The Creation of the World and Other Business is a play by Arthur Miller first performed in 1972.
The Creation of the World and Other Business is a play by Arthur Miller first performed in 1972.
The play is a parable that explores the theme of good-versus-evil by way of a comedic retelling of events in the Book of Genesis in the Bible. The first act is set in the Garden of Eden, where God creates Eve for Adam. God wants the couple to procreate, but doesn't know how to entice them into starting the process. Onto the scene comes Lucifer, who believes the existence of evil will make sex exciting, and he tempts the couple to eat the forbidden apple. God punishes Lucifer by tossing him into hell and punishes the couple by expelling them from paradise. In the second act, Eve gives birth to Cain. In the third act, Cain kills his brother Abel and is sent out as a wanderer. [1] [2]
Miller's first work since The Price five years earlier, Creation stumbled along during rehearsals. Original director Harold Clurman and most of the cast, including Barbara Harris and Hal Holbrook, were replaced, and the playwright rewrote most of the material.[ citation needed ] After 21 previews, the Broadway production, directed by Gerald Freedman, opened on November 30, 1972 at the Shubert Theatre, where it ran for 20 performances. [3] The cast included Stephen Elliott as God, Bob Dishy as Adam, Zoe Caldwell as Eve, George Grizzard as Lucifer, and Mark Lamos as Abel. [2] [3]
In 1973, Tangent Theatre, an amateur theatre company from Walsall, won the rights to perform the play at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.[ citation needed ] It was a critical success and Don Nunes, the director accepted the award for best production that year from Esther Rantzen. Tangent Theatre grew out of the West Midlands College of Education Theatre Society and performed all over Britain and Europe between 1969 and 1974.[ citation needed ]
Miller reworked the play into a musical, Up From Paradise , which opened in 1974 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. [4]
In 2004, Citizens of the Universe's production of Creation of the World and Other Business was banned from playing at Greenville Technical College. [5]
In 2014, the Theater Department at Orange Coast College put on a rock and roll jukebox musical version of the play. [6]
The Book of Genesis, the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament, is an account of the creation of the world, the early history of humanity, Israel's ancestors, and the origins of the Jewish people. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, Bereshit.
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consists of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse. A second edition followed in 1674, arranged into twelve books with minor revisions throughout. It is considered to be Milton's major work, and it helped solidify his reputation as one of the greatest English poets of his time. The poem concerns the biblical story of the Fall of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Milton's purpose, as stated in Book I, is to "justify the ways of God to men."
Cain is a Biblical figure in the Book of Genesis within Abrahamic religions. He is the older twin brother of Abel and the son of Adam and Eve, the first couple within the Biblical tale. He was a farmer who gave an offering of his crops to God with which God was not pleased and favored Abel's over Cain. Out of jealousy he then killed his brother, which lead to the punishment as the curse and mark of Cain. He had various offsprings starting with Enoch including Lamech. His lineage would later be wiped out after the Flood within the narrative.
In the biblical Book of Genesis, Cain and Abel are the first two sons of Adam and Eve. Cain, the firstborn, was a farmer, and his brother Abel was a shepherd. The brothers made sacrifices to Yahweh, each of his own produce, but Yahweh favored Abel's sacrifice instead of Cain's. Cain then murdered Abel, whereupon Yahweh punished Cain by condemning him to a life of wandering. Cain then dwelt in the land of Nod, where he built a city and fathered the line of descendants beginning with Enoch.
The Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan is a 6th-century Christian extracanonical work found in Ge'ez, translated from an Arabic original.
Children of Eden is a 1991 two-act musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by John Caird. The musical is based on the Book of Genesis, with Act I telling the story of Adam and Eve, Cain, and Abel, while Act II deals with Noah and the Flood. Though commercially the musical has had very little success, it is popular in community and regional theatres worldwide, due to its ability to accommodate a large or small cast, religious subject, and its universal themes of family and love. The show's publisher, Music Theater International, reports that Children of Eden is one of its top 20 most frequently licensed properties.
Bereshit, Bereishit, Bereshis, Bereishis, B'reshith, Beresh't, Beresheet, or Bereishees is the first weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading. The parashah consists of Genesis 1:1–6:8.
Adam is a figure in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible, from where he was adopted into Christian belief and the Quran. According to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, he was the first man. In both Genesis and Quran, Adam and his wife were expelled from a Garden of Eden for eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Eve is a figure in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible as well as a figure in the Quran. According to the origin story of the Abrahamic religions, she was the first woman. Eve is known also as Adam's wife.
Cain is a dramatic work by Lord Byron published in 1821. In Cain, Byron dramatizes the story of Cain and Abel from Cain's point of view. Cain is an example of the literary genre known as closet drama.
The Apple Tree is a series of three musical playlets with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and a book by Bock and Harnick with contributions from Jerome Coopersmith. Each act has its own storyline, but all three are tied together by a common theme and common references, such as references to the color brown. The first act is based on Mark Twain's The Diaries of Adam and Eve; the second act is based on Frank R. Stockton's The Lady or the Tiger?; the third act is based on Jules Feiffer's Passionella. The working title for the evening of three musicals was Come Back! Go Away! I Love You!
Paradise Lost has had a profound impact on writers, artists and illustrators, and, in the twentieth century, filmmakers.
Dude is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by Gerome Ragni and music by Galt MacDermot. It is an allegory about good and evil, the conflict between mankind's creative and destructive urges, the power of love, and the joy to be found in simple pleasures. Dude is an Everyman who loses his innocence and fights to regain it.
Up from Paradise is a musical with a novel and lyrics by Arthur Miller and music by Stanley Silverman.
Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. It also provides the basis for the doctrines of the fall of man and original sin that are important beliefs in Christianity, although not held in Judaism or Islam.
Robert "Bob" Bingham is a retired American actor and singer. Bingham is best known for playing the role of Caiaphas in Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar in the original Broadway cast and in the 1973 film version.
Our Lady of Endor Coven, also known as Ophite Cultus Sathanas, was a Satanic cult claimed to have been founded in 1948 by Herbert Arthur Sloane in Cleveland, Ohio, though some argue that it was not conceived of until 1968, after Sloane's contact with the Church of Satan. The group was heavily influenced by gnosticism, and worshipped Sathanas, their name for Satan. Sathanas, was defined in gnostic terms, as the Serpent in the Garden of Eden who revealed the knowledge of the true God to Eve. That it called itself "Ophite" is a reference to the ancient gnostic sect of the Ophites, who were said to worship the serpent. The "Lady of Endor" is a reference to the Witch of Endor. Sloane's Coven was first publicly documented in the middle of 1968, when British occult writer Richard Cavendish said that he had received a letter from a Satanist "lodge" in Toledo, Ohio and a 1967 interview with Sloane with a Toledo newspaper about his occult & fortune telling business made no mention of it. While current scholars of Satanism point out that there is no substantial evidence showing Our Lady of Endor Coven existing prior to 1966, some also point out that it is likely that his group did have roots prior to that time:
It seems probable the group was in existence before 1966, although I have not found any traces of it in literature prior to that date. Sloane himself suggested that he was already operating in the 1940s, but given the many parallels with Wicca the group displayed, it is more likely its date of origin must be located sometime after 1953, the year Gerald Gardner's neopagan cult of witchcraft came into the open.
Genesis: The Creation and the Flood is a 1994 television film shot in Morocco, directed by an Italian film director, renowned Ermanno Olmi. It is based on the Book of Genesis, first book of the Hebrew Bible, where creation of the world and Great Flood are described.
Stanley Silverman is an American composer, arranger, conductor and guitarist.