto God had always spoke (sic) posh. In
this production. He evidently came from Barnsley. The American production borrows heavily from the British play in both its concept and design. The
National Theatre's version of The Mysteries was a six- hour trilogy. The plays were usually offered on consecutive nights but occasionally, they were produced all on one day. The production was divided into The
Nativity, which covers the events of creation through the nativity; The Passion, which includes the Baptism of Jesus through his death on the cross; and Doomsday, which encompasses the Resurrection through Judgement
Day. The theatre represented a modern guild hall, with banners from various trades displayed throughout the playing space. The seats were removed from the auditorium to allow the play to be staged as a
promenade. The promenade concept was an attempt to re create the atmosphere of the medieval plays, during which audience members could move around freely. There was also limited seating in the galleries.
In 1992, the Court Theatre only offered part I of the trilogy, which they renamed The Mysteries: Creation. The American production retained the promenade concept
Shepherd 425. 132 and the blue-collar environment of the British play.
For its production a year later, the company added The Mysteriesi The Passion. The American production followed the British practice of offering the plays both on consecutive nights and in one marathon day. Although both plays are interesting and worthy of study, the character God does not appear in The Passion. Therefore, the focus of this chapter will be on Creation, and its British counterpart. The Nativity. The change in titles is consistent with the alterations in the narrative. The first half of The Nativity covers the events of creation; Cain and Abel; the Flood; and the story of Abraham and Isaac. The second half of the play focuses almost entirely on the
Nativity. In Creation, however, the time devoted to the major stories in the play is more evenly divided: roughly the first third of the play is centered on the Adam and Eve's family and the final third concentrates on the Holy Family. The stories are similar in the British and American versions, although The Nativity contains the lengthy sheep-stealing scene from The Second Shepherds' Play. In addition to this scene. Creation shortens some scenes with Herod. Both of these deletions help account for Creation's running time of 133 about ninety minutes, as opposed to the two and one-half hour production of The Nativity. Both plays follow the Biblical narrative. God creates the world first, then Adam and Eve. After the humans are exiled from the garden, their son Cain kills Abel. God gets frustrated with humanity and decides to flood the earth, saving only Noah, his family and the animals of the earth. In the next scene, God tests Abraham by asking him to sacrifice Isaac. When God spares Isaac, He tells how His son will be the true sacrifice. This sets up the next scene where Mary gives birth to Jesus. Meanwhile, Herod fears the birth of the child and orders the slaughter of all infant boys.
Joseph learns in a dream that he must take Mary and Jesus to Egypt to avoid the slaughter. There, the family is visited first by three shepherds and then by three kings. In both productions, the character Death appears at the end of the play and kills Herod and his men. Satan comes on stage and escorts the evil ones to hell. The play ends when the Holy Family parades on stage and exits as the company sings, "Hosanna." After the curtain call, all the actors return to the stage and involve the audience in a communal dance. 134 Reviewers' reactions to both plays were for the most part positive. Critics credited the success of the
British production to the festive atmosphere, the simplicity of the design and the fine pacing. Robert Gore Langton writing for Plays and Players contends that the greatest achievement is not the success of its
impressive promenade concept, "but that in its uncomplicated, theatrical simplicity it manages to recreate the spirit of the medieval guildsmen.The medieval spirit is recreated by actors portraying blue collar workers, attempting to establish a link between
England's working class and that of the medieval tradesmen they represent. Michael Ratcliffe also praises the simplicity of the promenade concept, labeling The Mysteries the "most moving, solemn and joyful event in the London theatre for a long time."“ ® Ratcliffe writes that "the first strange pleasure of the morning" was watching God create the world from a fork-lift truck.Ratcliffe was one
Robert Gore Langton, "The Mysteries," Plays and Players January 1985: 29. Michael Ratcliffe, "The Mysteries," Observer, 27 January 1985, reprinted in London Theatre Record 16-29 January 1985: 56.
Ratcliffe 56. 135 of many critics to count The Mysteries among the finest works ever produced by the National Theatre. To support this view, he cites the inspirational stories the play tells, the language the play uses in telling them, and the actors' "unforced emotional affinity with the men of the medieval English mysteries . . . who performed them in the first place. Carole Woodis, although she faulted the original medieval plays with promoting the power of the patriarchy, agreed that The Mysteries was a rare occurrence in the theatre: "... there are . . . few events in my theatrical experience that have matched the emotional power and sheer theatrical magic of this day long trilogy. Quotes on the production from The London Theatre Record include "a day of sheer exhilaration," an "unforgettable piece of communal theatre," an "extraordinary ensemble achievement" and "artistically superior to the Oberammergau.
Ratcliffe 56. Carole Woddis, "The Mysteries," City Limits, 25 January 1985. Reprinted in London Theatre Record 16-29 January 1985: 60. Kenneth Hurren, Michael Billington, John Barber, and Christopher Grier, "The Mysteries," London Theatre Record 16-29 January 1985: 56-61. 136 Elliott discussed the nature of the National's production as "people's theatre," one that would "marshall the spirit of the whole community. In pointing out that the production was the first commercially successful production of a medieval play since Poel's Everyman in the early twentieth century, he cited the popularity of the production as indicating
"that something in this conception of the plays has struck a responsive chord in current audiences. John Walker agreed with Elliott that a sense of community had been created through the production.
A common thread in many of the above reviews involves comments on the essence of theatre. Many critics believed that The Mysteries, with its religious roots, fulfilled, what is for them, a basic function of theatre: to explore the meaning of human existence and its relationship to the universe. According to Christopher Grier, with the production came "insights
Elliott 115. Elliott 115.
John Walker, International Herald Tribune, 25 August 1978: 5. 137 into human conduct and the nature of belief.
While Grier does not expand on what specific insights were gained, he focuses on the accessibility of God to all people. He also describes how the sense of community created by the production encourages the audience's own active participation in the production and passive reflections on the ideas generated there. Giles Gordon in Punch typifies the unabashed praise that most critics had for The Mysteriesz "If you fail to thrill to The Mysteries, the theatre, maybe life, is not for you.This kind of review tries to depict The Mysteries as a quintessential theatre piece, an opinion which critics like Gordon try to intimidate their readers into adopting. Not every critic was won over by London's The Mysteries. Darryl Grantley, writing for Theatre Notebook found the treatment of God insulting:
Making God a stereotype of a working-class figure in order to derive comedy from the incongruity of his being in a position of power is not only insultingly distasteful (though enjoyed by the predominantly middle-
Christopher Grier, "The Mysteries," Standard reprinted in London Theatre Record 16-29 January 1985: 60. Giles Gordon, "The Mysteries," Punch 30 January 1985, reprinted in London Theatre Record 16-29 January 1985: 61. 138 class audience) but it also plays havoc with the notion of absolute spiritual authority which forms an important part of the philosophical basis of the cycle. Grantley was one of the only critics to find the portrayal of God distasteful, and his criticism seems somewhat elitist: he almost suggests that God could not possibly be like a working-class man. He would not have the necessary spiritual authority. He continues by suggesting that the medieval mystery plays are
"concerned with the profoundest and most significant choice anyone can make" but contends that the choice between "a buffoon-like God and a risible devil can scarcely have much weight.Grantley's perception of the "buffoon-like God" is not supported by other critics, most of whom found the portrayal of God powerful. The American production was also a popular and critical success. Most critics praised the acting, production concept, design and direction of the Court Theatre's production of Creation. Richard Christiansen, chief critic for The Chicago Tribune, labeled The
Darryl Grantley, "The National Theatre's Production of The Mysteries: Some Observations," Theatre Notebook 40: 2, 71.
Grantley 71. 139
Mysteries: Creation one of the ten best productions of 1992.^^® Earlier in the year, he gave a glowing review to Creation saying that the production "achieves a true awe and joy."^®® A year later, Christiansen wrote that while Creation remained "a marvel of inventiveness and reverence," The Passion never achieved the same
"elevation or exultation - Both plays employ the framing device by which the actors mingle with the audience both at the beginning and the end of the play. The concept of having actors play actors who talk directly to the audience is an
important set-up for the conventions of the play. It establishes that the audience will be watching actors portraying performers who have other occupations in
"real life." This allows the audience the sense of being twice removed from the events on stage. The pre show activities also establish the convention of direct address, one which conveys that this production will not be a naturalistic one. In the opening moments, God
^®® Richard Christiansen, "The Ten Best Productions," Chicago Tribune, 27 January 1992, sec. 13: 11. Richard Christiansen, "'Creation' a Garden of Eden," Chicago Tribune, 17 January 1992, sec. 1: 20. Richard Christiansen, "Full 'Cycle'," Chicago Tribune 19 January 1993, sec. 1: 16. 140 enters on a forklift truck and introduces himself to the audience. Later, Noah and his wife both address the audience: Noah warns husbands to chastise their wives' tongues while they are young, and Noah's wife says that wives in the audience probably all wish their husbands were dead. There are many similar instances where the actors, still under the guise of their characters, address the audience. At times throughout the production, however, the actors, dropping their characters momentarily, address the audience: Bernard Levin cites the times in the National's version when actors laugh, not as part of their performance, but rather at a mistake or a comment from the audience. He suggests that the actors have been told to go ahead and laugh whenever the mood strikes them. Levin continues by describing the scenes involving Mak, the bad shepherd. When Mak is caught stealing sheep, he is sentenced to the pillory: As Bernard Levin explains, the pillory is "one of those seaside joke- photograph devices" where the actor puts his head through a hole; and the children in the audience are asked to pelt him with wet sponges. "Most of them enter into the game with zest, but one or two hang back. 141 'Come on,' says Mak, encouraging them; then he mutters, 'You won't get a chance like this at Coriolanus, I can tell you.'”^'*^ This kind of ad-libbing breaks down illusion. The production concept is similar in the Court
Theatre's version. The actors mingle with the audience and prepare some of them to take minor roles in the production. The actress playing Noah's wife approached me while I was watching the pre-show activities at the
Court Theatre and asked me if I was married. When I said yes, she further inquired how long I had been married and whether or not we were a happy couple.
