Theater Review: In The Beginning

by Ed Townley of John Garcia's The Column

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Somewhat engaging, a little tedious and emotionally uninvolving.

Kevin Moriarty is now three productions into his first season at the artistic helm of Dallas Theater Center, and several characteristics of his choices and work are becoming apparent. He is, first of all, not afraid to take chances. Launching his DTC career with The Who's Tommy, a loud, raucous rock musical involving drugs, child abuse, murder and fanaticism was a risky choice that resulted in one of the most exciting and acclaimed productions of 2008. Turning next to the world premiere of The Good Negro, a warts-and-all script about the civil rights movement of the 1960s, was another risk that paid off with an absorbing and important evening of theater.

Now comes Moriarty's third production as Artistic Director – the second (after Tommy) he's directed himself. And while In the Beginning is markedly less successful than the first two, it nonetheless offers some interesting insights into what theater is really all about, and what qualities are essential for it to succeed.

In the Beginning was originally intended to be an evening drawn from medieval mystery plays about events in the early chapters of the biblical Book of Genesis. Realizing (after the season had already been announced) that those primitive pieces would not really speak to a contemporary audience, Moriarty decided instead to take a fresh new look at these great stories – Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and his ark chief among them.

So far, so good. These stories are a powerful part of our collective Judaeo-Christian culture, and they should always be speaking to us in new and challenging ways. After all, they ask the most basic of questions: Who are we? How did we get here? Why is there evil in the world? Why is life so challenging? I think of the early chapters of Genesis as campfire stories, passed down orally from generation to generation long before they were ever written. And the need for great stories, and the power of great stories, is as strong today as it has ever been in our long human history.

Of course, not everyone hears and understands these stories in the same way, and here's where the trouble sets in for In the Beginning. Instead of telling them from one clear point of view, Moriarty tries to acknowledge the whole gamut of possible attitudes. In addition to assembling a 14-person acting ensemble, he also gathered a 14-person Advisory Committee: 7 ministers, 1 rabbi, 3 representatives of religious education and 3 from what might be termed academic theater. The actors and designers began working without a script, drawing from several different translations of the first ten chapters of Genesis, with input and interpretation from the Advisory Committee.

In performance, we first meet the actors as actors. The actors also portray various members of the Advisory Committee giving their input as the stories unfold. And they portray the various characters of the stories themselves. And they take turns playing God.

This is all much less confusing to experience than it is to describe, but the result is a production assembled by committee, instead of being created by artistic vision. There is no point of view; we never get the sense that Moriarty or anyone on stage has an urgent need to explore these stories. The result is academically interesting, but uninvolving as anything but an intellectual exercise. Theater requires more. Theater isn't even-handed, fair and objective. It's passionate and complex. The Laramie Project, to cite a similar group undertaking, brings many conflicting opinions onto the stage, but you never doubt for a minute what its own artistic statement is. There is no such statement apparent in In the Beginning.

Another characteristic of Kevin Moriarty's leadership at Dallas Theater Center is his enthusiasm for getting the audience as involved as possible in the creative process. He started with post-show discussions among cast and audience for selected performances, and later installed them after every performance for both of the previous productions. Here he goes one step further by incorporating the discussion period into the production itself. So we have about an hour of acted-out stories interspersed with acted-out commentaries on the stories, followed by about twenty minutes of discussion, with the cast in the audience passing microphones to those willing to express an opinion. It's another academic exercise that is as interesting (or not) as the people who happen to be in the audience with you.

In the Beginning may be remembered primarily as the first project featuring the resident company of local actors Moriarty has assembled; here they are joined by theater students from SMU. The very fact of a resident company is exciting – not just for DTC, but for North Texas theater in general. It's hard to evaluate their work here, because it is by necessity so scattered and unfocused. They are natural and relaxed portraying actors and advisors. As the biblical characters they are limited strictly to the words as written in the Bible.

But those words weren't written to be acted; there's little room for nuance or depth. It's a kind of historical pageant approach: We see what's happening, but we know nothing about how the characters feel about what's happening. The Noah story, in particular, is rushed and one-dimensional. There are rich, extra-biblical traditions around that dysfunctional family. (Remember Bill Cosby's classic "Noah and God," for example?) None of that comes into play here; even the multitude of paired-up animals is barely mentioned in passing.

Sets and costumes are appropriate to the project. John Arnone has designed three large panels inscribed with passages from Genesis in Hebrew, around a circular playing area covered in what appears to be darkened sawdust to suggest the fertile earth. The area revolves, allowing several trees, an altar and the door to the ark to appear and disappear smoothly. Costumes by Jennifer Caprio are intentionally all over the map, from casual contemporary to traditional biblical. The problem of Adam and Eve in the pre-figleaf Garden of Eden is awkwardly handled with flesh-colored dance belts, although it's hard to know what a more attractive choice might be.

The area in which In the Beginning most often takes flight is in the lighting design of Steve Woods. It's flashy when it needs to be; but even at its most subtle it is always alert, always shifting, gently guiding our focus and illuminating shadows from unexpected directions. In a sense the light becomes the real presence of God, rather than the various actors grappling with the inconsistencies of the Lord as he/she is involved in the stories. To humans, God may seem scary, petulant, demanding, unpredictable, inconsistent. But that's simply our limited perception of an infinite power. It is as the light – always present, always loving, sneaking up on us when we least expect it – that the Infinite can be most fully grasped. Had that been explored more fully, In the Beginning might have taken the old stories into rich new dimensions.

There are several evocative songs blended into the evening in sometimes surprising ways. (Adam is formed from the dust while a Voice for God channels Roberta Flack, singing "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." Truly.) After the discussion is ended, the evening concludes with the company singing "Precious Lord, Take My Hand" – a surprisingly New Testament choice for a Genesis evening. At its conclusion, the opening night audience rose to its collective feet in appreciation. So perhaps Kevin Moriarty has another hit on his hands. For me, In the Beginning proved to be somewhat engaging, a little tedious and emotionally uninvolving. Some of the incandescent energy of The Who's Tommy is sorely needed as the evening unfolds, careful not to offend anyone, taking no risks and therefore landing no punches.

In the Beginning runs through February 15 and tickets can be purchased online or by calling 214-522-8499.

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