Tuesday, July 28, 2009

ASK SOMEONE ELSE, GOD

ASK SOMEONE ELSE, GOD
A surreal comedy about the prophet Jonah

Written by Kenneth Nowell
Directed by Shari Johnson

September 9 - October 4

In ASK SOMEONE ELSE, GOD, a mysterious lady approaches Jonah. Wait, that’s no lady. That’s the Super-Essential Godhead, source of all being! And she wants Jonah to go to Nineveh. But how does he feel about it? Jonah is simultaneously God's prophet and an average person, a chosen messenger resisting his calling and a burned-out businessman working through personal issues. Just as he's finally escaped the clutches of a dehumanizing urban life and the suffocation of a middle class lifestyle, God commands him to return to Nineveh with a message of repentance. Jonah journeys first away and then towards his destiny through a kaleidoscopic dreamscape that evokes the worlds of folktales, Kafka and the Marx Brothers. And there's that whale part.

From the Playwright:
“The major inspiration for the work,” says the playwright, “was Elie Wiesel’s FOUR HASIDIC MASTERS AND THEIR STRUGGLE WITH MELANCHOLY. It profiles some 18th century spiritual leaders who felt a duty to share a message of love and hope in spite of feeling fundamentally depressed. Jonah struck me as archetypal in this regard. He saves and entire city from God’s wrath, and it makes him miserable.”
Nowell adds: “I wrote the core of the play after my first child was born. Like many new fathers, my joy was mixed with melancholy. I didn’t feel like a success in life. I didn’t know what I had to offer. I didn’t know that I could assure my daughter that the world was a good place. Yet looking ahead, I know that I have a duty to encourage hope. Ironically, there is something funny about this situation.”

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