Over a period of about two weeks, I spent a number of evenings with five wonderful people from the Saltmine theatre company on a joint Wycliffe UK and Saltmine production called ‘From Eden to Eternity’. You can see the promotional trailer here if you’ve not seen it already (though it’s too late now as the tour is over – at least for now).
The play itself was terrific. Obviously it couldn’t cover the whole Bible story in an hour, there is just too much to cram into such a short time. However, it started with creation and made it’s way to the book of Revelation, taking in a lot of Genesis, snatches of the prophets, bits of the Gospels and the conversion of Paul on the way. The play was funny, challenging and full of pathos all at the same time. I’m sure that many of the people who saw it were challenged to go home and read the Bible again – which is fantastic. We also had lots of people who contributed to a Wycliffe project in Nigeria, which we were happy about. (If you would like to contribute to Wycliffe you can do so here).
I must admit, that after I had seen the performance for the fifth time, it was losing it’s novelty. I could sing along with the songs and could perhaps even have danced the dances…
But even on the last evening, I was completely blown away by the hard work and professionalism of the theatre company. Each performance finished at around nine thirty in the evening and then the company of five had to dis-assemble the set, load everything into the van ready for an early start the next morning to get off to the next venue. Before each performance they would review what they were doing and suggest little changes or alternative ways to express things. It was fascinating to watch the way in which they went about doing their job: every stage was different and every venue had its challenges. In the pictures below you can see that in one venue they could not stand up on the platform because of a projector – so they all had to kneel.
But the really impressive thing was the way in which they were really concerned that those who attended the performance should experience a blessing from God and that God himself would be glorified in their performance. Actors are supposed to be a narcissistic bunch, self-obsessed bunch. These guys were exactly the opposite and it was a privilege to work with them.
3 replies on “Eden To Eternity in Retrospect”
[…] Eddie was involved in several of the 15 events around the UK, and has just written some thoughts about the tour… The play itself was terrific. Obviously it couldn’t cover the whole Bible story in an hour, there is just too much to cram into such a short time. However, it started with creation and made it’s way to the book of Revelation, taking in a lot of Genesis, snatches of the prophets, bits of the Gospels and the conversion of Paul on the way. The play was funny, challenging and full of pathos all at the same time. I’m sure that many of the people who saw it were challenged to go home and read the Bible again – which is fantastic. We also had lots of people who contributed to a Wycliffe project in Nigeria, which we were happy about. (If you would like to contribute to Wycliffe you can do so here). read more […]
I completely agree with what Eddie has said about the Saltmine team. They did a fantastic job and were a great bunch to work with.
Updated the Wycliffe UK website yesterday to include a review of the performance, http://wycliffe.org.uk/fromedentoeternity.html, plus you can now give to the project ‘From Eden to Eternity’ was supporting online. Only, it’s now disappeared from the front page of the website!