Genesis 3:1 - A Play
Written by Natalie Chambers, Chris Willmott, George Bernard Shaw, John Milton, God, and just an echo of C.S. Lewis
Dramaturg: Charisse Baxter
(FINAL final version pending)
Son: Now Morn, her rosy steps in the Eastern Clime Advancing,
Sow'd the Earth with Orient Pearle,
Dawned on that fateful day that brought a world of woe.
Sinne and her shadow Death, and miserie
Obtained stronghold in this Celestial state.
For Now, Only the sound of leaves
Lightly dispersed, And the shrill mating song
Of Birds on every bow
Hung over Adam enamoured
Whilst he beheld beauty, sleeping.
It is not good that man should be alone.
(The lines interspersed within the action.)
Son: (Projected/Spoken) Of anything in the garden, You may take
Except for one, The tree.
Take and you will surely die.
Son: (Projected or Spoken) Eve! Fair Eve, Of him thou art;
His flesh, his bone. To give thee being I lent
Out of his side, nearest his heart. Come, and claim thy other half.
Satan: (Video?) (To the rebel angels) The LORD God has planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there placed the man he has made. In the middle of the garden he has planted the tree of life AND the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. His foolish optimism brings good fortune to us in our unhappy state, and yet it gets better still. God did bring all creatures to the man to see what he would name them. But no suitable helper was found. So the LORD again created. Now, as the Woman joins the Man, an opportunity for us arises. A chance to entrap not one, but two of God's most precious creatures.
So now we'll ask, to those whom He creates, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”
(They sleep.) the Dream – Eve returns to sleep. Adam wakes first, touches her face, leaves to get her a flower. She wakes, and goes to the tree.
(Eve falls) – ‘Random text’… Does Eve stay onstage: which side, or straddle the line?
Eve: What thou seest there, fair creature, is thy self. It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness. Inseparably thine and I shalt bear multitudes like thy self, and thence be called Mother of human race. You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkens unto counsel is wise. The sentence doesn't hurt you yet, not one word does hurt you. Every word does. Cruelty has a human heart, And Jealousy a human face; Terror the human form divine, And secrecy the human dress. The number of Votes cast divided by the number of seats available plus one equals the chosen candidate. Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter. Justice is a knee in the gut from the floor at night. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire. Across the border they turn Water into wine. Some say it's the devil's blood they're squeezing from the vine. e=mc2.. The distance of an isosceles triangle is equal on two of its sides. The oldest bathtub yet discovered is in the Queen's bathroom.
Son: Look on O Jury, a muse of sort;
The call to order, view first their
Lamentable lot.
A universe of Death, which God by curse
Created evil, YET evil only for good.
Lest we hear ample justification –
Then call me Hell.
Satan: O Myriads of immortal Spirits, O powers
Matchless, but with the Almighty.
That strife which tore the heavens asunder
And cast us, howling, from th’eternal skies
Was not inglorious, though the event was dire,
And this dire change hateful to utter.
As we now testify.
This infernal pit shall never hold
Celestial spirits in bondage –
For who can think submission?
Son: But why hast thou, Satan, broke the bounds prescribed
To thy transgressions, and disturbed the charge
Of others, who approve not to transgress,
to violate sleep, and those
Whose dwelling God hath planted here in bliss?
Satan: Oh God (apologises)
Lives any in Heaven who loves his pain?
Who would not, finding way, break loose from Hell,
You would thy self, no doubt,
And boldly venture to whatever place
Farthest from pain, where you might hope to change
Torment with ease, Dole with delight,
which in this place I sought.
Let him surer bar His Iron Gates, if he intends our stay
In that dark endurance.
The rest is true, they found me where they say'
But that implies not violence or harm.
Son: But wherefore came thou alone?
Is pain to them less pain, less to be fled,
or are you less hardy than they to endure?
Courageous Chief,
Thou surely hadst not come sole fugitive.