Without knowing it, I set myself up to be dragged on stage an hour later during her character's tirade on how miserable husbands are. She ended her speech by pointing to my husband and saying that he probably was no prize, either. I also overheard another actor recruiting a small boy in the audience to help with another scene. He was asked to release balloons to suggest the creation of the stars. It was clear even during the pre-show that
Bernard Levin, "When Mystery Was an Open Book, " Tony Harrison^ Ed. Neil Astley, Bloodaxe Critical Anthologies: I (Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe, 1981) 328. 142 audience members would be active participants. Furthermore, the audience was always alert, wondering who would be involved in the action next. Some of the more reticent members of the audience seemed to avoid eye contact with the performers, apparently in fear of being included in the action. For the most part, however, the audience seemed eager to participate and interacted with the actors quite freely.
The Role of God in the Text
There are no stage directions or written descriptions of God in the text of The Mysteries: The Nativity. Most textual clues to the character come from the dialogue itself, which has retained medieval characteristics. God opens the show by identifying Himself to the audience: I am gracious and great, God withouten beginning; I am maker unmade, all might is in me. I am life and way unto wealth winning; I am foremost and first; als I bid shall it b e . : ' =
This opening echoes that found in the first of the Wakefield plays. The Creation. The character, God, opens that play as well:
Tony Harrison, The Mysteries (London: Faber and Faber, 1985) 11. 143
I am the first, the last also. One God in majest . . . I am without beginning; My godhead hath no ending . . . It shall be done after my will. What I have planned I shall fulfil And maintain with my might. Opening the play with God directly addressing the audience and establishing his "greatness" is thus
consistent with medieval practice, at least in the Wakefield cycle: God is clearly in charge of the world. Throughout the play, God complains about how humans have fallen away from His grace. At one point. He says He's sorry He ever made humans and decides to flood the
earth. He explains to Noah that He is "God most mighty//One God, in Trinity,"; furthermore, humans owe God their love.^'*'* Later in the play, God's vengeance
is tempered by mercy: initially, God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac. When God sees the love Abraham has for Isaac, God spares the boy. He proclaims
that His own son will die for the sins of humanity. This sets up the next group of scenes, involving Joseph and Mary, and provides a strong link between the materials found in the Old and New Testaments.
=*3 The Creation ed. Martial Rose, Wakefield Mystery Plays (New York: Norton, 1961) 59. Harrison, The Mysteries 33. 144 What others say about God is contradictory; and predictably, varies according to their own relationship to Him. The angel Gabriel supports God's opening statement when He says that God is "ground of all grace" in contrast to Lucifer who talks only of his own greatness.^*® Cain says that God gives him "nought but sorrow and woe" while Abel points out that God gives Cain life.^"*® Throughout the play, God reveals Himself as someone who demands absolute obedience. Even the child Isaac recognizes this trait and says that Abraham must kill him because God said so. Mary, the chosen mother of Jesus, also refers to God as "omnipotent" and the "father of heaven. All of these comments included in the play demonstrate alternate views of the deity. In the Chicago version of Creation, references to God in the script are very similar. God introduces Himself in the same way as in the London production.
The main difference between the two plays is in the language. Although many of the same descriptions of God are retained, they are modernized and Americanized. The
Harrison, The Mysteries 13. Harrison, The Mysteries 26.
247 Harrison, The Mysteries 78. 145 following example shows this change. When God warns Adam and Eve about the forbidden fruit, the British version has; The tree of good and ill— What time you eat of this Thou speeds thyself to spill. And be brought out of bliss. which becomes in the American version: But this one tree alone, Adam, I forbid this. The fruit of it eat none. Or be brought out of bliss. The language itself is an important element of the play to consider. Harrison wrote for The National Theatre verse which was rich in alliteration and rhyme as Satan's speech indicates; All the mirth that is made is marked in me. The beams of my brighthood are burning so bright. And so seemly in sight myself I now see. Like a lord am I lifted to live in this light. Jack Shepherd, who spoke these words in the London production points out that Harrison discovered that the alliteration and rhyme of the text was there to help people understand what was being said in the large open
Harrison, The Mysteries 17. Sahlins 17. Harrison, The Mysteries 12. 146 area with its many distractions. "The text, therefore, had to be spoken rhythmically and the alliteration stressed. No place here for present day naturalism. The Chicago production also used a Chicago dialect and successfully avoided sounding stilted. The adapter, Bernard Sahlins, retained the alliteration found in the British script, but updated some of the language and colloquialisms. This is clear in the creation of man. In the British script, God says: To keep this world both more and less A skilful beast then will I make After my shape and my likeness. The which shall worship to me take. Of the simplest part of earth that is here I shall make man.“^ In the American version, this becomes: Now make we man. Tomorrow will I rest. Rise up thou earth in blood and bone In shape of man, I command thee.^“ In general, the American script was intended to be simpler and more accessible to a contemporary audience.
Jack Shepherd, "The 'Scholar' Me: An Actor's View," Tony Harrison, ed. Neil Astley, Bloodaxe Critical Anthologies: I (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Bloodaxe, 1981) 328. Harrison, The Mysteries 15. Bernard Sahlins, The Mysteries: Creation (Chicago: Ivan Dee, 1992) 16. 147 As Sahlins and Rudall suggest, even modern adaptations of the medieval mystery plays have a "decidedly Yorkshire ring to them."^®* The Chicago production required a "more accessible American text which retained the alliteration, the rhymes, and the original's naivete without indulging in false contemporaneity."^^ This, the writer and director stated, was the intent of the American adaptation. Overall, the verse complemented the nonrealistic style of the play.
The Role of God in Performance The medieval mysteries were the first known plays to have the Christian God as a leading character. The mystery plays offered a theatrical version of life to their audiences; their leading characters could only be known through outward symbols: "Their Herod was not a real Herod any more than their God was a real God. They were, instead, purely theatrical characters."^* The productions of The Mysteries being examined here
Sahlins and Rudall 3. Sahlins and Rudall 3. John Elliott, Playing God: Medieval Mysteries on the Modern Stage, (Toronto: U Toronto P, 1989) 11. 148 reflected this symbolic or theatrical representation of
God. In terms of the acting style used in "playing God" in The Mysteries, a Stanislavskian approach to acting this role would have been ineffective. "The characters in the mysteries are types, not individuals, and the actions they perform are mythic and larger than life.They are not only reflecting the natural, but the supernatural as well: "It would be pointless to ask an actor to "internalize" the character of God."“®
The medieval actor, Elliott argues, could not have expected to persuade his audience that he was literally "God": "Playing God" is just that, "playing," and there must have been a visible, undisguised artifice in the undertaking for which simplicity and sincerity cannot have been adequate substitues. . . . The modern actor may take comfort in one certain fact: an actor cannot be God, he can only suggest Him and hope that his audience goes along with the game. The "undisguised artifice" is what this study has examined in each of the plays being considered.
Elliott 131. ^ Elliott 131. Elliott 132. 149 The directors of both the London and the Chicago productions sought actors who appeared to be "ordinary working people" as could be shown in their speech. Sahlins was given this advice by the National;
There is an elusive question of style here, for while the actor is playing God . . . he must seem accessible and ordinary. As we were advised by Richard Eyre of the National Theatre, "find beer actors, not champagne actors. This was reflected in England by the Northern dialects and in the United States by a Chicago regionalism. The Chicago version was somewhat uneven in this respect, as each actor's facility with the dialect varied considerably. In both productions, actors wore costumes which suggested a working class community: overalls, miners' hats, and tool belts. As an author with a strong advocacy for the
legitimization of regional dialects, Tony Harrison insisted that the London play be done with a Northern
dialect. In a conversation with Richard Hoggart, Harrison argues that the Northernness was not only
useful but necessary to The Mysteries. "I was angered when I went to see them at York, and God and Jesus were played by very posh-speaking actors from the South, and
Sahlins and Rudall 4. 150 the local people again played the comic parts.
In the 1976 production of the York festival, all the characters, other than the divine ones, were kept rough and boisterous; only the heavenly characters had "perfectly spoken voices.
Having God and the angels speak in standard British and the shepherds speak in a northern dialect betrays a class bias, associating the divine with the upper class and the unsophisticated characters with the working
class. Harrison argues that one of the marks of the mystery plays is that "God, Christ, and everybody else speak in the language of the time, which is also colloquial. In using colloquial language, the play
allows God to be seen as a "regular guy" in the minds of the blue collar workers presenting the play. Harrison's insistence on using regional dialects is part of a
Richard Hoggart, "In Conversation with Tony Harrison" Tony Harrison, Ed. Neil Astley, Bloodaxe Critical Anthologies: I (Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe, 1991) 44.
Elliott 98. Hoggart 44. 151 lifelong goal to re-establish the legitimate use of "non-standard English and Received Pronunciation. Bernard O'Donaghue also points out the importance of the dialect used in The Mysteries, He argues that the play attempts to achieve "effects of theatrical power and dignity" in an English dialect "usually associated with marginalisation and even unseriousness. Labeling the guild actors "rude mechanicals," O'Donoghue continues by pointing out that the medieval actors had to try to enact "the most exalted of subjects" within their own limitations.^®® There seems to be an implication here that the medieval guild actors were somehow not as gualified to portray "exalted subjects" like God as they were less "sophisticated" characters. This elitist suggestion supports preconceptions of God as a member of a dominant social class.
^®^ Ken Worpole, "Scholarship Boy: The Poetry of Tony Harrison," Tony Harrison, Ed. Neil Astley, Bloodaxe Critical Anthologies: I (Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe, 1991) 68. =®® Bernard O'Donoghue, "The Mysteries: TW's Revenge" Tony Harrison, ed. Neil Astley (Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe, 1991) 317.
2 6 6 o'Donoghue 317. 152 The National's Brian Glover is a bald, stocky actor who uses large gestures and has a gravelly voice. Glover frequently folds his arms across his chest and communicates with broadly-defined facial gestures. It is sometimes unclear whether or not the actor, Brian
Glover, is intentionally overacting. Most of the time, Glover seems to be presenting what he assumes would be a medieval tradesman's portrayal of God. In any case, Glover's God seems proud of himself and frequently nods
at the end of sentences as if to confirm his divine authority. Glover raises his arms to the sky in a dance-like pose during the creation of the world. He smiles frequently, when the angel Gabriel praises him
and again when Adam and Eve are first created. When angry, Glover squints his eyes in an obvious way to indicate the extent of the emotion. In general, Glover over-emphasizes his words and exaggerates the verse's meter. This, combined with his over-drawn gestures,
makes Glover's God seem unsophisticated at times. Again, it is unclear whether Glover is doing a parody of the medieval actor playing God, or whether this is his own conception of God as a "regular guy." The London critics all chose to write about
different aspects of Glover's God. Michael Billington, 153
writing for The Guardian and Giles Gordon, writing for Punch, both saw the character in domestic terms. Billington writes that Glover^s God speaks more "like a grieving father than a pompous divine.Gordon writes that Glover "presides over everything as a domestic, household God. Other critics detected a
rougher side to Glover's portrayal of God. John Barber, writing for The Daily Telegraph, mused that the "bald Brian Glover . . . looks like an ex-convict well worth keeping on the right side of."^®® The Sunday Telegraph critic Francis King describes the character as "stout, bald-headed and sweating.Similar descriptions are given by Benedict Nightingale in New Statesman and Christopher Grier in Standard
Michael Billington, Guardian 21 January 1985 reprinted in The London Theatre Record 16-25 January 1985: 57. Giles Gordon, Punch 30 January 1985 reprinted in The London Theatre Record 16-25 January 1985: 61. John Barber, Daily Telegraph 21 January 1985 reprinted in The London Theatre Record 16-25 January 1985: 59.
