From Nathan the Wise

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Nathan the Wise by U of C Dept of Drama
University Theatre
Tuesday, February 19 - Saturday, March 1

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The Middle East situation has a nasty tendency to show up unannounced, like a down-on-his-luck uncle, in the parts of your life where you'd least expect it. I wonder if there's anything immediately relevant to me on the news? Middle East situation. Let's see if I get to eat or fill up my gas tank this week — sorry, that gas price is in yen, correct? Middle East situation. Hey guys, you want to pop around the corner for some Vietnamese food? Nope, sorry man, we'd rather sit here and get our heads around this Middle East situation.

Now, the Middle East situation is invading — sorry, “liberating” — the University of Calgary's drama department. Its latest production, Nathan the Wise, tells the story of a wizened Jewish merchant who spreads a message of peace, love and happiness amongst Muslims, Christians and Jews during the third Crusade. It's a bit of Lennonism to be certain, but director Dr. Barry Yzereef believes that sometimes love really is all you need. Or, if you're fresh out, tolerance will do.

“You have to be careful with the word 'tolerance,'” says Yzereef. “It's almost a condescending term. What you're really after is acceptance and the embracing of 'the other.' You don't hate them because they have different viewpoints. In fact, you listen to them and sometimes adapt your viewpoints because they might be right on something you might be incorrect on.”

Despite its ancient setting, Yzereef and his company of students have gone to great lengths in order to ensure the performance is relevant. So, while the play opens during the third Crusade, as it moves along, the costumes, sets and music all slowly update, until the audience eventually arrives in the present. “In my community in Egypt, I had Christian friends, and I know one Jewish person,” says Amira Abdrabo, the production's set designer. “From our perspective, we are in the same thing from those crusades until now.”

“We were trying to convey Lessing's ideas but also provide commentary on them [through the production design],” says Yzereef. “I don't want to give too much away, but we play around with the imagery we use that shows the company, and myself and [Abdrabo] have our own interpretation of what Lessing was trying to say and how successful that message has been.”

Much of Nathan the Wise's message hinges upon a meta-story known as the “Ring Parable.” In it, an heirloom ring that possessed the power to make its wearer look favourable in the eyes of God had passed down through a family, always from the father to his favourite son. Eventually, the ring comes to a fickle man who can't decide which is the favourite of his three boys, so he has two duplicates made. On his deathbed, he gives each of them a ring, and they squabble over which is the true ring. They take the rings to a wise judge and ask which is the real one. The judge admonishes them that each will have to live such that their ring's powers prove to be true. In the play, Nathan compares the moral of this story to religion generally — each of us lives by a religion as taught to us by those we respect.

“I think the conclusion for everyone in the company is Lessing's: there is hope for us,” says Yzereef. “If we really boil it down to the original foundation of what religion is about, we're all after the same thing, but something can always get in the way if we don't use our reason.”