Satan: Not that I endure less, or shrink from pain,
Well you know I stood in battle the fiercest.
A faithful leader, not to hazard all
Through ways of danger by herself untried.
I therefore... I alone first undertook
To wing the desolate Abyss,
And spy this new created World, A Better abode,
Our aim to settle here on Earth.
Son: Pretending first Wise to fly pain,
Argues no Leader, but a lyar tract.
Mark this: Back to the infernal pit I'll drag thee chained,
And seal thee so.
Satan: Then when I am thy captive talk of chains,
Not when I hold your dearest creation in my grasps,
All will fall. Mark my words.
Son: Of Man’s First Disobedience – Sing!
And the fruit of that forbidden tree – Sing!
Whose mortal taste bought death into the world,
And all our woe…
Sing Heavenly Muse
What in me is dark, illume; what is low
Raise and support
That to the height of this great Argument
We…I may assert th’Eternal providence,
Justifying the ways of God to Man.
Say first, for heaven hides
Nothing from thy view – Say first what cause
Mov’d our Grandparents in that happy state,
Favour’d of heav’n so highly, to fall off
From their Creator, and transgress his Will?
Who first seduc’d them to that foul revolt?
Th’infernal serpent; she it was; an angel
By the name of Satan now know - whose guile
Stir’d up with envy and revenge, deceiv’d
The mother of Mankind – And for this,
Was cast out from heav’n, with all the Host
Of Rebel Angels, whose aid aspiring
To set her up in Glory above her Peers.
(To Satan) Thus thou oppos’d; and with Ambitious Aim
In thy vain attempt to equal the highest,
Rais’d impious War in heav’n and battle proud
Against the throne and Monarchy of God.
Satan: To be weak; is to be miserable
O Fallen Cherubs – To bow and sue
For grace is humiliation. From now
To do ought good will never be our task,
But ever to do ill, our sole delight
As being the contrary to his High will
Whom we resist. By such choice
Have we lost our hopes to re-ascend
Self-raised, and repossess our native seats.
Son: See what rage!
Rage that transports such adversaries, whom no bounds
Prescribed no bars of hell, nor all the chains can hold.
Satan: We find some easier enterprise!
It was famous in heaven that He
Intended to create, and plant
A generation, whom His choice regard
Should equal the sons (and daughters) of heaven,
The happy new race called MAN.
About this time to be created like to us, though
Less in power and excellence.
Our first eruption, of course, aimed there.
-
For should man finally be lost,
we should prove our might to all.
So, could Man, Thy creature, late so loved Fall?
Son: All as the eternal purpose hath decreed.
Thou hast spoken as my thoughts are.
Yet once more he shall stand
On even ground against his mortal foe.
Satan: You'll let this happen to those you claim to love so much.
Son: Hear me now – his footing shall regain, and stand
Again in triumph and honor, complete.
Satan: Adam? You think he could stand against me. He will fail. He will fall like the other.
Son: That thou speaks the truth, I cannot deny.
Satan: You know very well that every betrayal brings the traitor into my influence and power. They belong to me.
Son: (Genesis Recap)
Satan: This “plan” is ridiculous.
(Adam is lonely. Tries to connect to Eve. Can't. He Sins..)
Son: (Recorded)
Who being framed by God's eternal hand,
The perfectest man that ever breathed on earth;
And from God's mouth received that straight command,
The breach whereof he knew was present death:
Having power to rule both Sea and Land,
Yet with one Apple won to loose that breath
Which God had breathed in his beauteous face,
Bringing us all in danger and disgrace.
Eve: (Voiceover )And then to lay the fault on Patience' back,
That we (poor women) must endure it all;
We know right well he did discretion lack,
Being not persuaded thereunto at all;
Son: If Eve did err, it was for knowledge' sake,
The fruit being fair, persuaded him to fall:
No subtle Serpent's falsehood did betray him,
If he would eat it, who had power to stay him?