Francis King, Sunday Telegraph 27 January 1985 reprinted in The London Theatre Record 16-25 January 1985: 60. Christopher Grier, Standard 21 January 1985 and Benedict Nightingale in New Statesman 25 January 1985 both reprinted in The London Theatre Record 16-25 January 1985: 60-61. 154 Matt DeCaro, the actor playing God in the American version has a similar approach to the character. He is a stocky, young-looking actor who exudes a great deal of energy throughout the performance. He, too, uses large gestures to support his characterization. At times, he conducts the orchestra from his place on the fork-lift truck. DeCaro flattens his vowels in a way echoing the "non-standard” stage speech of the London actors. One major difference between the two characterizations is that while Glover emphasizes the verse, DeCaro's approach seems to strive for a more naturalistic quality, at times obviously fighting the verse. Sid Smith from the Chicago Tribune writes how "for the medieval audiences, God existed every day" and for this reason, the actors were free to depict the biblical events in ordinary terms. "They were populist entertainers, not court poets. The Chicago production of The Mysteries was consistent with this concept of a worker playing God. "That feel of blue- collar ruddiness is all part of the historical truth of the p l a y s . "^'3 The cast was most successful in
Sid Smith, "Primal Theater," Chicago Tribune 19 January 1992 sec. 13; 16. Sid Smith 13. 155 capturing the energy created by a true community event,
such as the ones held in medieval times. All the design elements play a very important role in both productions of The Mysteries. In both the British and the American versions, the production
foregrounded the theatricality of the performance through the ample use of anachronisms in the set, props and language. The design elements thus become crucial in establishing the theatrical devices used to break the
audience of their expectations for realism. At the National, the play was set in a modern guild hall which bore little resemblance to the places depicted in the biblical narrative. The props used were all modern tools and equipment. God appears on a forklift truck. The sheep used in the scene with Abel is obviously a stuffed animal. This is highlighted when Abel slits the sheep's throat and red dust comes out.
After Cain kills Abel, Cain ties Abel's body to the sheep and uses it to drag him offstage. When the shepherds visit the baby Jesus, one of them hands him a tennis ball, emphasizing the incongruity of the prop to the occasion. Later, when asked a question about the sacred books, Herod's son consults the York telephone 156 directory and after reading aloud in Latin, he confirms the King's message about the birth of Jesus. In addition to the National's anachronistic set pieces and props, great use is made of symbolism and highly theatrical production elements. The company forms a chain to signify a snake in the garden of Eden. A boy enters in "The Killing of Abel" scene with five horses which are abstractly portrayed in a way echoing
Shaffer's Equus. In the scene with Noah, the ark is built on stage in less than a minute in full view of the audience. Various pieces of wood are thrown together and joined by the company who then hold modern umbrellas and make animal noises, signifying the various occupants of the ark. An actor rapidly flaps an umbrella to signify the release of a dove. The birth of Jesus is dramatized when Mary performs a ritualistic wrapping of linens until they form the shape of a baby. For the baptism of Jesus, the company waves a blue cloth to signify the Jordan River. Each of these instances foregrounds the theatricality of the event by drawing attention to the props as props, rather than to the elements which they are intended to signify. Music is another element which breaks the "fourth wall." The musicians appear on stage as if they are 157 giving a concert. At times, this causes a split in focus between the action and the musicians. At the beginning and end of each play, the actors dance to the music, inviting audience members to join them. Throughout the trilogy, music is used to suspend the action, allowing the audience a chance both to reflect on the scene and to enjoy the performance— as a performance. It also highlights important moments in the play such as when Eve bites the apple. A loud cacophonous sound comes from the band, which jars the audience and draws their attention to the ramifications of the original sin. After Jesus welcomes Mary to Heaven, toward the end of the third play, joyful music is heard, as if the play were reaching a happy ending, then God cuts it off for "Doomsday” to begin. This effect again agitates the audience, preventing too much of a passive response to the play. In this way, music is foregrounded, made to be an obvious theatrical device. The final element used in this production to break away from a naturalistic representation of God is that of the audience's participation in the action. The play is set up as environmental theatre: the actors are surrounded by the audience, often walking amongst them 158 and implicating them in the action of the play.
Periodically, the audience members are encouraged to take part in the production by holding swords and other props handed to them by the actors. More importantly, the audience has to move to accommodate the special needs of each scene. Throughout the play, actors direct audience members where and when to move. As Bernard Levin points out: For consider: the original actors . . . would have been known as friends, colleagues, neighbours or relatives to the audience, and as the tableaux moved through the streets and the cycle, the distinction between player and audience must have vanished, along with the distinction between player and character. This blurring of the line between actor and audience member, coupled with the convention of actors playing actors, confused the audience: they were at times hard pressed to identify who was an audience member and who was an actor. Toward the end of Creation, the actor playing Death got up from his seat in the audience and started speaking his lines. This was jarring to the audience; they took a second before they identified him as a character. When an actor emerges from the audience as a character in the play, "fourth wall" illusion is broken. The audience no longer can watch the
Levin 327-328. 159
performance as if peeping through an imaginary wall. As the actors and audience continually cross the imaginary line of demarcation between stage and auditorium, the performers and spectators share the responsibility for
creating the story. At the end of the play, during the Doomsday scene, devils come out and accost the audience for their sinfulness, accusing them of pride, wrath, envy and the
other deadly sins. They take selected audience members with them to hell. Again Levin writes; You could see the audience responding until they ached to be given a part themselves, gradually realizing with wonder and visible joy that they had been given a part and were playing it.^’^ The Chicago production had a production concept similar to that of its London counterpart. Bernard
Sahlins describes some of the challenges of performing in the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, a "cathedral-like structure" at the University of Chicago; "Although we did not enjoy the convenience of a theatre, we could exploit the chapel's height and architecture."^^ In addition to the "found space" of the chapel, the stage
Levin, gtd. Peter Lewis, The National: A Dream Made Concrete (London; Methuen, 1990) 153-154. Sahlins and Rudall 5. 160 settings and props reflected a sense of "found
objects.The costumes followed the working-class theme. The lights, music, sound and dance all complemented the style of the production. Finally, the
Chicago production was a "promenade" in that the actors moved within the realm of the audience, often asking them to shift their places in order to accommodate the on-stage action.
The chapel in Chicago was set up to support this promenade concept. The stage, for the most part, was bare; the actors carried set pieces on stage as they were needed. The audience was encouraged to sit on the stage floor, surrounding the action. Bleachers were set up on two sides of the stage which allowed a limited number of audience members the opportunity to view the
play from about eight feet above the stage floor. There were also a few chairs and bleachers on the other two sides of the stage at floor level. Due to the nature of the episodic scenes, the scenery had to be easily moved on and off stage. The tree of knowledge was represented by a piece of wood
Sahlins and Rudall 4. The night I attended the Chicago performance, almost all of the seats had been reserved for a bus tour, so I sat on the stage floor. 161 with branches and one apple. A blue blanket, tossed in the air by the actors, represented the ocean. One of the more comic moments of the play involving scenery was that in which God created the plants: the actors unrolled a green carpet that had pop-up flowers attached to it. The actors brought set pieces on and off stage not only in full view of the audience, but often through the audience members seated on the stage floor. About halfway through the play, the actors took apart God's forklift truck and carried it off stage. The most impressive use of the set design involved the building of the ark. A few platforms were brought on stage as the foundation for the ark. Various pieces of crescent shaped wood were placed on top of the platforms to suggest the shape of the boat. While Noah "steered" Cain's plow, which at this point doubled as a helm, various company members sat under umbrellas, making sounds to mimic animals. The company rocked back and forth in unison, in motion with the apparent movement of the ark. Like the production at the National, one of the actors flapped his umbrella to suggest the bird in flight, when the dove was released to search for dry land. This creative use of the set design further reinforced the idea that the world of the play. 162 including the view of God, was one that was limited only by the imagination. As the means of building the set was brought before the eyes of the audience, so was the realization that faith in the world of the play, and of God, was a product of creating and controlling images. The props in the Court Theatre's production often called attention to themselves as theatrical devices. Lucifer held two glimmering balls of light to complement his image as the angel of light. After God chastised him for his pride, he fell into a toxic waste caldron which was lit from the bottom by a rotating red light. Later, to suggest the creation of the stars, audience members were instructed to release helium balloons. Like the London production, the Chicago production used a stuffed sheep to symbolize Abel's sacrifice. Red streamers fell out when Abel slit the animal's throat, causing the audience to laugh at the obvious theatrical device. After Cain killed Abel, he tied his brother to the sheep and dragged the body around the stage. Again, the audience became aware of the dual use of the prop: Abel's sacrifice doubled as his deathbed. Another level of meaning had been added to the stage prop: Abel's sacrifice for the sins of his parents became the reason for his own death at the hands of his brother. A 163 connection was made between the death of the sacrificial lamb and and the death of Abel. Similarly, in the second part of the trilogy, Jesus pulled Mary on a donkey made of a sawhorse on wheels. The sawhorse, as a theatrical device, broke the illusion of reality on stage. In each of these cases, the props themselves drew attention to the theatricality of the event: the audience was watching for the creative tricks of the cast and crew. There were several times throughout the production that the props seemed incongruous with the biblical narrative. At one point, God took out a whistle and blew it, which summoned the company to perform a scene change. In the next scene, Noah and his wife used slapsticks to signify the fact that they were physically fighting. Another anachronistic prop was the modern watch which Abraham wears. The shepherds in the American version also presented anachronistic gifts to the baby Jesus. All of these anachronisms distanced the audience from the events on stage: the audience began watching for theatrical devices rather than paying attention to the narrative. The costume of each actor was unique, contributing to a working-class view of God. God first appeared on 164 his fork lift truck in white coveralls with a white miner's hat. The hat had a light on it which the actor playing God would shine on individual members of the audience. He later changed in full view of the audience into a work vest and cap, taking a lunch box along with him. When Noah did not recognize God, He removed His cap, and declared, "I'm God." This is another moment which played on theatrical conventions: one questions whether just removing a cap is enough for Noah to recognize a Supreme Being. Other characters also enjoyed humorous moments due to their costumes. Lucifer appeared on his glittering lift in a satin jacket and denim pants. Later, he entered with glowing sunglasses on, the kind found at modern fairs. Adam and Eve made their first appearance in flesh-colored body stockings to suggest their nudity. After they ate the apple, they realized their nudity, and tried unsuccessfully to press fig leaves against their body stockings. Cain and Abel looked like modern day farmers. Abel wore jeans, a vest and a baseball cap. Great use was made of contrasting costumes. Most of the men in the cast, including Joseph, wore blue jeans. The women generally wore simple cotton dresses. 165 The actress playing Mary wore a dress with a blue cape and hood. The simplicity of her costume provided a strong contrast with the glittering robes of the three kings who visited the Holy Family. The richness of the three kings' costumes also differed considerably from those of Herod and his son. Herod wore a cheap-looking velour cape with a shoddy tux shirt. His son was dressed as a second-rate entertainer in a tuxedo shirt and bow tie, with a cigarette continuously hanging from his lips. After Herod and his son left, their soldiers entered wearing dark clothes and welders' masks. The lighting in the production was very extensive, and was used to suggest both supernatural elements and changes in nature. White spotlights were used on God; Lucifer; and the angel, Gabriel. For his downfall,
