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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Biblical Theater
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
There are two questions here. Are there passages in the Bible that come to mind as especially dramatic moments? Are there passages that come to mind as especially comic?
I can think of several of each. I think David's visit to Saul's tent is a moment of serious drama,
and likewise Nathan confronting Dad; and I think some of the story of Jonah is quite funny.
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Hedgehog
Ship's Shortstop
# 14125
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Posted
Over in Kerygmania, we deal with such questions periodically. I know (because I was looking at it earlier today, oddly enough) that at least one thread on Biblical humor has made it to Limbo. There may well be others.
I cannot recall a dramatic moments thread, but my memory is not exactly what one would call "reliable."
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"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."--Pope Francis, Laudato Si'
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
hosting/
The scene shifts suddenly to Kerygmania...
/hosting
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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BroJames
Shipmate
# 9636
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Posted
A few immediately come to mind:
- The man of God from Judah and King Jeorobam in 1 Ki 12-13
- Elijah and the prophets of Baal on Carmel
- Elijah fleeing the wrath of Ahab and Jezebel and meeting the Lord on the mountain top
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
The obvious would be the book of Esther.
I recently was asked to teach this in Sunday School, and struggled with how to deal with the underlying theme of sexual exploitation in an age-appropriate way. I got to wondering how Jews handle teaching this story to their kids, a quick google search revealed a number of Purim plays. My favorite featured Vashti as a feminist heroine who, after being given the boot, goes off to law school so she could sue Xerxes' sorry a**.
[ 21. September 2016, 23:03: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
For reasons known only to himself our rector is doing a sermon series on Esther this season. What struck me about Vashti was, why didn't Ahasuersus just swap off her head? Clearly it is OK for him to do that (see Haman et al). So why didn't he? My idea is that she was the daughter of somebody important, say the Pharaoh. So he could pack her home to Daddy, but he couldn't just drop her in the Euphrates.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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Mamacita
Lakefront liberal
# 3659
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Posted
A wee bit more hosting ...
The thread will be much more interesting if you say a little about why you find the story dramatic/funny/whatever, as some of you have shown. (Thank you.) We want to avoid the dreaded "List Thread."
Please include a reference to chapter and verse. You never know when someone will want to take a closer look at the passage!
Now back to our program....
Many thanks,
Mamacita, Keryg Host
[ 22. September 2016, 02:09: Message edited by: Mamacita ]
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Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
For reasons known only to himself our rector is doing a sermon series on Esther this season. What struck me about Vashti was, why didn't Ahasuersus just swap off her head? Clearly it is OK for him to do that (see Haman et al). So why didn't he? My idea is that she was the daughter of somebody important, say the Pharaoh. So he could pack her home to Daddy, but he couldn't just drop her in the Euphrates.
It's very likely. Ancient kings did make alliances that way (marrying somebody's daughter).
I have vague memories of doing a really dramatic retelling of Esther in Sunday school. It just lends itself to over-the-top acting.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
For pure drama the OT is better than the NT. All the great movie set-pieces are there: The Flood. Plagues. Parting the Red Sea. Escaping from Jericho in a basket. David and Goliath. I see Robert Downey cast in the role of David, a rotten bastard yet heroic. The six-part miniseries practically writes itself.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
Job is actually written as a dramatic piece.
Norman C Habel from the Lutheran Church in Australia did a number of dramas using Biblical stories, both Old and New Testament. He was on Old Testament expert. I used some of his material in the past. His funniest piece was "What are we going to do with all these rotten fish" in which the father of James and Zebedee has to clean up the mess after the brothers left their nets to follow Jesus.
This Sunday's parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus lends itself to a dramatic reading IMHO.
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
I have dramatized Jonah, myself. The SFX are difficult, however.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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Mamacita
Lakefront liberal
# 3659
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
For pure drama the OT is better than the NT.
