(Charter School) PVPA presents provocative comedy, ‘The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told’

What if Adam hadn’t been joined in the Garden of Eden by Eve? What if, instead, his soulmate was named Steve? And what if they were joined in paradise, not by Cain and Abel, but by Jane and Mabel?

That’s the premise behind the play “The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told,” a gay-positive comedy by Paul Rudnick that dissects and analyzes history, relationships and gay politics. Along the way, Rudnick also skewers a few stereotypes, while exploring deep questions of family and faith.

The play, which will be presented by the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Public Charter School this weekend at the Academy of Music in Northampton, has stirred controversy because of its alternative view of the biblical Book of Genesis. Scott Goldman, head of PVPA, received emailed petitions and phone calls protesting the school’s planned performance.

Productions in other parts of the country have been picketed by conservative religious groups who object to the play’s treatment of religion and view of homosexuality.

“It’s pretty provocative,” said the play’s director, Chris Rohman. “Some people may consider it blasphemous, and its version of biblical narratives is certainly non-traditional.”

“The Most Fabulous Story” covers a 2,000-year time-span, breaks a number of theatrical conventions and, in PVPA’s production, makes inventive use of the Academy of Music’s stage and auditorium. Supporting characters include a drag-queen Pharaoh, a disabled lesbian cable-TV rabbi and the production’s Stage Manager who, as usual in the theater, plays God.

Act One recounts the major episodes of the Old Testament: There’s the Garden of Eden, the ark, a visit with a highly rambunctious Pharaoh.

“This garden is fabulous!,” Adam declares as he gets his first look at the Garden of Eden. He rushes about, in awe of the trees, the lakes, the blue skies.

But, as delighted as he is with his surroundings, Adam is perplexed: “Where am I?,” he asks no one in particular. “Who am I?,” he wonders. And for that matter, “Who am I talking to?” And, by the way, he asks, “Am I gay?” “Yes,” he decides, “and I am alone.”

It’s also during the first act that Jane and Mabel, a lesbian couple, are introduced to Adam and Steve, and, in turn, introduce the men to God’s presence and love.

“God is the creator of cosmos and the source of all spiritual and moral nourishment,” Mabel tells her new friends.

Together, the two couples decide to start civilization, but procreation proves to be a challenge.

Act Two fast-forwards to modern-day New York City: Steve is HIV positive. It’s Christmas Eve, and Jane is nine months pregnant. The two women invite Adam and Steve to join them at their wedding ceremony, which is interrupted when Jane gives birth. Steve tells Adam that he’ll probably not survive much longer. Bound by their long life together, and the miracle of birth they’ve just witnessed, the two men comfort each other, even though they know their remaining time together will be short.

“The Most Fabulous Story” debuted in The Berkshires in 1998 and had a run in New York City. In a New York Times review, Ben Brantley called the play “both a testament to the virtues of laughing in the dark and a celebration of the kind of theater that allows people to do so.”

Rohman, a theater consultant and adjunct faculty member at PVPA, says it’s an important play to produce.

“I consider it very positive and affirming ... not just because it’s gay-affirming but because it wrestles, seriously as well as humorously and satirically, with deep issues of faith, family and belonging.” After all, he adds, the central characters’ journeys are defined by their search for the meaning of faith and the presence of God.

“Notwithstanding the comedic spin,” he said, “it’s really quite a sympathetic view of religion.”

The “public school” is the Bus Ministry of the State Church of Humanism.

The “public school”, including the “charter school”, is BY FAR, the largest, most expensive, most subversive, and most destructive entitlement program in the country.

The “public school” is better understood as the “government school collective”.

It is silly to imagine that you can fix the public schools, because the very concept itself is collectivist.

It is hypocritical to submit your children to an authority with whom you fundamentally disagree. Children do not trust hypocrites, so this will undermine your own authority, let alone influence, with your children.

Any child that comes out of the government school collective with their moral compass and common sense intact does so in spite of the government school indoctrination, not because of it.

To understand the content and compass of modern education, see ...
http://www.scribd.com/doc/54400125/Change-Agents-in-the-Schools-Barbara-Morris-1979

If you want to win the culture war, have lots of children (see my tagline) and homeschool them or form your own school cooperative with your church or synagogue and like-minded friends and relatives.

Nobody loves your children more than you do.

Nobody can teach your children better than you can.

Nobody knows your children better than you do.

Your children would love nothing better than to be taught by you, if you start doing so before they are corrupted by the government school collective.

If you have children, make whatever sacrifices you must to get them out of the public schools.

DO NOT FEED THE BEAST!

Especially not with your own children.

And DO NOT TAKE GOVERNMENT “EDUCATION” MONEY!

He that pays the piper calls the tune, and that’s especially true for any government entitlement program.

This is the wrong sort of history to repeat, especially for those like us who began with a Covenant's Seal of Approval.

We've had our struggles living up to our end of the deal, we are what we are, and we spilled a lot of blood getting back to that deal. On the other hand, we also were chosen to save the world from evil, to save God's chosen from that evil and to restore Israel. That counts for something.

Unfortunately, since then, we've been infected with some of that evil we failed to exterminate, some of that original apple, perhaps, that has caused us to forget and we just went with it.

We broke a seal (and the deal, imho) when we legalized sacrificing our most innocent on the alter of convenience to the god of...well, isn't it sorta obvious which god?

Anyway, back to what I was saying about repeating history and this not being the history we want to repeat...I've been re-reading the chapters on how this road ends and this is a bad place to be.

Freedom of speech is one thing, reaction to what is expressed is another. We need to save each other, but is a comedy like this the way to do it? I haven't seen it, so I don't know, but...

Luke: "I have a very bad feeling about this."
Obi-Wan: "Turn The ship around."
Han: "Yeah, I think your right. Full reverse! Chewie, lock in the auxiliary power."
Chewbacca: "(Grrs)"
Han: "Chewie, lock in the auxiliary power."
Chewbacca: "(Grrs)"
Luke: "Why are we still moving towards it?"
Chewbacca: "(Grrs)" Han: "We're caught in a tractor beam! It's pulling us in!"
Luke: "But there's gotta be something you can do!"

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