BIBLICAL DRAMA

Te Ao Hou, June 1961, Page 12

BIBLICAL DRAMA We found The Waters of Kidron to be a most suitable play. It was acted with professional skill. and in spite of its deficiencies, its religious theme was deeply significant to the children, partly because religion is the chief interest in the devoutly Mormon community and religious education is intensive. It was interesting to find, however, that in spite of the many hours devoted to religious study, few of the children knew the story of Judas. The Headmaster told it to the pupils at the community centre just before the play started. The chief action in the play was summarised with chilling exactitude in an essay by one of our fourth form pupils: “When Judas meets Anubis (a beautiful maiden devoted to the service of the Alexandrian Aphrodite) “he tells her he believes in one God only. Abubis tries to make him fall for her and think there are more Gods than one. Finally she succeeds. She then tries to find out how much money he has; in loving her so very much he becomes a traitor and helps to take Jesus away. When he returns he discovers that his so called sweetheart has gone to Rome with a soldier called Marcus. Knowing now that the money is of no more use to him, Judas goes mad and from that day to this many people say that Judas still roams the roads.” Naturally, Coppard's over-simplification did not worry the children who loved to see the accomplished acting on the stage—Anubis, beautiful, deceptive, and evil; Judas, stupid, also bad, and finally punished; the High Priest, an even greater villain, and Marcus, just a happy-go-lucky fellow.