In the Beginning…

**“…the whole gamut of human experience is here… loneliness, sexuality, morality, hierarchy, wit and hypocrisy.” Review by Roger Kohn in Virginia Water Magazine.**

A stage play set in the Garden of Eden.
A four-hander (God, Satan, Adam, Eve) with quite simple staging requirements.

Written 1978-82. Well received by script readers, but never produced, apart from a rehearsed reading at the Sheffield Crucible under the direction of the late Clare Venables.

Reactions to the original 1980s script:-

– “a lovely play..”
Michael Fox of Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre Company.

– “one of the most arresting openings I can remember for some time..”
Alan Strachan of the Greenwich Theatre.

– “a funny, fluently written and well-constructed play..”
Graham Whybrow of the Royal Court.

– “The staging of this play would be a challenge, and director and designer would accept with glee. It is imaginative, intelligent and vastly amusing… The sound person would have a glorious time making up the appropriate tapes… God’s smugness is riveting and Satan, wary, enigmatic and sceptical, is obviously the centre of the play… Eve.. is sharply defined, clever and very much in control… a play with tremendous potential.”
Reader’s report for the New Playwrights Trust.

And a recent review:-

– “…reimagines the first chapters of the book of Genesis with wry humor… [It] evokes sympathy for the Devil with a clever combination of naturalistic action, humor, and engaging, thoughtful dialogue… [Eve’s] compassion for Satan turns the moment when she and Adam eat the apple from humanity’s greatest failure… In Heidenstam’s telling, Eve is not tricked; rather, she makes a moral choice… A feast of challenging ideas for those who are willing to taste of it.”
Bryon Reiger in Rain Taxi, issue 98.

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“Eve leads humanity from mythology into morality. In reaching that decision, she has already had to take on the knowledge of good and evil. But, inevitably, she cannot foresee all the consequences.”
David Heidenstam.

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Please click HERE for purchase links to Amazon – but also available free to theatres and drama groups. Please send a message via the form on the Contact page

SATAN: No, well I’m not as good in the mornings as you are…

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One day

A short script written in about 1971 for possible television production as a ‘silent comedy’ – a kind of combination of silent movie and “Monty Python” comic sketch.

But it might have been better conceived as a short animated film, using plasticine characters and sets, in the style (if they’d been around at the time) of “Wallace and Gromit”.

Indeed, the atmosphere, of class-bound 1950’s conventionalism and repression, is very close to that of “Wallace and Gromit” – though not so affectionately remembered!

It could also make a short stage production – a combination of mime and slapstick that might appeal to amateur drama groups.

It’s a script – never intended for ordinary reading. But it’s available as a free pdf to anyone interested in using it. Please send a message via the form on the Contact page and mention what you have in mind.

(Permission to use will be free in the case of amateur drama production, and by agreement for animation.)

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