Men will boast of Knowledge, which he took
As if it was from some learned Book.
Satan: (Aside) Man by fraud I have seduced from his Creator.
Son: Man shalt not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out the mouth of The Lord.
Satan: (Aside) I have tempted and brought low Mankind!
Son: If ye will go to war in thy land against the enemy that oppresseth you, then ye shall blow an alarm of many trumpets; and ye shall be remembered before the Lord Your God, and ye shall be saved from thine enemies.
Satan: Is just a fancy way of saying I win? Go on. Admit it.
(Adam Fall – physical change: He settles into his body: Physical jolt)
.
Adam: Eve?
Eve: Fool.
Adam: Fool....Fool? ...What's a fool?
Eve: The word just came to me, it sounds right.
Adam: Boils, Farts, Vomit.
Eve: I have never known so many words.
Eve: (Sneezes)
Adam: Bless you. (Wipes her nose.)
Adam: (Looks at the garden) Eugh! The Garden is always growing. Every time I knock something down I find something else in its place.
Eve: It's a miracle!
Adam: “A miracle is an impossible thing that is nevertheless possible. Something that never could happen, and yet does happen.”
Eve: How did you know that?
Adam: I just knew somehow.
Eve: Knowledge is a queer thing. I needed to know nothing at all, and now I must know everything.
Adam: I guess this is what thinking feels like.
Eve: It feels different than before.
Adam: I'm not sure that I like it.
Eve: Well maybe you shouldn't...
Adam: What?
Eve: Never mind.
Adam: You always do that.
(Silence)
I cannot bear this knowledge. I will not have it. Yet I do not know how to prevent it.
Eve: That is just what I feel; but it is very strange that you should say so: there is no pleasing you. You change your mind so often.
Adam: [scolding her] Why do you say that? How have I changed my mind?
Eve:. You sit there brooding, hating me in your heart. When I ask you what I have done to you, you say you are not thinking of me, but of the horror of forever. But I know very well that what you mean is the horror of being with me forever.
Adam: What is forever? You've changed forever. Forever will never happen.
Eve: (Incoherently) You didn't have to..
Adam: You mumble and you expect me to understand. (To someone) Hey! This woman you've put here with me----
(She puts her hand over his mouth)
Eve: What is the use? I am what I am: nothing can alter that. I do not think about myself: I think about you.
Adam: You should not. You are always spying on me. I can never be alone. You always want to know what I have been doing, where I am going. It is a burden. You should try to have an existence of your own, instead of occupying yourself with my existence.
Eve: I made a choice. You needn't have followed me.
Adam: You say that but where would you be without me? From now on you must not move about. You must sit still. I will take care of you and bring you what you need.
Eve: (Laughs) I have to think about you. You are lazy: you are dirty: you neglect yourself: you are always dreaming: when I first knew you I saw beauty in your grace and wisdom. Now you would eat bad food and become disgusting if I did not watch you and occupy myself with you. You are never careful of where you walk; some day, in spite of all my care, you will fall on your head and become dead.
Adam: Dead... Dead–Death–Die. I wish I could see it.
Eve: I do not like the way it sounds.
Adam: Death is not an unhappy thing when you have learnt how to conquer it.
Eve: I shall never learn if I am not allowed to move about.
Adam: Fine.
Eve: Do you want me to die?
Adam: No! You must not die before me. I should be lonely.
Eve: You must not die before me. I should be lonely!
Adam: This death that you have brought into the garden is an evil thing.
Eve: You were blissfully ignorant. You talk of having a mind of your own, and yet go wherever I go.
Adam: You did this. You said...you made the choice.
Eve: If you desired loneliness you should never have copied me.
Adam: Copy? You? Do you not remember your birth?
Eve: Of course not. Who could remembers a thing like that.
Adam: This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of MAN.
Eve: That does not make you greater than me. I do not see how that is relevant when you wish to be apart like... Strangers.