Hmm. I've been thinking about this. Absolutely, the OT has the sweeping narratives, the big battles, the archetypal characters that allow for potentially great writing, the legends themselves. I wonder if also the distance in time from those events and stories frees us up to be more artistically creative in how we approach them?
Why not the NT too, I've been wondering since Brenda posted this. Is it because it is a much more focused narrative over a smaller period of time? Is it because at this cultural moment, we are restricted to treating the character of Jesus within certain parameters, lest there be outrage and bad box office? Could the people in the NT be written as fully flesh-and-blood humans and not plaster saints? Unlike the OT legends, that stuff wouldn't just write itself. (Mel Gibson's literal take on The Passion notwithstanding.) But what an opportunity for gifted writing and acting!
I mean, there are such searingly human moments in the NT ... the scene with the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7:22-32) comes to mind. It is tiny but that exchange, when she talks back to Jesus, I'd love to see that done by a couple of good actors.
quote:
... Parting the Red Sea ...
When I was six, my parents took me to see the Charlton Heston version of The Ten Commandments, and that scene where Moses parts the Red Sea both fascinated and scared the bejesus out of me. We were sitting very close to the screen (remember how HUGE movie screens used to be, before theaters got carved up into multiplexes?) and I swear, those waves were 20 feet high.
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Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
Posts: 20761 | From: where the purple line ends | Registered: Dec 2002
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Mamacita
Lakefront liberal
# 3659
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I have dramatized Jonah, myself. The SFX are difficult, however.
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif) Yeah, I'm thinking about all the trouble Steven Spielberg went through with that mechanical shark. A whale? Potentially much worse.
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Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
Posts: 20761 | From: where the purple line ends | Registered: Dec 2002
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
It was a children's puppet show, and we happen to have a shark puppet. The text doesn't say 'whale' but simply 'great fish'. The role of the vine was played by a piece of ivy from the front yard.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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Mamacita
Lakefront liberal
# 3659
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
It was a children's puppet show, and we happen to have a shark puppet. The text doesn't say 'whale' but simply 'great fish'. The role of the vine was played by a piece of ivy from the front yard.
I know it says "great fish." I'm not sure how many Hollywood writers or producers would.
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Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
Posts: 20761 | From: where the purple line ends | Registered: Dec 2002
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Teekeey Misha
Shipmate
# 18604
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Posted
Another vote for Elijah. Anything from Elijah. Indeed preferably the whole of Elijah. After many years of trying to convince myself that "my favourite bit" of the bible is something New Testament, profound, spiritual and erudite, I have only recently begun to admit to myself that my favourite bit is actually that chunk of I/II Kings simply because it's such a damned good story!
- Thriller - the whole Ahab/Jezebel hunting for Elijah thing (I Kings 19)
- Drama - Naboth's vineyard (I Kings 21).
- Comedy - Elijah taunting A/J and the priests of Baal before slaying left, right and centre. (I Kings 18)
- Pathos - the widow of Zarephath and her son (I Kings 17)
- Horror/Gore - Ahab (I Kings 22) and Jezebel (II Kings 9) meet their respective ends.
- Beauty - (but God was not in the earthquake) the still, small voice of calm (I Kings 19).
It's such a fantastically dramatic and entertaining and engaging and thrilling and utterly fab story that someone should set it to music as an oratorio or something...
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Misha
Don't assume I don't care; sometimes I just can't be bothered to put you right.
Posts: 296 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2016
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mamacita:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
It was a children's puppet show, and we happen to have a shark puppet. The text doesn't say 'whale' but simply 'great fish'. The role of the vine was played by a piece of ivy from the front yard.
I know it says "great fish." I'm not sure how many Hollywood writers or producers would.
It is my understanding that in the zoological categorization system of the time that Jonah was written, the majority of sea animals were lumped into the category of " fish". They did not distinguish sea mammals like whales and dolphins the way modern biologists do. So, for all we know, the author of Jonah actually did have a whale in mind when he used the phrase " great fish."
