THE STORY: A stage manager, headset and prompt book at hand, brings the house lights to half, then dark, and cues the creation of the world. Throughout the play, she’s in control of everything. In other words, she’s either God, or she thinks she is. Act One recounts the major episodes of the Old Testament, only with a twist: Instead of Adam and Eve, our lead characters are Adam and Steve, and Jane and Mabel, a lesbian couple with whom they decide to start civilization (procreation proves to be a provocative challenge). Act One covers the Garden of Eden, an ark, a visit with a highly rambunctious Pharaoh and finally even the Nativity. Along the way, Mabel and Adam invent God, but Jane and Steve are skeptical. This brings about the Flood, during which Steve has a brief affair with a rhinoceros and invents infidelity. No longer blissful, Adam and Steve break up only to be reunited as two of the wise men at the Nativity. Act Two jumps to modern day Manhattan. Adam and Steve are together again, and Steve is HIV positive. It’s Christmas Eve, and Jane is nine months pregnant even though she always thought of herself as the butch one. The two women want to marry and want Adam and Steve to join them in the ceremony. A wheelchair-bound, Jewish lesbian Rabbi from cable access TV arrives to officiate. The ceremony is interrupted as Jane gives birth, and Steve confides to Adam that his medication isn’t working and that he’ll probably not survive much longer. Bound by their long life together, and the miracle of birth they’ve just witnessed, the two men comfort each other even though they know their remaining time together will be short.
“Line by line, Mr. Rudnick may be the funniest writer for the stage in the United States today…One-liners, epigrams, withering put-downs and flashing repartee: These are the candles that Mr. Rudnick lights instead of cursing the darkness, although he does a lot of cursing, too…a testament to the virtues of laughing…and in laughter, there is something like the memory of Eden.” —The New York Times.
“Funny it is…consistently, rapaciously, deliriously…easily the funniest play in town.” —Variety.
“…there is no one writing for the stage today who is capable of more acid quips or hilarious rejoinders than Rudnick…Even if there’s a part of you that will be chagrined by this play’s uncertain attitude toward religious beliefs, you will find yourself laughing uncontrollably throughout the evening.” —New York Daily News.