Lucifer was bathed in red lights and fog as he was rolled through the audience. Search lights passed over the spectators during Lucifer's fall from grace, giving the audience the feeling that they, too, were being reprimanded. Spotlights were used when God or the angels appeared to humans. God was brightly lit by white lights when he called to Abraham. When the angel appeared to Mary and later to Joseph, he reflected light from a mirror into their eyes. Using bright light to 166 suggest the deity is consistent with supernatural appearances in the Old Testament. The prophet Ezekiel writes of seeing a vision of God who was gleaming and enveloped in a cloud of brightness. Most of the major lighting effects were done to show changes in the cosmos. After God's line, "Let there be light" a variety of lights flashed all around the stage and audience. Lights were also used to signify fire, both when Abel sacrifices his lamb, and when Lucifer is thrown into the fiery caldron. Lights were also used to suggest a storm at the start of the flood; lightning effects accompanied sound effects. After the storm was over, lighting again was used to create a rainbow on the wall of the cathedral. All of these special effects implied the power of the deity to control natural elements. Finally, red lights were used to signify death. When Herod's soldiers killed all the male infants, their mothers were bathed in an eerie light. In a similar mode, when Lucifer collected the dead at the end of Creation, he was followed by a red spotlight out through the audience. As the dead passed behind stained glass windows, they were backlit to project shadows on the
Ezekiel 2; 4, 27. New American Bible. 167 glass. While white lights supported the purity and holiness of characters, reds were used to represent evil. As Bernard Sahlins declared in his introduction to the published version, "Music is a key to the whole.The music for Creation was composed by Larry Schanker and the musicians who performed. It combined original compositions with hymns, blues, folk, and spirituals.The music could be heard both within and between scenes. The band and some of the actors usually sang off stage but occasionally, they entered the action on stage. Several musicians came on stage to serenade Herod during his banquet. Toward the end of the play, the whole company entered and sang,
"Hosannah" to Jesus, Mary and Joseph before they made their final exit. Sound effects were used frequently throughout the production. Together with the lighting, sounds helped convey that a metaphysical event was taking place. When God rose on his forklift truck, the music swelled. As Adam and Eve each bit the apple, there was an accompanying loud and discordant sound which signified
Sahlins and Rudall 4. ^®^ Sahlins and Rudall 4. 168 the importance of the event. Similarly, when Cain was
given his mark by the angel, a cacophonous sound was produced by the band. Movement was another key component of the production. Involving both the actors and the audience,
the production was choreographed to accommodate both dance and ritual. Dance served both to welcome the
audience and to offer thematic transitions from scene to scene.Before the play started, the actors came out
and danced while the audience clapped to the music. A clog dance was performed before Cain and Abel's scene and again, the audience was invited to clap along. In a similar scene, the butchers performed a sword dance,
culminating when their swords formed the Star of David which was then used throughout the production. Dance was also used to remind the audience that the actors on
stage were playing medieval actor-tradesmen. This gave the audience time to make the connection between the scene played and the corresponding trade of the actors. This was most apparent in the butchers' dance, with the butchers being associated with the soldiers in the
slaughter of the innocents. The final dance was communal. After the play's end, the company returned
Sahlins and Rudall 4. 169 and danced with audience members, reaffirming the event as a community experience. Sometimes the actors' movement assumed a ritualistic quality. When Cain "killed" Abel, it was a stylized murder, making no pretence at realism. The blows were struck in slow motion; Cain's hands remained at least a foot away from Abel's body. One of the most moving aspects of the production occurred when Mary "gave birth" to Jesus. The birth was signified by the ritualistic wrapping of linens by the actress playing Mary. She was careful to fold each linen in exactly the same way. When she was finished, the linens formed the shape of a baby. Linens were also used to suggest the forms of babies which the Hebrew women carried. When
Herod's soldiers came to kill the babies, they stabbed the blood-stained linens— a ritualistic slaughter. The final component of the production to be considered was the audience's participation in the action on stage. A large portion of the audience was
seated on the stage and was asked to move throughout the production to accommodate the set pieces and the actors. They were also directly addressed by several characters throughout the play. Lucifer frequently walked amongst the audience, putting his hands on some spectators' 170 shoulders and leaning on others. Cain handed an audience member his wheat to hold until he needed it again. Noah's wife led an audience member out on stage.
During the birth of Jesus, company members handed candles to the spectators who were seated on the floor. Several characters sat amongst the audience. The most surprising example of this was the moment at which a man in a shirt and tie stood up in the audience. He announced that he was death as he put on a hooded cloak and was given a sickle. All of this interaction allowed the audience the opportunity to participate directly in the creation of the supernatural world on stage. They, too, shared in the creation of the image of God and
Heaven in the theatre. In writing about the production, one is faced with issues of class. The dialects used in both productions were very significant as they established that a profound icon was being represented by a class that was (is) often marginalized by other more powerful segments of society for its perceived lack of sophistication. The power of controlling the image of God in this production clearly rested with the workers. While some reviewers, such as Darryl Grantley, noted below, found the working-class image stereotypical and insulting. 171 most reviewers found the image of God on stage to be powerful and positive. It was important to both the British and the American production that God seem accessible and ordinary. They purposely avoided presenting a posh or sophisticated view of God. Harrison's goal to equate the Northern dialect with the deity was lost on at least one viewer. Darryl Grantley, writing for Theatre Notebook, felt that God was portrayed as a "stereotype of a working class figure"; and that the production "implicitly restates ideas about medieval drama which have for some time been outdated: that it was a rather simple-minded drama performed by unsophisticated men. Grantley's argument suggested that the production reinforced, for at least one reviewer, the very class prejudice Harrison was trying to confront. John Elliott treats the condescending attitudes that some audiences feel toward another culture's view of God: If the nostalgia aroused by the mysteries has sometimes been of the consdescending type, allowing today's Englishmen to feel enlightened and sophisticated in comparison to his naive, childlike ancestors, it has also been genuinely envious of an age more spiritually unifed than ours, one that could
Darryl Grantley 73 172
give expression in its drama to hope rather than despair. Elliott's assertion that the modern audience is envious of the medieval age cannot be proven, yet his comments on the hopeful view of God in the medieval mysteries as compared with other twentieth-century portrayals where God despairs of the human race is noteworthy. The plays which contain hopeful views of God (The Green Pastures and The Mysteries) use an artifice to set God up as a naive view of an unsophisticated people. Where there is no artifice (The Creation of the World and Other
Business), God and the world are shown to be hopeless. Of course, each spectator will see a different aspect of God, as does each character in the play. The view will be consistent with each person's own background and beliefs. However, both productions stressed their importance as community events in which the audience shared in creating the image of the deity. God was characterized in each instance as a man willing to get involved, to dirty His hands, and to work alongside His people. The community of people putting on a play with sacred subjects furthered Tony Harrison's goal: God is
Elliott 142. 173 made in the image of the working class: He speaks in a Northern dialect and is accessible to the community. CHAPTER V CONCLUSION
The portrayal of the Christian God in the live theatre is directly related to the nature of theatre and religious icons: by controlling people's view of God, one may also influence their social and political views. The production of images in the twentieth-century live theatre has been determined in part by economic opportunity, as is the case with Marc Connelly's adaptation of a popular novel; social issues, such as the class struggle for cultural legitimacy in England; and political concerns, as shown by Miller's writings against the tyranny of the political and social
institutions that he felt were detrimental to the freedom of an individual. Conducting a study on the Christian God in what, as I have already noted, some scholars believe is a post-
Christian world sheds light on the nature of religion, politics and the theatre in today's society. The
174 175 contemporary media are filled with televangelists who manipulate images in their desire to indoctrinate their viewers. Religious images are still closely tied to twentieth-century politics. President Clinton, several months after he won the election, went to great lengths to get positive press when Pope John Paul II visited the United States in the summer of 1993. The Pope, also, was intent on creating a positive political image: he sought to convey that he was willing to work with the leader of the government of the United States, regardless of the difference in each man's personal views. According to the writings of Marc Connelly, Tony Harrison, and Arthur Miller, each man considered himself to be an agnostic. It is noteworthy that they chose to write a play with a god whose existence they questioned as the central character. Connelly wrote a condescending view of the African-American child's God.
Miller wrote a characterization of God as a bumbling, inept and entirely fallible being. Harrison portrayed
God as an historical figure, a medieval tradesman with working class speech and dress. Each playwright used the image of God for non-religious reasons. Connelly was an opportunist, taking advantage of a popular novel 176 iOl' Man Adam an' Bis Chillun) which he adapted for the stage. Miller attacked the whole nature of authority, whether it was religious or secular. Harrison exploited the working-class image of God in the medieval mysteries in order to legitimize British working-class speech. The theological insights gained by presenting the image of God, center on the fact that God becomes a reflection of the needs of His followers in the plays.
