God will be descending upon Washington College later this week to present to students a more in-depth and personal study of how He created life and the universe.
Well, not quite.
However, this weekend in Tawes Theatre, playwright Arthur Miller's The Creation of the World and Other Business will be presented by a cast of WC students under the direction of senior drama major Mindy Beers. This play, dubbed "a catastrophic comedy" by its publishers, is Miller's own look at the creation story.
Beers, who is directing the play for completion of her major, discussed her vision of it. "The sort of slogan I have been using for the show is 'whose business is it to create the world?'," said Beers. "Even though it's God's initial creation, after things get going, every character seems to have a vision of how the world should be and, naturally, that conflicts with what the other characters believe. It's a fight to have a harmonious world, really; the problem is that instead of banding together and fighting for the good of the world together, the characters fight against each other to look out for their own needs."
Miller, who is more widely known for his plays The Crucible and Death of a Salesman, deals with a wide variety of issues in Creation.
Beers said, "There are a couple of different themes in this play that jump out. One is the act of creation, and the act of a community creating together, or what happens if they don't take the time to work with one another for the common good."Another is justice. And another is the relationship between the human and the divine, which is always interesting to see."
The characters and basic outline of the play are recognizable to anyone familiar with the story in the book of Genesis. Accompanied by the angels Chemuel, Azrael, and Raphael portrayed by sophomore Jillian Fletcher, freshman Leigh McCall, and senior Cheryl McDaniel, respectively God (junior Rebecca Oot) creates the world and the first human beings, Adam and Eve. The latter two characters are played by senior Joel Haddock and sophomore Allison Heishman.
Lucifer (junior AJ Rendo) causes Adam and Eve to sin, resulting in their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. The banished pair then give birth to sons, Cain and Abel (freshman Tom Clancy and senior Sean Woznicki, respectively).
Cain murders Abel and is sent into exile for his crime.Beers explained that staging a play that incorporates so much has been difficult, especially with some of the additions she has chosen to make: "It's really hard to create the world," she quipped. "I knew it was going to be a challenge, but because of the things I added to the show, such as having Don [Holdren] compose an original score and Jillian doing some extra choreography, it was that much harder to pull together."
She continued: "After all, in this show Eve is born, Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden, Lucifer falls to Hell, Lucifer and Eve are involved in an almost-rape scene, Eve goes into labor and gives birth to Cain, and Cain kills Abel. All on stage.
"So there was no halfway with this show. I had to find out a way to solve these problems while still making them look better than good."
Despite the play's hectic nature, Beers is satisfied with her choice of production and has enjoyed the challenge. "When I read it two years ago, I loved Miller's take on God and Lucifer, as well as the punishment of Cain," Beers said. "When I was stuck between this play and No Exit as my final choice, I picked this play, because I knew it would be that much harder for me to pull off."
Creation will take place alongside several major events happening over the course of the weekend, namely the October Sky Moondance and the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy concert. McCall expressed concern about the competition.
"Hours of hard work have been put into this play by everyone. It would be a shame if this play went unnoticed by the student body, purely for the reason that you can't watch it and not learn something about yourself," she said.Show times for The Creation of the World and Other Business are 8 p.m. Friday, October 27 and Saturday, October 28 in Tawes Theater. Admission is free, and no reservations are necessary.
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