Last Saturday my Dad was still in town for Thanksgiving so we went with my aunt and uncle(who live in American Fork) to the LDS Conference Center Theater to watch Savior of the World. Many of you have probably seen it before, but I hadn't, so I'll give a quick summary. It was about Christ(obviously), so it worked really well as a Christmas message, but I thought it was really unique because it focused more on the events before and after Christ's life and on all the miracles and people of great faith that had to be strong for things to turn out the way they did. It opened with Zacharias and Elizabeth wishing for a child and the opportunity for Zacharias to burn the incense in the temple, then they showed Mary just before she was betrothed to Joseph. The play followed the story lines of those two couples throughout the first act, which ended with the shepherds visiting at the birth of Christ. After intermission, the second act opened with the stone being rolled in front of Christ's tomb and followed the story of the apostles and Mary Magdeline encountering the resurrected Christ and Thomas' struggle with faith when Christ does not immediately appear unto him. The play ended with the apostles promising to "feed my sheep" and running off to preach, as well as with a song.
While it was different for me to find myself thinking critically for a play that wasn't in Shakespearean, biblical language can be almost as foreign at times. But I did notice some really neat things that I don't think I would have if I weren't in this class. Firstly, the set was really amazing, and played well with the division between heaven and earth and how the two interact. The lower level had different arches and entryways that could be used to make the set feel like lots of different rooms or one big marketplace, and the floor had different sections which could rise and change, and even open to reveal a rocky peak, that made it really diverse. The upper level was like a bridge between heaven and earth, where any number of angels stood watching. Behind all of it was a backdrop of the sky which could change from night to day and even showed the new star at Christ's birth. I particularly enjoyed watching how many angels there were at any given point during the play. They would quietly come and go, some standing, some sitting. There would be sitting angels in odd numbers, always, because (I learned in a drawing class once) odd amounts of things are more visually pleasing. Whenever an angel came down to appear to someone on earth, they would go down a staircase in the back(that I probably wasn't supposed to be able to see) and come through one of the arches, then be struck with a bright white spotlight. I thought the way the did it all was really neat. The angel Gabriel spent a lot of time at the center of the upper level watching over Mary and Joseph, and later the apostles. It seemed like they were suggesting God always watching over us in the form of having angels overhead. Another thing was the amount of angels present at different points in the story. As you can see from the pictures, at Christs birth there are at least thirty of them and by the end of the play there are none. The theme I pulled from that was that heaven was very involved in the events surrounding Christs life, but now that he is gone we have to rely on his teachings and our own faith, rather than having everything given to us.
The other neat thing that I wanted to talk about was the portrayal of Christ. They never once showed his face. In the first act he doesn't appear except as a baby doll. In the second he is sometimes a voice from nowhere while the actors seem to see him, and sometimes a figure in all white with a hood up and his back to the audience. It was a weird way to portray Christ in a play that focused on him, but once I got used to it I really liked it. It put the focus less on Christ as an awe inspiring being(which he is, of course) and helped me to realize the amazing people and great trials of faith that happened surrounding his life. It helped me see how brave and faithful Mary was, and what a genuinely good person Joseph was for accepting and loving her still. It helped me to sympathize with Thomas' frustration and applaud Mary Magdeline and Peter for their leadership and courage. And, ultimately, all of their stories come back to Christ and their faith in him as their Savior. So, without once trying to interpret the character of Christ, Savior of the World taught me so much about who he is and the effect he has on people's lives.
I'm sorry this isn't very Shakespeare related, it's just what I really felt like writing about. And it seemed relevant at least in the sense that I wouldn't have loved this play so much if I weren't involved in this class. I'll be sure to post about the gruesome and bloody, non-uplifting King Lear in my next post this week.:)
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