In any case, it's a parable. A whale works just as well to make the point.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
I used to do dramatic monologues as a Biblical character. I remember doing one about The Anointing of Jesus in which I played the character of the Pharisee how invited Jesus to a dinner.
As I was giving it, I really got caught up in the story so much so a woman in the congregation thought I became possessed by a personage. As I completed the monologue, she said the personage left my body and exited out a side door.
She was quite distraught by the experience. I asked her who she thought the aberration could have been. She concluded it might have been the Holy Spirit. That helped settle her fear.
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
The fate of Sisera comes to mind as a great piece of rhetorical / dramatic telling. The narrative-prose version is at Judges 4:1-22, with its backstory and plot twist about Yahweh delivering Sisera into the hands of a woman – but not the expected Deborah, rather the really unexpected and unknown Ja’el (indeed: Who???).
For the really dramatic version that lends itself so much more to the stage voice, there is Judges 5 and the great peak:
quote:
Her left hand reached for the tent peg,
her right hand for the workmen’s hammer;
She “hammered” Sisera,
she shattered his skull,
she smashed his head,
she drove the tent peg through his temple!
Between her feet he collapsed,
he fell limp - was lifeless;
between her feet he collapsed and fell limp
in the spot where he collapsed
there he fell limp – Dead!
Followed by the perhaps unintentionally (though I wouldn’t put it past the Israelite masters of story to be intentional at this point) really banal: “And the land had rest for forty years.”
For a longer story, lending itself more to the stars of stage and screen (with book rights and merchandise, of course) there is the story of Joab. Does anyone feel the pathos of that character?
Joab plays second fiddle – supporting actor – to the main character David across the books of Samuel and 1 Kings, but his own character is absorbing and worthy of highlighting. He is utterly loyal to God (even his name is telling – Yahweh is Father), and to the point of ruthlessness in supporting God’s anointed King. His unswerving loyalty to God (and thus to the King) meant he felt he had to utterly crush any rebellion, even one involving a son of David. Joab also had to drag David out of a faltering episode, so that David would remain strong in leadership. He knew there could be no rival to the King left alive - even the soft weeping side of David had to go.
Joab’s final scene is full of pathos. After David’s death he backed the wrong horse for leadership (hindsight is a great thing). David had betrayed him at the end, telling Solomon just before David’s death to do away with Joab. Knowing this, Joab fled into the Temple and clung to the altar. Usually that is presented in commentaries as an attempt to throw his executioners off – surely they wouldn’t kill someone in the presence of the altar? – but I think the intention here is to bring out Joab’s utter devotion to God, He really believed that what he had done for his political master all the way through his life (he was an old man now, grey hair = I Kings 2:9) was a natural result of his loyalty to Yahweh. Now he was going back to Yahweh. Perhaps he hoped Yahweh would vindicate him and save his life, but if not then there was no better place to die than in Yahweh’s presence.
It is definitely worth a read through the story of Joab as he works in the background to David. Then it is worth asking the questions about his role: Just how loyal to God does one have to be? What does loyalty mean? Did not Joab actually save David from the messes he (David) seemed supremely skilled in getting himself in to? What would the history of Israel have been if David had not had Joab working for him? And so on…
Of course, those questions should not be answered in a film/book. For effect, the audience should go out into the night asking them.
Posts: 2826 | From: London, UK | Registered: Apr 2006
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Good call, Nigel. I used to read the Book of Judges like it was a dimestore novel when I was a kid, and I totally remember being really intrigued by Joab. He's like a Corleone Family made guy-- ruthless, but loyal.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
Judging by the responses thus far, people seem more interested in drama than in comedy.
Posts: 1540 | From: Illinois, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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Mamacita
Lakefront liberal
# 3659
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Posted
We have a lengthy thread on the story of the Gadarene swine, which included many comments on what great comedy it is.
