Mad God or Sad God

We spent more time blocking the show tonight, learning our movements and places in relation to one another.

I have been impressed since tryouts with Melinda as a director, and experiencing her vision as she takes us through blocking has enhanced that.

I have several questions about God and God's interaction with humanity. (That seems like an understatement of my current personal relationship with the notion of God, but what I'm actually talking about here is the God of this play.)


My greatest question can be stated simply: Is this God a Mad God or a Sad God? Is this the stereotypically wrathful "Old Testament," Charlton Heston in the Ten Commandments God? (You're saying to yourself, no, he played Moses, BUT he was also the voice of God.) Or is this God the one who cries with us at life's tragedies, the God of Marjorie Suchocki and other process theologians.

I also wonder, for the purposes of this play, what kind of universe are we creating. Does God interact with the humans? If yes, are the humans aware of this interaction? Do they see God or just experience the presence of God?

After class, I worked with Melinda for about an hour on God's blocking.

We ran through the first speech:

I God which all the world hath wrought
Heaven and Earth and all of nought
I see my people in deed and thought
Are set foully in sin.

Melinda suggested that God is disappointed and weary.

Man that I made I will destroy
Beast worm and fowl that fly
For on the earth they do me annoy
the folk that are thereon

Here, Melinda had me look down on Mrs. Noah, who is seated beneath me, to look down on her in disgust as representing all of humankind.

And then, a change of heart, and true compassion still mixed with annoyance for the next lines, where Melinda directed me to sit next to Mrs. Noah and put my arm around her shoulders:

It harms me so heartfully
The malice now that can multiply
That sore it greiveth me inwardly
That ever I made man.

Melinda's direction went something like this as she gestured to the place where Mrs. Noah sits and I looked there too:

You're so disgusted, like a parent, you're so upset by what she has done, and then, in the next second, you look again and say: but she's so adorable.

And seeing Mrs. Noah reminds me of the Mister, which leads into God's speech:

Therefore Noah, my servant free
A righteous man art as I see
A ship soon thou shalt make thee...

Time traveling into this journal from post-production, I can say that I now look on this night of one-on-one work with Melinda as foundational for the character of God. This was the night where I had to think not about all those who perished but about the good in humanity represented even in the flawed character of Mrs. Noah. Part of my motivation as God -- even though I was trying to play God as a Process God -- was why save Mrs. Noah? And the answer became because she questions, because she balks, because she represents all of us, hearing the story of Noah and asking all of our why questions. More than Noah himself, who's a little too obedient and single-minded for my tastes, Mrs. Noah came to represent humanity.