When the theatricality of the portrayal is made manifest, as in the case when an obvious framing device is used, the techniques for illusion are revealed, and the belief in the deity is challenged. This explains why God was banned from the stage initially, and why images of Him are still banned today in some churches: if man can make God in his own image, then God loses His identity as supreme creator. For some believers, as I have shown earlier, God loses His mystery the moment he is physically present on stage. The physical representation of God, according to a fundamentalist viewpoint, challenges the incarnation of Christ. If Christ were the only physicalization of God possible for humanity, then an actor playing God is, in the sense that he is a physical being, a false and blasphemous representation of God, regardless of the 177 motives behind the representation. Furthermore, objections are made to a representation of the Christian
God on the grounds that any physical image is idolatrous, as in the case of the Puritans or some fundamentalists. The Puritan William Perkins argued that even a physical image in someone's mind was idolatrous and subject to "popish" conceptions. So soon as the mind frames unto it selfe any forme of God (as when he is popishly conceived to be like an old man sitting in heaven in a throne with a sceptre in his hand) an idol is set up in the mind . . . a thing faigned (sic) in the mind by imagination is an idol.^®^ Perkins feared that Protestants who formed images even in their own mind were subject to Catholic suggestions that God takes the form of the Pope: an old man with papal accessories such as a throne and sceptre. If God is portrayed on stage as an old man seated on a throne, this could suggest a papal view of God. In arguing against images of any kind, the Puritans were trying to control the power inherent in the image they feared. The Puritans, in asking people not to think of God in images, were, of course, suggesting the impossible.
Qtd. Frances A. Yates, The Art of Memory (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1966) 278. 178 The difference between the image of God presented in a theatrical performance and that found in the Christian liturgy lies primarily in the objectives of each function. In the liturgy, the presence of God is summoned, either directly through those churches that believe in transubstantiation (God taking the form of the host) or indirectly, as in the case of churches which call upon the Holy Spirit to dwell with them in a spiritual sense. In the plays being considered here, there is no overt attempt to create a religious experience. There are some similarities between plays featuring God and liturgy: like a priest, the actor imitates God and speaks many of the words found in scripture; the audience fulfills a similar role to that of the congregation in church, responding according to each prescribed set of conventions; and in both cases, music is used to set the tone and mood for the gathering. The representation of God on stage also raises the issue of transubstantiation. As the host, for Catholics, has become the vehicle for God's physical presence, so an actor, for scholars such as Dale Savidge, is dangerously close to being perceived as a second incarnation. This concept explains why in 1968, 179 the ban on presenting the Christian God on stage was lifted: as the doctrines of transubstantiation and incarnation were no longer a danger to the British government, the image of God was no longer a threatening political issue, and the ban was therefore obsolete. By exploring the ways in which the image of God has been manipulated in the twentieth-century, I have examined how the "producers of meaning" (the playwrights, actors, directors and designers of each production) have exploited theatrical and extra theatrical texts for their own purposes. They confronted their audiences' expectations by guestioning their perceptions of God. The Green Pastures represented an African-American God and supported Him with the African-American Sunday school framing device.
The audience, as several critics pointed out, were able to accept the representation of God as an African- American child might see Him. Miller was less successful with his Creation of the World and Other Business. When he revised the play into Up From Paradise, he added music and narration to explain that God could be whatever anyone wanted. In
The Mysteries, the pre-show activities attempted to fix the interpretation of God as that of a working-class 180 community, again challenging those members of the audience who expected what they thought of as a
"sophisticated" God. Each of these plays was condescending in different ways. What Withington wrote about The Green Pastures is true of Miller's genesis plays and The Mysteries as well: "The spirit of the old plays is here, insofar as it can be reproduced in modern times, and we can see the effect of the Biblical material on audiences, who, while 'sophisticated,' watch the work of naive actors. This comment suggests that the members of the audience saw their own religious or secular world-view as superior to that of the characters represented on stage. Their own knowledge of the Old Testament (or their rejection of the Bible) allows them to dismiss the represented beliefs as "naive." In sum, this study examined how the image of God was represented and marketed in the twentieth century American and British theatre. In The Green Pastures, the longest-running production considered in this study, the cast and crew's involvement in social and political activities was often used by managers to promote the production's image across the United States and Canada.
Withington 193. 181 They received ample attention in the press for their philanthropic activities; even before most of the country saw the production, potential audience members were aware of how the cast and crew were sharing their revenues from The Green Pastures with poverty-stricken victims of the Depression. I suggested parallels between the portrayals of God in each of the selected plays and contemporary issues of their respective societies. The Green Pastures toured during the Depression, amidst scholarly debate about Progressive Revelation. The success of the production can be attributed in part to the play's hopeful view at a time when the country was seeking relief from the Depression. The performances of The Creation of the World and Other Business followed the turbulent decade of the 1960s, when Radical Theology was being discussed in popular as well as scholarly circles. The Mysteries, with its attention to regional speech, was situated in American and British societies debating the rights of minorities to express themselves and their culture through non-standard speech. Human characters in the plays sometimes reveal as much about "God” as the character Himself. An important part of the play. The Green Pastures, is the fabricated 182 character Hezdrel, who teaches God how to be merciful.
This human being is able to change the course of events by appealing to the mercy of God. The narrative, in the final line of the play, ends with Jesus' death on the cross, which is suggested by an off-stage voice narrating his walk up the hill. By ending the play with the crucifixion of Jesus, the emphasis is placed on God's sacrifice for His people.
The Green Pastures was juxtaposed with the theological debate over progressive revelation, which suggests that God reveals different aspects of Himself to people at different times. The underlying assumption with the theory of progressive revelation is that the Israelites discovered through the help of the prophets
"finer truths" about God until they were finally capable of comprehending the mercy of God as shown through the crucifixion.^®’ God's transformation in the play supports this notion of revelation: God becomes progressively better and nobler as the people in the play become better prepared to receive Him in that way.
In The Green Pastures, both the African-American children's view of God and (the character) God Himself
2®’ George Ernest Wright, "Progressive Revelation," The Christian Scholar March 1956: 62. 183 are shown in a condescending light: even God must have his character revealed to Him in stages. Initially, He is only capable of seeing Himself as a God of wrath. In this play, Hezdrel, a man, reveals God's nature to "de Lawd;" He is only then transformed into a God of mercy.
Arthur Miller's The Creation of the World and Other Business opens after the creation of Adam; this is consistent with the play's central question: did God create man or did man create God? Since both God and
Adam appear at the start of the play, the question is difficult to answer. The play seems to suggest that man created God out of a need for dealing with evil in the world. In any case, the God that man creates is
depicted as a God who is both power-hungry and powerless to control the world. When Miller re-wrote the play into the musical. Up
From Paradise which was produced in 1983, the character of God was more gentle, and the overall tone was more optimistic. The music served to frame God as someone who was all things to all people. In short, God was
whatever an individual perceived Him to be. Tony Harrison's The Mysteries offers a working class view of God. He speaks in a Northern dialect and is accessible to "regular" people. Harrison was caught 184 in a society that, although they admitted him into elite schools, shunned him for his class and speech. Harrison wrote that the Northern dialect was essential to his agreeing to adapt the medieval mysteries: since the original mysteries were performed by actor-tradesmen with their own regional dialects, and since it would further his own efforts to legitimize speech that was not "standard," Harrison insisted that this working- class characteristic be kept. When the Court Theatre produced the play in Chicago, the production maintained the blue-collar image of God, substituting South-side Chicago dialects for the Northern English regionalism of the previous work. The London version of The Mysteries was a trilogy with The Nativity covering the events of Creation; Cain and Abel; the Flood; Abraham and Isaac; and the
Nativity. Covering more subject matter than The Green Pastures or The Creation of the World and Other Business, The Mysteries seems to offer an overview of the biblical narrative, rather than focusing on specific scenes. With two other plays in the trilogy covering the events of the New Testament as well as Doomsday, The
Mysteries cycle as a whole emulated those of the medieval period. The major change in the plot of the 185 Chicago version was the omission of the humorous but lengthy scene involving Mak, the sheep-stealer. The hierarchy (of God, other supernatural characters, and humans) is different in each of the plays. In some cases, humans seem to have more power than God. Also, the relationship between God and Lucifer varies in each of the plays, especially in terms of who wields the most power. In The Green Pastures,
Lucifer does not exist and God wrestles with humanity for control over their lives. In this case, Hezdrel, a man, is shown as the superior character. In The
Creation of the World and Other Business and Up From Paradise, God and Lucifer end their battle with a draw. In The Mysteries'. The Nativity and Creation, God demonstrates rule over Lucifer throughout the play, culminating in the birth of Jesus. It is interesting to note that many of the prime biblical struggles are not dramatized in The Green Pastures: Adam and Eve's fall from grace is narrated by the children; Cain's murder of Abel is discovered after the fact. The first sin and the first murder both occur offstage. This eliminates from the stage the struggle between good and evil: Lucifer is, in fact, unnecessary. As a result, the embodiment of evil is found in humanity 186 whose "sins'* occur primarily offstage: we learn of them through God's complaints to the angel Gabriel. Without
Lucifer as a dramatic aid, God's struggle to control people lacks a strong force to counter His own. In Arthur Miller's genesis plays, the battle between God and Lucifer rages throughout the entire
play. In The Creation of the World and Other Business, Lucifer seeks to share in God's power over the world, which God refuses to grant. Lucifer constantly challenges God's authority and tempts Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. In an interesting twist later in the play, the devil tries to talk Cain out of murdering Abel, believing the murder, and its accompanying guilt, would only enhance God's power. This coincides with one of the tenets of Death of God theology, which was being
debated at the time: if God died, people would no longer wait for an intercessor to address their problems, but instead, they would cure their own ailments. Lucifer is almost successful in taking over rule of
the world at the end of the play until he decides not to punish Cain for the murder of Abel. Adam and Eve believe that some sort of justice should be served: Cain should be disciplined. Lucifer loses his bid for ultimate control because of his denial of humanity's 187 need for retribution. The people in the play look to a superhuman force to secure justice, which suggests humanity's ultimate powerlessness to deal with murder in any satisfactory way. Adam and Eve learn responsibility for themselves in what is, for most of the play, a godless world. Initially, no one takes the blame for his or her actions; neither for eating the forbidden fruit, nor
later, for the murder of Abel. When God hears the first family refuse to be accountable for their own actions. He declares them all worthless and turns rule over to
Lucifer. Adam and Eve, however, realize that they cannot live under his dominion, and unwilling to emerge on their own, they turn back to God, who ultimately abandons them to their own resources. This element of the play resonates with the ideas of Radical Theology, that God has withdrawn Himself from the world, so that humanity will take responsibility for its own actions.
