"The Holy Ghost over the bent world broods," Hopkins tells us, but one place we might not expect Him is in the world of drama.
Theater often has a questionable reputation, Dr. Peter Kreeft writes in his new book, God on Stage: 15 Plays that Ask the Big Questions: “The institution of the theater has turned almost 180 degrees from religious to irreligious.”
Yet God’s presence unexpectedly is manifest in many of the greatest theater plays. If you’ve ever had an interest in the overlap of theater and faith, you won’t be able to put down God on Stage.
In God on Stage, renowned author and professor Peter Kreeft explores 15 great dramas and, within them, five great themes: life, death, suffering, religion, and damnation.
From classics like Oedipus the King and Hamlet to modern plays like Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons and Cormac McCarthy’s The Sunset Limited, Kreeft draws vivid lessons on the big questions we all ask ourselves.
The things we long for
Kreeft masterfully reveals the profound themes in the plays, themes that show us what it means to be human.
These 15 dramas, he writes, “will show you great gobs of the things that you, like every other member of the human species, long for most deeply and passionately: truth, goodness, and beauty and the joy in beauty.”
Watching these played out before our eyes, often in contrast to their opposites and enemies, helps us to appreciate them more keenly.
God is the playwright
Above all else, God on Stage unveils God’s role as creator of our lives: “A God-created universe is like an enormous and endlessly amazing work of art, and everything in a work of art reveals the artist,” Kreeft explains.
The divine artist reveals Himself in the dramas of our lives by the setting, the plot, the characters, and the theme. But what are the themes, the setting, and the plot of the drama in which we all act as characters in the cosmic story God is writing?
Part of that is still being uncovered for us — but we can understand it better and see the Holy Spirit at work through the great plays explored in God on Stage.
