By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
In dreams begin responsibilities, and heartbreak, even if you are the Great Jehovah himself.
So when the creator declares at the beginning of the musical “Children of Eden” that he has had a dream of a wondrous paradise, and one where he will no longer be lonely, this will play out as a curse.
Horizon Youth Theatre’s production of “Children of Eden,” with music by Stephen Schwartz and book by John Caird, opens Friday, June 6, at 7 p.m. in the Grand Rapids Town Hall theater, 24282 Front St., Grand Rapids. The musical continues with performances Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. Click for tickets.
Directed by Cassie Greenlee, the young cast gamely takes on the challenge of the show — this is not a youth edition. Some of the score was trimmed for the cast of actors age 10-17, but they do not at all stint on the themes of the dangers of blind loyalty, the value of disobedience, and the disappointments that may come with following your dreams. (Click for full cast and crew listing.)
Liam Rogel takes on the role of Father. This part proves especially malleable. I have seen it played with full basso grandeur by an opera veteran and as a befuddled suburban dad.
Rogel plays up the Lord’s cluelessness. He seems more than ever to be creating on the fly. This creator has no master plan, just visions of wonder.
Central to his dream are his children Adam (Mona Foreman) and Eve (Calista Motisher). From the very beginning, Eve starts asking difficult questions that the all-knowing Father seems unable, or unwilling to answer. Adam is fully trusting in the Lord. Eve is curious.
When Eve says the animals are their children, Father assents, coyly. The couple soon have an awakening after sleeping together that there’s more to having children than Father let on.
Eve ventures to the Tree of Knowledge, which the Lord has forbidden Adam and Eve to even approach Why? Because he said so. They wouldn’t want to cause discord within their family.
At the tree, Eve encounters the snake (Zola Barnhill with a chorus of Izzie Milks, Greta Chung, Faith Henry, and Nadia Chung) who promises her the discovery of so much more wonder than she knows. Eve doesn’t just nibble the apple; she makes cider and strudel to serve to Adam, who is busy alphabetizing the names of the animals.
Eve already has a sense of her own spark of creation.
Father goes ballistic at her disobedience. For the good of the family he commands her to leave Eden. He mollifies a distraught Adam by promising him a new, and he hopes better and more obedient wife.
Adam, however, loves Eve and goes with her into the wilderness. There they continue to worship their creator and have faith that he will visit them and bring them back to paradise.
They have children of their own, in whom they, like Father, invest their dreams, and who like themselves shatter those dreams.
Aidan Thomas as Cain and Jonah Truman as Abel display a fine sense of brotherly chemistry, fake fighting and challenging each other.
Cain wants to go off and explore but Abel opts to stay behind. And despite from a visit from Father, Cain persists with tragic results.
The Second Act picks up the story much begetting later.
Noah has been charged with building an ark in preparation for his destroying the world, in particular the descendants of Cain. Noah and his family are from the line of Seth, Adam and Eve had after the death of Abel.
Noah (Foreman) equivocates. Is this necessary?
The Lord insists, nagging Noah like a dad with a malingering teenage son. Noah pleads about the difficulty securing “gopher” wood. They had supply chain issues, even then.
Father is also impatient that Noah hasn’t found a wife yet for his youngest son Japheth (Aidan Thomas). Noah’s leaving it up to the young man to choose, and then he will give his blessing. Father is dubious.
Sure enough Japheth has selected family servant Yonah (Juliet Erekson), who bears the mark of Cain. She will not be allowed to join the elephants, rattlesnakes, tigers, frogs and the rest on the ark. Yet she is resigned, singing she is used to being a “Stranger in the Rain.”
Japheth in the spirit of Eve hides her in a remote space in the ark. When the others, bewildered why the rain hasn’t stopped after 40 days and nights, with their provisions running so low they are pushed to considering eating some of their animal passengers, discover Yonah, they reason she is the reason.
The family argues for throwing her overboard and Japheth saying they will need to do the same to him. Noah decides to act contrary to Father’s will. And the dove (Quinn Schneider), whom Yonah dispatched, returns with the sign of a renewing earth.
This leads to Mama Noah (Motisher) singing a rousing gospel number praising all creation. Motisher uses a mic as she leads her congregation of cast members.
Throughout most of the show, though, the cast is not amplified, and yet they project and articulate each line, sung or spoken, with clarity. They animate those words and bring an understanding to those sentiments that belies their age. The kids of Horizon Youth make “Children of Eden” their own.