In Up From Paradise, God's relationship with the first family ends on a much more hopeful note, with Adam and Eve turning to the sky and singing praise to God. It is implied, as it was in The Creation of the World
and Other Business, that Lucifer will return to fight another battle; he says to Adam: "I'll be back when 188 you're feeling better. Ta-ta."^®® Again, nothing has been resolved in the broader struggle between good and evil, as represented by God and Lucifer. As demonstrated in these five plays, the view of
God was carefully shaped in terms of each play's structure, framing device, and its surrounding socio political events. Each playwright shaped the view of
God differently in order to further his own agenda: Marc Connelly primarily sought a commercial success, using the characterization of God as an African-American preacher. Arthur Miller, attacking the authority of religious and secular institutions, suggested a bumbling, power-hungry creature, advocating the rights and responsibilities of the individual to control his or her own life. Tony Harrison was upholding the rights of the working class. When examining the image of God in our society, one of the questions that emerges involves the relationship of God's image to politics and gender issues. Holbrook cites the changing images of God as dependent on social, political, judicial, and familial experience. In a world filled with democracies and dictatorships, the image of God as King loses some of its relevance.
Miller Paradise 54. 189
Similarly, the image of God as "Father" is questionable in a world of changing family structures. To date, "many of the preeminent biblical images of God and Jesus have so far sustained themselves through changing historical circumstances," Holbrook asserts.^®® A noteworthy exception to this, according to Holbrook, is the "present-day feminist revolt against the masculine element that suffuses the Bible.This masculine element was prevalent in each of the plays in this study. While the implication of God's race and class varied among the plays, one constant was God's gender: God was male in each of the productions. As the male image dominates the Bible, it also dominates much of the conception of God found in mainstream denominations. It is no wonder, therefore, that the major plays portraying God in the twentieth century, portray Him as a man.
Since all five plays portray the Christian "God the Father," theatre in these cases is reflecting the views of the patriarchial Christian Church. This male image of God is currently being challenged in the Roman Catholic Church, which is
Holbrook 170. Holbrook 170. 190 Struggling with the politics of inclusive and non-gender specific language in their services. While this is still controversial in the Roman Catholic Church, some individual parishes are re-writing the mass to avoid personal pronouns such as "he" and "him" when referring to God. Activists within the church argue that assigning gender to God contributes to the strength of the patriarchy in the church. In an attempt to appear more conscious of women's issues, some churches alternate between "he" and "she" or avoid the pronouns altogether. How God is depicted, in icons, in language, and on the stage continues to be a political issue in churches and in the theatre. Controlling images is important to every institution, whether it be religious, theatrical, corporate, or political. This issue becomes more critical as the image becomes more sensitive. People assign meaning to physical images; the people and institutions who manipulate these images (artists, politicians, religious leaders, activists, etc.) attempt
to fix meaning and to control a society: "politics motivate(s) the consensus of public opinion and of secular or clerical institutions."^®^
^®^ Constantinidis 87. APPENDIX
191 192
C h r is t ia n s in T hea tre A rts
Miss Kathleen Colligan 162 West Weber Rd. Columbus, OH 43202 7 January 1992
Dear Kathleen:
Greetings! It was good to hear from you again, and to learn that you are indeed surviving the post-coursevork-graduate life. I agree that the time since the Malone conference seems to have disappeared entirely; our life is but a vapor, isn't it? I think the alteration in your dissertation topic is excellent; not only because it avoids Peter's turf but because you have chosen a most interesting topic. Most dissertations, upon completion, languish in (deserved) obscurity.' But you have hit upon what should be a fruitful study.
I will enclose some ideas about the topic and some possible sources. As time goes on I'll keep my eyes open for other ideas. Please do call on me throughout your work if you think I can be of any use. I remember so well how much it helped to find fellow-travellers during the dissertation work— you can count me in if that helps. Give me a call anytime.
Does this mean that comps are past (and passed)? Will you be able to travel to Chicago in July for the CITA meeting? I hope to see you there; or if you're ever in our area (SC) give us a call and stop by. I wish you all the best, Kathleen.
Sincerely yours.
Dal^Savidge (803) 232-5355
'Witness E. Martin Browne and the Revival of Verse Drama in England. Dale B. savidge, university o£ eout-h Carolina, 1991. 193
The Portrayal of God in Performance
I. Defining the terms
What do you mean by "God"? Deity in general? I assume you will exclude pagan deities? Do you intend the God of Christianity? If so, then will you expand the topic to include characterizations of Christ and the Holy Spirit? By performance are you limited to physical (i.e. visual) representation onstage or will you deal with oral/audible (i.e. "the voice of God") repr esent at i ons?
II. Historical With reference to God the Father (1st person of the trinity) of Christianity you would start with the medieval representations. They were, I think, fairly free about staging the person of God. Glynne Wickham is an excellent source in this period (both his general History_of_the_Theatre [1985] and his specific book on the period, The__fiedi^eyal__Theatre C1S74]). Murray Poston’s iibiiçal__Drama_i.n_Engl.and (1968) might be helpful. P. 105 of The_Engl_ish_Mystery_Piâys by Rosemary Woolf (1972) has some things on the topic. I would also check Alan H. Nelson and the other standard texts on this period. The indices to volumes of Theatre_Notebook (publication of the Society for Theatre Research [Great Britain]) would probably yield something on this. If you want to get closer to our period you might look at Robert Speaight’s Rgligious_Theatre. In England, the Lord Chamberlain denied licensing to plays that staged Deity well into the 1960s. Martin Browne had to deal with this when he revived the York mysteries in the 50s. I also remember some discussion of this problem in some old issues of Qhri.sti_an_Drama, the journal of the Religious Drama Society of Great Britain (later changed to RADIUS). We have all the back issues of this in our library at BJO. If you get serious I could wander through some of them and look for things. If you get to representations of Christ you could check The QDStage_Christ by Ditsky (though I think it is a literary treatment— I don’t have a copy at hand). 1 guess you’d also check in with various important passion plays (Oberamergau and Jerusalem come to mind). Sayer’s The_Man_Bgrn_,tg_Be_King included Christ as a character. In recent years you might think about J^B^ by MacLeish (oral only); The_Resurrectign_ by Yeats (Christ crosses the stage); Godsgel1 and Sugerstar (not to be equated, of course); Christ appears "incognito" in Dust_gf_the_Rgad by Goodman, Tolstoy’s Where_Loye_is^_There_Ggd_is_Alsg, The Forgotten Man by Jewel 1 Tull. Green_Pastures by Marc Connelly (1930s) has God as a character. And can be forget George Burns as God (parts I and I D ? Let’s hope so . . . 194
III. Theoretical What is interesting here is the concept of incarnating a spiritual being (John 4:24). This happened, of course, in history and the Bethlehem Incarnation has proven a rich analogy for theatre theorists (see Dorothy Sayers The_Mind_of_the_Maker and Gordon Bennett’s Act^ng_gut_Fai_th— the former far superior to the latter, of course). 1 personally would not attempt to stage a physical representation of God because 1 think that God did this once in history and chose to remove Himself, physically, from this earth at the ascension and to leave behind His third Person in the form of a spiritual Being. 1 am, of course, not in the tradition of the medieval theatre— too protestant! This extends to my believes about communion (transsubstantiation not consubstantiation) and visual representations of Christ as instruments of worship. 1 also think the commandment forbidding "graven images" may be relevant.
Well, you probably have covered most of this ground by now. 1 hope this helps some and I’ll keep alert to more angles. LIST OF REFERENCES
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Bloor, R.H.U. Christianity and the Religious Drama. Boston: Beacon Press, 1930. Candler, Martha. Drama in Religious Service. New York and London: Century, 1922.
Carlson, Marvin. Places of Performance: The Semiotics of Theatre Architecture. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1989. Cataldo, Peter J. The Dynamic Character of Christian Culture: Essays on Dawsonian Themes. Lanham: UP of America, 1984.
Conolly, L.W. The Censorship of English Drama: 1737- 1824. San Marino: The Huntington Library, 1976. Constantinidis, Stratos. Theatre Under Deconstruction? A Question of Approach. New York: Garland, 1993.
195 196 Corey, Orlin. An Odyssey of Masquers: The Everyman Players. New Orleans: Rivendell House, 1990.
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Nagle, Urban, O.P. Behind the Masque. New York: McMullen, 1951. Niebuhr, H. Richard. Christ and Culture. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1951. Norrman, Ralph. "On the Semiotic Function of Cucurbits." Religious Symbols and Their Functions. Ed. Haralds Biezais. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1979. Owens, Virginia Stem. "On Praising God with Our Senses." Christian Imagination: Essays on Literature and the Arts. Ed. Leland Ryken. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981. 199
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Schechner, Richard. "Victor Turner's Last Adventure." Anthropology of Performance by Victor Turner. NY: PAJ, 1986. Scott, Ernest Findlay. The New Testament Idea of Revelation. New York: Scribner, 1944.