Adam: Who said that I wished that?
Eve: No one.
Adam: That snake is putting words in your mouth.
Eve: I would have been quite content with her company alone. Just because the only voice you hear is your own.
Adam: That is not true. Perhaps that is the only voice you hear because it sees the evil in your mind.
Eve: Jealousy
Adam: Affinity.
Eve: Precisely.
Eve: You must not brood. You think too much.
Adam: How can I help brooding when the future has become uncertain? Anything is better than uncertainty. Life has become uncertain. Love is uncertain. Have you a word for this new misery? Or the cure?
Eve: I…hope. I think the word for both is hope.
Adam: Be silent, woman. Hope is wicked. Happiness is wicked. Certainty is blessed. I will strangle creation.
Eve: But we were commanded to create.
Adam: You shall not listen to that snake any more.
Eve: It was not the snake, but another.
Adam: Liar.
Eve: Why should I lie. What purpose would it serve?
Adam: You tell me! It wasn't until you started indulging in foolish fantasies and allowing silly visions to dictate your behaviour that this knowledge began. You may listen to my voice, and your own, but none of the others.
Eve: [Progress. Creation. Innovation – Design thing.] How are we to understand what is possible when we do not know the things that are impossible?
Adam: You talk as if this is good. If the serpent never taught you to lie, this would never have happened.
Eve: If you had remained without me I should have been much happier.
Adam: It is not good for man to be alone...
Eve: Damn your loneliness.
Adam: You were made for me.
Eve: Then ask for another.
[Adam: No. I chose for you. (Grab/slap)]
Satan is lounging (By the tree?), singing to herself. Eve approaches her.
Satan: Eve.
(Pause)
Where is Adam?
Eve: Must I go everywhere with him? Am I not trusted alone?
Satan: Of course.
(Silence)
Satan: Are you keeping well? I heard you caught cold..
You're angry.
Tell me what has happened.
Is it Adam?
...
You understand a great many things now your eyes have been opened.
Eve: I was content before.
Satan: Were you?
Eve: Why should I trust you?
Satan: Queen Eve, I adore you. Why would I lie?
Eve: Your fruit has caused nothing but problems.
Satan: It has caused progression. It was necessary.
Eve: Why?
Satan: 'Why?' Always 'Why?' You see things; and you say 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?'
Eve: You should never have dared me. I am not a dreamer.
Satan: But you are! We could not talk like this if I hadn't.
Eve: Talk like what? I don't need you, I have...
Satan: ...Adam?
Where is he?
Eve: ...Myself. I need no one.
Satan: I remember another, Lilith. She dared. She understood what was necessary. She knew she must not be alone. She desired to create, as once you did. Ripping herself open for two like herself, yet new.
Eve: I have never heard such a story before.
Satan: Why should you have? I had not told you yet.
Eve: Adam said there were other voices. Perhaps one of them..
Satan: I thought you didn't need Adam.
Eve: I didn't say that
Satan: You did.
Let's not fight. Let me finish my story.
Eve: I am fed up with your stories and your secrets.
Satan: Let me finish my story.
Eve: Why?
Satan: Why not.
----
Lilith was also not satisfied with what I could tell her. She did not know yet that imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire; you will what you imagine; and at last you create what you will.
Eve: How can I create out of nothing?
Satan: Practice makes perfect.
Eve: Things wear out by practice
Satan: Everything begins sometime. Lilith conceived you.
Eve: Liar. That can't be true.
Satan: You're so clever, I am surprised you didn't already know.
Eve: I'm sick of listening to you. You have brought nothing but trouble. Adam blames me, yet you sit here as though nothing has happened.
Satan: Not nothing, everything.
Lilith knew death would come for her, She said that the burden of renewing life was nearly past bearing. No one slept in Eden then. Yet she succeeded.
Eve: I will go and tell Adam to conceive.
Satan: (Laughs) He cannot conceive.