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Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
Posts: 20761 | From: where the purple line ends | Registered: Dec 2002
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georgiaboy
Shipmate
# 11294
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Teekeey Misha:
Another vote for Elijah. Anything from Elijah. Indeed preferably the whole of Elijah. After many years of trying to convince myself that "my favourite bit" of the bible is something New Testament, profound, spiritual and erudite, I have only recently begun to admit to myself that my favourite bit is actually that chunk of I/II Kings simply because it's such a damned good story!
- Thriller - the whole Ahab/Jezebel hunting for Elijah thing (I Kings 19)
- Drama - Naboth's vineyard (I Kings 21).
- Comedy - Elijah taunting A/J and the priests of Baal before slaying left, right and centre. (I Kings 18)
- Pathos - the widow of Zarephath and her son (I Kings 17)
- Horror/Gore - Ahab (I Kings 22) and Jezebel (II Kings 9) meet their respective ends.
- Beauty - (but God was not in the earthquake) the still, small voice of calm (I Kings 19).
It's such a fantastically dramatic and entertaining and engaging and thrilling and utterly fab story that someone should set it to music as an oratorio or something...
'Somebody' (Felix Mendelssohn) did set it as an oratorio. The very dramatic work covers quite a bit of the story -- it's quite a lengthy work. Favorite bits are the confrontation with the priests of Baal, with Elijah's taunts and the ever-more-frenzied antics of the Baalites; the coming of the rain to break the drought; Elijah in the wilderness, comforted by angels; the widow & son of Zarapeth. It has at least on occasion been fully staged, quite sucessfully by reports, I've not seen it done.
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You can't retire from a calling.
Posts: 1675 | From: saint meinrad, IN | Registered: Apr 2006
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georgiaboy
Shipmate
# 11294
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Posted
Another tale worth dramatic treatment is that of Jephthah and his daughter. Plenty of Greek-style pathos between father and daughter; lots of opportunities for choruses of horrified neighbors and sorrowing handmaids, etc.
This has also been done as a 'musical'; Carissimi (sp?) IIRC set it as an oratorio; I remember only the chorus 'Plorate filii Israel.'
Then there's Handel's 'Israel in Egypt' -- marvelous depiction of the plagues.
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You can't retire from a calling.
Posts: 1675 | From: saint meinrad, IN | Registered: Apr 2006
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Teekeey Misha
Shipmate
# 18604
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by georgiaboy:
'Somebody' (Felix Mendelssohn) did set it as an oratorio.
Yeah. I might have been striving for a little disingenuous humour there.
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Misha
Don't assume I don't care; sometimes I just can't be bothered to put you right.
Posts: 296 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2016
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I vote for the story of Ehud the Left-Handed and Eglon the Fat from Judges 3. You've got intrigue, suspense, a plucky underdog, violence, gore, and potty humor. Everything but sex. We could add a second plotline for that.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
Okay, I'm feeling the need to make note of one of my favorite book series: The Liturgical Mysteries, by Mark Schweizer. It's a mystery series, whose protagonist/detective is both the chief of police in a North Carolina mountain town and the choirmaster/organist of the local Episcopal church. In the seventh book in the series, The Diva Wore Diamonds, he is pressured into starting a children's choir with the goal of putting on some kind of musical production. His choice is to hold the world premiere of the "long lost, newly discovered" oratorio by Purcell, "Elisha and the Two Bears." The story, in case it doesn't ring any bells:
quote:
“And he (Elisha) went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.” Second Kings 2: 23-25
The oratorio can be heard here.
You can follow along in the score (and read the introductory commentary) here.
Seriously, I can't recommend The Liturgical Mysteries highly enough.
[ 27. September 2016, 12:54: Message edited by: Nick Tamen ]
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
Posts: 2833 | From: On heaven-crammed earth | Registered: Sep 2009
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jacobsen
seeker
# 14998
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Posted
Getting back to Elijah, he even disappears into the sunset in a fiery chariot. Very film-worthy.
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But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon
Beauty fades, dumb is forever-Judge Judy
The man who made time, made plenty.
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