Spanos, William V. The Christian Tradition in Modern British Verse Drama: The Poetics of Sacramental Time. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1967. Steiner, George. The Death of Tragedy. New York: Knopf, 1961. Stoddard, Charles Warren. "Santa Clara's Passion Play" Sunset Magazine, August 1907, 376-380. Turner, Victor. The Anthropology of Performance. Pref. by Richard Schechner. New York: Performing Arts Jounal Publication, 1982. . Celebration: Studies in Festivity and Ritual. Washington: Smithsonian, 1982. . The Dirums of Affliction: A Study of Religious Processes Among the Ndembu of Zambia. Oxford: Clarendon, 1968. . Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967. 2 0 0
. From Ritual to Theatre: the Human Seriousness of Play. New York: Performing Arts Journal Publication, 1982. . Revelation and Divination in Ndembu Ritual. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1975. Turner, Victor and Edward M. Bruner. The Anthropology of Experience. Urbana and Chicago: U of Illinois P, 1986. Turner, Victor and Edith Turner. Image and Pilgrimage in Christian culture: Anthropological Perspectives. New York: Columbia UP, 1978. Varapande, M.L. Religion and Theatre. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities, 1983. Walker, William H. Progressive Revelation. Cherokee: Spanish, 1971. Weales, Gerald. Religion in Modern English Drama. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1961. Wiesel, Elie. The Trial of God. Trans. Marion Wiesel. New York: Random House, 1979. Wright, George Ernest. "Progressive Revelation." The Christian Scholar. March 1956: 61. Yates, Frances. The Art of Memory. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1966. The Green Pastures Books : Bradford, Roark. Ol' Man Adam an' His Chillun. Harrisburg: Military Service, 1928. Brown, John Mason. Upstage: The American Theatre in Performance. New York: W.W. Norton, 1930. . Dramatis Personae. New York: Viking, 1963. Coe, Katherine and William H. Cordell, eds. Pulitzer Prize Plays. New York: Random House, 1940. 2 0 1
Connelly, Marc. The Green Pastures. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1929. . The Green Pastures. Vincent Long, ed. Postscripts by The Very Rev. W.R. Matthews and Prof. John Macmurray. London: Delisle, 1963. . Voices Offstage: A Book of Memoirs. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1968
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Gassner, John, ed. A Treasury of the Theatre. New York, 1960. . Twenty-Five Best Plays of the Modern American Theatre. New York, 1949. Hewitt, Bernard. Theatre U.S.A.: 1668 to 1957. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959. Isaacs, Edith J.R. The Negro in the American Theatre. New York: Theatre Arts, 1946. Jones, Robert Edmond. "The Artist's Approach to the Theatre." Theatre Arts, September 1928. Lemoncelli, Ronald Lee. Concepts of God in Modern American Drama. University of Delaware Dissertation, Ph.D. in English. June 1984. Nannes, Caspar H. Politics in American Drama. Washington, D.C.: 1960. Nolan, Paul T. Marc Connelly. NY: Twayne, 1969. Oppenheimer, George. The Passionate Playgoer. New York: Viking, 1958. Quinn, Arthur Hobson. History of the American Drama from the Civil War to the Present Day, II. New York: Harper, 1927. 2 0 2
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Watson, E. Bradlee and Befield Pressey, eds. Contemporary Drama: Eleven Plays. New York: Scribner, 1956. Periodicals: Altschuler, "A Novel Thing Just Happened," World- Telegram and Sun Feature Magazine, 12 June 1965: 17. Atkinson, Brooks. Broadway. New York: Macmillan, 1970. . "First Night at the Theatre," New York Times 16 March 1951: 8. Daily Worker, 30 March 1951: 10.
. "The Green Pastures," The New York Times 27 February 1930: 23. . "New Negro Drama of Sublime Beauty," New York Times, 27 February 1930, sec. 9: 26. . "The Play " New York Times, 27 March 1935: 16.
. "Sketch-book to Miracle Play." New York Times, 8 June 1930, sec. 9: 1. . "They are Still Green." New York Times, 1 March 1931, sec. 8: 1.
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Carmer, Carl. "The Green Pastures," Theatre Arts, XIV October 1930: 897-98. Clark, William E. "In the Name of Art," New York Age, 3 March 1935: 5
Connelly, Marc. "A Curtain Rises," New Yorker, XXX 18 December 1954: 120-27. . "This Play's the Thing: Green Pastures," Theatre Magazine, LII, May 1930: 32-35, 66-70. Downes, Clin. "Future Opera: Negro Choir in "The Green Pastures,'" New York Times, 29 June 1930, sec. 8: 3.
Du Bois, John. "The Green Pastures," an editorial. The Crisis, May 1930: 162. Eaton, Walter Prichard. "A Playboy Makes Good," New York Herald Tribune, 23 March 1930, Magazine Section: 1 0 . Fergusson, Francis. "The Green Pastures' Revisited," Bookman, May 1931: 194-95. Fields, William. "'De Lawd' of 'Green Pastures' Discounts Ability as Actor," Baltimore Sun, 19 January 1933, sec. 1: 1. Ford, Nick Aaron. "How Genuine Is The Green Pastures?," Phylon, Spring 1960: 67-70. Frankel, Haskel. "On the Fringe: Answers from the Authors," Saturday Review, 24 July 1965: 40.
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"Timely Topics." Chicago Defender, 8 February 1930, sec. 2: 6. Wilkington, Robert. "Note on the Corpus Christi Plays and 'The Green Pastures'," Shakespeare Association Bulletin, IX (Fall, 1934): 173-97.
Williams, John. "Arent 'Green Pastures,'" California Eagle, 15 July 1932: 4. Woollcott, Alexander. "Shouts and Murmurs, 'The Green Pastures," New Yorker, VI (22 March 1930): 24. Young. Frank. "'De Lawd' Back with Neighbors on the Southside, Chicago Tribune, 20 September 1931: sec. 7: 4. 1932 Young, Stark. "The Green Pastures," New Republic, LXII (19 March 1930): 128-29.
The Green Pastures PERIODICALS WITH NO BY-LINES: The study guide, Marc Connelly, The Green Pastures (New York: Monarch Press, 1966) 20-21.
1927 "Some Playwright Biographies : . . . Marc Connelly," Theatre Arts Monthly, XI (July, 1927), 533-34. 1930 "The Play," New York Evening Post, 27 February 1930: 6. "Another Producing Manager Discovers Negro Talent," New York Amsterdam News, 3 March 1930, sec. 1: 8. 207 "The Green Pastures," Chicago Defender, 8 March 1930, sec. 2: 7.
"Green Pastures" review. New York Times, 9 March 1930: sec. 9: 1. "32-Week Buy for 'Pastures'— Gyp Ring," Variety, 12 March 1930: 57. "When the Lord Walked the Earth," in the Letters and Arts section, Literary Digest, 22 March 1930: 20- 2 1 . "The Living God," Saturday Review of Literature, 19 April 1930: 941. "The Pulitzer Blues," Literary Digest, CV (31 May 1930) 19-20.
1931
"'Green Pastures' Opens at American Theatre Monday," St. Louis Argus, 26 February 1931: 4. "Actors Worked Before Asking About the Pay," Chicago Defender, 10 October 1931: 7. "The Week," Chicago Defender, 5 September 1931: 1.
"The Green Pastures' Special," Chicago Defender, 12 September 1931: 7. "Profound Drama and Comedy Mark 'Green Pastures,' St. Louis Star, 1 March 1932: 4. "'Green Pastures' Starting Second St. Louis Week," St. Louis Globe-Democrat, 6 March 1932, sec. 4: 1. "Connelly Folk Pageant Opens Here," San Francisco Chronicle, 17 March 1932. "Green Pastures in Relief Program," The California Eagle, 1 July 1932. Harlem Hails Cast of 'Green Pastures,'" New York Times, 3 August 1932: 8. 208 "Recounting the Labor of de Lawd," Tuesday, 6 September 1932: 4. 1933 "'The Green Pastures,'" Baltimore Sun, 7 February 1933, sec.l: 1. "Washington Theatres," editorial. New York Age, 18 February 1933: 4. "The Green Pastures Extends Its Stay: The Marc Connelly Biblical Allegory Enters Final Week," Washington Post, 19 February 1933, n.p. "'De Lawd' Is Heard By Large Audiences,"Washington Post, 20 February 1933: n.p. "From the Front Row," Washington Post, 20 February 1933: 6
"A Curious Question," an editorial. Commonweal, 1 March 1933: 481.
"Kegs of Liquor for Noah Hit in Play, Says 'De Lawd.'" Toronto Daily Mail, 20 March 1933: 7. "The Theatre to Get a Place of Honor." New York Age, 5 August 1933: 6. "'Green Pastures' Plays at Roanoke," Lynchburg (VA) News, 22 September 1933: 4. "'Pastures' in 4th Year, Goes Deluxe," Variety, 22 September 1933: 50, and 12 November 1933: 52. "'The Green Pastures' Enthralls Audience at First Performance," Roanoke Times, 5 October 1933: 2. "'Green Pastures' Is Regarded as Opera," Greensboro Daily News, 5 October 1933: 5. "Ark and Universe Ready for Action," New Orleans Times- Picayune, 26 November 1933, sec. 2: 10. "'Green Pastures' Charms Audience," New Orleans Times- Picayune, 26 November 1933, sec. 2: 1. 209 "'Green Pastures' Comes Home," Interracial Review, 6 (December 1933): 214.
"Roark Bradford in Macon," Variety, 5 December 1933: 51. "The Morning After," Tuskegee Messenger, December 1933: 3. "Letter from Memphis," Variety, 5 December 1933, 54.
"'Green Pastures' One of Truly Great Theatrical Offerings for Dallas Drama Followers, Dallas Times-Herald, 26 December 1933: 6. 1934 "'Green Pastures' Justifies Praise," Arkansas Gazette, 6 January 1934; 6. "Stagehands Get Scenery in Place Without Any Help from 'De Lawd,'" Sious Falls Argus Leader, 19 January 1934: 4. "'Green Pastures' Comes to Athens," Athens (Ohio) Messenger, 27 February 1934: 6. "Erlanger Patrons Delighted by Play," Buffalo Evening News, 13 March 1934: 6. 1935 "'De Lawd' Comes Home to London," London (Ontario) Advertiser, 23 February 1935: 4. "'Okay, Gabel' cried 'De Lawd," at Reopening," New York Herald Tribune, 27 February 1935: 9. "The Stage Today," New York Telegram, 28 February 1935: 8 . New York Times, 8 March 1935: 14. . 16 March 1935: 18 . 20 March 1935: 21.
"Letters," Time, 18 March 1935: 6. 2 1 0
1940
"'De Lawd' and Jazz— An Incident in the Life of Richard B. Harrison." The Crisis, April 1940: 114.
1944 "Connelly in Quest for New Harrison," McKeesport Daily News, 4 February 1944: 1.