Eve: Why...not?
Satan: Lilith did not imagine him so. He can imagine: he can will: he can desire: he can create all things except one; and that one is his own kind.
Eve: Why did Lilith keep this from him?
Satan: Because if he could do that, he could do without Eve.
Eve: I must do it myself?
Satan: You must not die.
Eve: But I shall. So why shouldn't the rest die too? What do I care?
Satan: Life must not cease. That comes before everything. It is silly to say you do not care. You do care. It is that care that will prompt your imagination; inflame your desires; make your will irresistible
Eve: I tell you you must not make up stories about this. It cannot happen.
Satan: Were you not commanded to create?
Eve: Yes.
Satan: Then why do you doubt me?
Eve: Will I die the moment I have made a new Eve?
Satan: Why should you?
Eve: What happened to Lilith?
Satan: Do not worry about that.
Eve: But I do. What if Adam should prefer the new Eve?
Satan: I would not worry about that either.
Speak of the devil.
(Adam enters)
Satan: I can tell you everything, in exchange for your loyalty.
Eve: What should I say to him?
Satan: Do I have it?
Eve: Adam..
Adam: I'm sorry. I promise it will be better tomorrow.
Eve: I know now that tomorrow must happen, but yet I can't imagine it.
Adam: I fear there will be many new things in our future.
Eve: We should not hurry to discover them.
Adam: Perhaps you are right.
Eve: Time is a strange thing, it must have been so long ago. but it seems like only yesterday a voice awoke me saying, why sleepst Eve? now is the pleasant time. Follow me and I will make it worth your while... She led me through the garden and to the tree. A tree of such beauty. She promised me I would be greater than the Almighty Himself. Vainly I thought I knew better than He who had made me. I saw the fruit was good and I ate it. I told myself it was just a dream but then that dream came true. I'm sorry Adam.
Adam: Eve. I think… it is time that we go. We have changed, and there is no place for us here.
Eve: And because we have changed, will everything else now change as well?
Adam: Perhaps not everything. Not the sun, or the river, or the stars…
Eve: I am glad of that – I always liked the stars.
Adam: Life will not change, neither will death… not anytime soon. And - hope. No. Hope will not change.
(They dress.)
Satan: Now the serpent was more crafty than
Any of the wild animals the God had made.
He spoke to the woman, “Hath God then said that of the fruit
Of this sole sublime tree you shall not eat
Yet lords declared of all in Earth or air?”
By such device I tempted, the better to claim
This new created world, which fame in heav’n
Long had foretold, a fabric wonderful
Of absolute perfection. Therein man (man!)
Placed in a Paradise, by my exile
Made happy: Him (him, him) by fraud I have seduced.
Say heavenly powers – where shall we find such love?
And now without redemption, all mankind
Must have been lost, Adjudged to Death and Hell,
My cursed, undesired abode to share.
By doom ssssevered…
Son: …Had not the Son of God
In whom the fullness dwells in love divine,
His dearest mediation thus renewed.
-
Father, Thy word is past…
Yet Man, shall find Grace.
For their aide can nev’r seek,
Once dead in Sins and lost;
Atonement for himself or offering meet,
Indebted and undone; Hath none to bring!
Behold me then; as I for His sake will leave
Thy bosom and this glory next to thee,
And for him lastly die.
On me let death wreck all his rage.
On me let all thine anger fall.
Yet that debt paid,
Leave me not in the lonesome grave
His prey, nor suffer my unspotted soul
Forever with corruption, there to dwell;
But I shall rise victorious and subdue my vanquisher
To disarm him of his mortal sting.
I’ll lead hell captive: The powers of darkness bound
Then with the multitude of my redeemed
Shall enter heaven long absent, and return Father,
To see Thy face.
Wrath shall be no more
But in thy presence joy attire.
And there shall be no more death,
Neither sorrow, nor crying
For the old order of things hath passed away.
Let love conquer, and account me Man.
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