Nathan the Wise

by Paul D'Andrea, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Nathan the Wise (originally written in German) is a play by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. It is a plea for religious tolerance, and its performance was forbidden by the church during Lessing's lifetime and later by the Nazis.

86 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Brynnan]

A jumbled mess of religious misunderstanding in an insipid, bland play form. Characters representing figures from many hundreds of years ago use modern idioms and behave in ways that reflect our modern mannerisms more than anything of the actual time. Telling a young Jewish girl of a wealthy merchant to go find a "handsome Christian prince" to marry. This is quite distracting: looks counted very little in those times, marriage was likely arranged at such high social echelons, and no Christian prince would, or legally could, marry a Jew, let alone a merchant's daughter. Young eligible women didn't leave home in search of husbands. Anyhow, these things could be overlooked, but not in this review because the modern behaviors reveal something deeper about the play. D'Andrea's rendition, at least, is simply a vessel to convey a modern politically correct message that unsurprisingly ends up bashing Christianity, slapping Islam on the wrist, and idolizing Judaism. Quite the modern outlook: diversity is welcome, unless you are a Christian. Freedom of thought, except to laugh out of the room those who hold firmly biblical views, and when you are laughed out, you will certainly hear behind you a spew of comments reflecting utter ignorance and folly regarding the Scriptures. "Jesus was the Prince of Peace, but these Christians act as if he were the King of War," a rough paraphrase. Yes, a He came to bring a sword, to divide people on the basis of truth, the very thing reflected in this anti-Christian play (granted that the Crusades were not a "Christian" thing to do). It reflects what I hear in University classes all the time: the assumption that Christianity is an effeminate religion, and nobody may open their eyes in a violent manner lest they break the Golden Rule or some other loosely quoted statement of Jesus, as if the entire Bible were confined to the four gospels and their understanding of Scripture is sufficient with a loose understanding of a handful of verses from them. But moving on, past the rather subjective take on the content, the flow and interest of the content is severely lacking. The play sounds like a script for a high school or middle school skit both in terms of the literary level and the sophistication and predictability of the events. Do not read this unless you are planning on holding a preschool drama club recital and desperately need material while at the same time have a grudge against Christianity needing some uninformed, rudimentary arguments in play form to express.

[Kalle Oskar]

D'Andrea does a nice job taking Lessing into the 21st century. The changes from Lessing are significant but will help a modern audience understand the play. We're scheduled to perform the play for the 2014 Messiah Festival, playing in the Sundstrom building, downtown Lindsborg, April 11 & 12 2014.