Gaia? More like goodbye-a!

A few days ago, my friend and I performed Eric Samuelsen’s one-act play, called Gaia. Our “performance” was really just a cold read of the play—I thought it would be more fun to read the play out loud with someone than inwardly by myself—and our “acting” was obscured by the first-time discovery of what we were reading. We tried to hide our emotions as we told the story of Lucifer and Eve in the preexistence, of Lucifer’s disgust with the unfairness of God’s plan, of Eve trying to persuade Lucifer to come to Earth with her, and of God’s own life as a mortal before all of this happened.

          In the grand tradition of Mormon literature, Samuelsen himself has amazingly recorded what he himself thinks the preexistence was like! His additions to the concept include ideas about Lucifer could have been the first man on earth, or how God's own mortality was provincial and short. I’m not going to criticize how stale of an idea this whole play is; sure, it’s been done, but people should write about what they want to write about. I don’t know why so many authors think that their Mormonism only extends as far as The Fall of Adam and Eve, but hey—Milton’s Paradise Lost didn’t go any further. Maybe someday we’ll have a Milton who can tell that story in a new, permanent way.

          What instead bothers me about Gaia is its total ignorance of technique, form, irony, and gravity. My friend and I reveled in the chance to ham up the play’s two emotions: scorn (Lucifer) and lachrymosity (Eve). That one-dimensionality combined with total sincerity made lines like “Engage with me!” and “It could have been you” ring with bathos. (Our audience was keeled over for most of the play.) Could Samuelsen not have come up with less operatic dialogue?

          And why is this story even a play at all? Reading it out loud made me realize how much this story doesn’t need a theater, a stage, props, or a congregation. It could have worked just as well (and appeared less ludicrous) as a short story, or—goodness me—an essay! But this inattention to aesthetic is Samuelsen’s plague; it’s clear that Gaia is not interested in creating art, but in serving as a vehicle for Samuelsen’s own ideological convictions.
          In short: I'd give it a 24%, a lead medal, a 2 out of 10 iPods. Go see it only if there is no other play showing in your city.

The Immediateness of Eternity

Photo by NASA

The Latter-day Saint community has begun to put to stage some of the most unique doctrines we have, adding to their possibilities by characterizing undefined moments within our eternal chronology. In Eric Samuelson's Gaia, we take a glimpse into the final moments before Adam and Eve are put on Earth. In a simple conversation between Gaia (eventually Eve) and Lucifer (eventually Satan), we are shown the LDS belief in the preexistence, divine parentage, divine potential, the fallen angel, agency, female role and influence, and the creation.

So how can so many theological concepts be placed within one conversation, in one play? Samuelson achieves it by having the conversation between Lucifer and Gaia. One of the first thing Gaia says is that she is the lead engineer of Earth. Wait . . . a woman helped with the creation? She wasn't ex-nihilo? A woman? Some might find even these implications shocking, but to an LDS audience, these concepts are familiar. But even so, Samuelson provides a reality and closeness to his characters that is very rarely felt, even among LDS communities.

Gaia and Lucifer talk like a brother and sister, appropriate since they are. But what is truly startling, is that Lucifer is frustrated, frightened, logical. He feels unjustly dealt with and while we expected all of those characteristics in Satan, he doesn't yet know he will be the devil. This puts him in an interesting position, especially in relation to our perspective on him since he is currently exercising his agency, not just trying to destroy us with ours.

At one point in the play, Lucifer references "Father's" mortal sojourn, alluding to one of the most unique and deep LDS doctrine's best summed up in Lorenzo Snow's couplet of our divine potential and eternal progression: "As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be." The moment in which Samuelson projects the type of person God may have been, we feel an immediateness of eternity, a reality to our doctrines. Gaia is truly a fascinating experience, whether LDS or not, showcasing our beliefs in a very palpable way.