1951 "About 'The Green Pastures' 21 Years Later," Interracial Review, May 1951: 79. 1979
"Daughter of Ex-Slaves Who Made Good on Broadway Recalls Life," New York Times, 7 October 1979: 76. The Creation of the World and Other Business
Books : Bentley, Eric, ed. Thirty Years of Teason; Excerpts from Hearings Before the House Committee on Un- American Activities. New York: Viking, 1971. Bhatia, S.K. Arthur Miller: Social Drama as Tragedy. New York: Humanities, 1985. Bigsby, C.W.E. A Critical Introduction to Twentieth- Century American Drama, Volume Two: Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1984) 220. . File on Miller. London: Methuen, 1988. Bloom, Harold, Ed. and Intro. Arthur Miller. New York: Chelsea House, 1987. Carson, Neil. Arthur Miller. Grove Press Modern Dramatists (ser.) New York: Grove, 1982. Clurman, Harold. On Directing. New York: MacMillon, 1972. 21 1
Corrigan, Robert W. The Theatre in Search of a Fix. New York; Delacorte, 1973. Corrigan, Robert, ed. Arthur Miller: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1969. Hayiaan, Ronald. Arthur Miller. New York: Ungar, 1972.
Hogan, Robert. Arthur Miller. Minneapolis: U Minnesota P, 1964. Jensen, George H. Arthur Miller: A Bibliographical Checklist. Columbia, S.C.: Faust, 1976. Martin, Robert Â., ed. Arthur Miller: New Perspectives. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1982. . The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller. New York: Viking, 1978. Martine, James J., ed. Critical Essays on Arthur Miller. Boston: G.K. Hall: 1979. Miller, Arthur. The Creation of the World and Other Business. New York: Viking, 1973. . Timebends: A Life. New York: Grove, 1987. . Up From Paradise. Music by Stanley Silverman. New York: Samuel French, 1984. Miller, Arthur, Intro. Arthur Miller's Collected Plays, Vol. 2. New York: Viking, 1981.
Moss, Leonard. Arthur Miller. Rev. ed. Twayne's U.S. Authors Series 115. Edited by Warren French. Boston: Twayne: 1980. Murray, Edward. Arthur Miller, Dramatist. NY: Ungar, 1951. Nelson, Benjamin. Arthur Miller: Portrait of a Playwright. London: Peter Owen, 1970. Panikkar, N. Bhaskara. Individual Morality and Social Happiness in Arthur Miller. Atlantic Highlands : Humanities, 1982. 2 1 2
Roudane, Matthew C. ed. Conversations with Arthur Miller. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1987. Schlueter, June and James K. Flanagan. Arthur Miller. New York: Ungar, 1987. Welland, Dennis. Miller: The Playwright. London: Methuen, 1983. . Miller: A Study of His Plays. London: Methuen, 1979. Articles : Barnes, Clive. "Arthur Miller's Creation of the World,” New York Times, 1 December 1972: 28. Buckley, Tom. "In the Beginning, Miller's 'Creation'..." New York Times, 5 December 1972: 49, 67. . "Miller Takes His Comedy Seriously," New York Times, 29 August 1972: 22. Calta, Louis. "Miller Has a New Play for Broadway." New York Times, 9 September 1971: 50. . "Clurman Quits Creation." New York Times, 17 October 1972: 35. . "Play By Miller Due on Broadway." New York Times, 19 May 1972: 19. Corrigan, Robert W. "Interview." Michigan Quarterly Review 13 (1974): 401-405. Deedy, John. "Critics and Bible." Commonweal 97, 5 January 1973: 290. Freedman, Samuel G. "Miller Tries a New Form for an Old Play." New York Times, 23 October 1983: H5.
Funke, Lewis. "Miller— Before the Fall." New York Times, 3 October 1971, sec 2: 1. Gill, Brendan. "Here Come the Clowns." New Yorker, 48, 9 December 1972: 109. 213 Gottfried, Martin. "The Creation of the World and Other BusinessWomen's Wear Daily. 4 December 1972 reprinted in New York Theatre Critics' Reviews 33, 150-154. Greenfield, Josh. "'Writing Plays Is Absolutely Senseless,' Arthur Miller Says, 'But I Just Love It,'" New York Times Magazine, 13 February 1972, sec. 6: 36. Gussow, Mel. "Arthur Miller Returns to Genesis for First Musical," New York Times, 17 April 1974: 37. Harris, Leonard. "The Creation of the World and Other Business.” WCBS-TV, 30 November 1972 reprinted in New York Theatre Critics' Reviews 33, 150-154. Hewes, Henry. "Arthur Miller's Cosmic Chuckles." Saturday Review of the Arts 1 January 1973: 57.
. "On Broadway and on Campus." Saturday Review/World 1 June 1973: 44-45. Kalem, T.E. "Adam and Evil." Time 100, 11 December 1972: 122.
Kaufman, Stanley. 'The Creation of the World and Other Business." New Republic 167, 23 December 1972: 26, 35.
Kerr, Walter, "Arthur Miller, Stuck with The Book," New York Times, 10 December 1972, sec. 2: 5. Kroll, Jack. "Double Trouble." Newsweek 80, 11 December 1972: 71. Martin, Robert A. and Meyer, Richard D. "Arthur Miller on Plays and Playwriting." Modern Drama 19 (1976): 375-84. McMahon, Helen. "Arthur Miller's Common Man: The Problem of the Realistic and the Mythic," Drama and Theatre 10 (1972): 128-33. Miller, Arthur, The Creation of the World and Other Business," Arthur Miller's Collected Plays, 2 (New York: Viking, 1981) 380. 214 . "Sakharov, Detente and Liberty," New York Times, 5 July 1974: 21. O'Connor, John. "Miller's 'After the Fall' on NBC," New York Times, 10 December 1974. Overland, Orm. "The Action and Its Signigicance: Arthur Miller's Struggle with Dramatic Form," Modern Drama 18 (1975): 1-14.
Probst, Leonard. "The Creation of the World and Other B u s i n e s s NBC-TV 30 November 1972 reprinted in New York Theatre Critics' Reviews 33, 1 December 1972: 150-154. Rich, Frank. "Stage: Miller's Up From Paradise," New York Times, 26 October 1983: C22. Richardson, Jack. "Arthur Miller's Eden." Commentary 55 (February): 83-85.
Sanders, Kevin. "The Creation of the World and Other Business" WABC-TV 30 November 1972 reprinted in New York Theatre Critics' Reviews 33, 1 December 1972: 150-154. Scanlan, Tom. "Reactions I: Family and Society in Arthur Miller," Family, Drama, and American Dreams, pp. 126-55. Westport, Conn: Greenwood, 1978. Seligsohn, Leo. "Arthur Miller on the Eve of 'Creation.'" Newday, 26 November 1972, Sec II: 4- 5, 28. Simon, John, "Bronxward in Eden." New York, 18 and 25 December 1972: 114. Trowbridge, Clinton W. "Arthur Miller: Between Pathos and Tragedy." Modern Drama 10 (1967) 221-32. Tyler, Ralph. "Arthur Miller Says the Times is Right for The Price." New York Times, 17 June 1979: D6. Vajda, Miklos. "Arthur Miller: Moralist as Playwright," New Hungarian Quarterly, XVI (1975) 171-80. 215 Watt, Douglas. "Creation of the World is a Plodding Comedy- Drama." New York Daily News, 1 December 1972 reprinted in New York Theatre Critics' Reviews 33, 150-154.
Watts, Richard, "The Creation of the World and Other Business," New York Post, 1 December 1972 reprinted in New York Theatre Critics' Reviews 33, 150-54. Weales, Gerald. "Cliches in the Garden." Commonweal 97, 22 December 1972: 276. Wilson, Edwin. "Adam and Eve in the Garden." Wall Street Journal, 4 December 1972, reprinted in New York Theatre Critics' Reviews 33, 150-154.
No by-lines:
"Making Crowds,", Esquire, LXXVII (Nov. 1972), p. 160-1, 216, 218, 220, 222, 224, 226, 228. "Politics as Theater", New York Times, 4 Nov. 1972, 33. "Miracles", Esquire, LXXVII (Sept. 1973), p. 112-15, 202-4 The Mvsteries: National Theatre of Great Britain
Books: Astley, Neil, Ed. Tony Harrison, Bloodaxe Critical Anthologies: I, Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe, 1991. Harrison, Tony. The Mysteries. London: Faber and Faber, 1985. — . The Passion. London: Rex Collings, 1977. Langton, Robert Gore. Plays and Players. January 1985. Levin, Bernard. "When Mystery was an Open Book." Tony Harrison. Ed. Neil Astley. Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe, 1991: 327-330. 216 Lewis, Peter. The National: A Dream. Made Concrete. London; Methuen, 1990. O'Donoghue, Bernard. "The Mysteries: T.W.'s Revenge. Tony Harrison. Ed. Neil Astley. Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe, 1991: 316-323. Rose, Martial, ed. Wakefield Mystery Plays. New York: Norton, 1961.
Sahlins, Bernard, adapt. The Mysteries: Creation. Intro, by Bernard Sahlins and Nicholas Rudall. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1992. Articles:
Barber, John. Daily Telegraph. 21 January 1985. Billington, Michael. Guardian, 21 January 1985. Chaillet, Ned. Wall Street Journal. 25 January 1985. Coveny, Michael. Financial Times. 21 January 1985-
Dallas, Karl. Morning Star, 21 December 1985.
Gordon, Giles. Punch. 30 January 1985. Grier, Christopher. Standard. 21 January 1985. Hurren, Kenneth. Mail on Sunday. 27 January 1985. King, Francis. Sunday Telegraph, 27 January 1985.
Nightingale, Benedict. New Statesman. 25 January 1985. Ratcliffe, Michael. Observer. 27 January 1985. Shepherd, Jack. "The 'Scholar' Me: An Actor's View." Tony Harrison. Ed. Neil Astley. Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe, 1991: 423-428. Warpole, Ken. "Scholarship Boy: The Poetry of Tony Harrison" Tony Harrison, ed. Neil Astley, Bloodaxe Critical Anthologies: I, Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe, 1991. Woddis, Carole. City Limits. 25 January 1985. 217
Church Times. 12 February 1904: 195. The Mysteries: Court Theatre in Chicago: Articles Bevington, David. "How Mystery Plays Got Started and Why They're Worth Reviving," Chigago Tribune, 19 January 1992, sec 13: 17.
Christiansen, Richard. "'Creation' a Garden of Eden," Chicago Tribune, 17 January 1992, sec 1: 20. . "Full 'Cycle'," Chicago Tribune, 19 January 1993, sec 1: 16. . "The Ten Best Productions," Chicago Tribune, 27 December 1992, sec. 13: 11. Smith, Sid. "Another Season," Chicago Tribune, 19 November 1992, sec 5: 13. . "Court's Lineup Reflects Peaks in Western Theater," Chicago Tribune, 9 April 1992, sec 5: lie.
. "Primal Theater," Chicago Tribune, 19 January 1992, sec. 13: 16.