Arts Listings

The Theater: TheatreFIRST’s Stunning Revival of ‘Nathan the Wise’

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Tuesday February 13, 2007

TheatreFIRST brings to the stage G. E. Lessing’s masterpiece, Nathan the Wise, the original play of ideas (and of religious and cultural toleration and understanding) in the modern sense at the Old Oakland Theatre in a witty and exhilarating production in Edward Kemp’s illuminating new translation. 

Nathan the Jewish merchant has been called before the sultan Saladin, reputedly a “virtuous infidel,” in Jerusalem. Expecting to be asked for a loan to finance the war against the invading Crusaders, Nathan instead is queried which religion of those of The Book is the true one—after all, he’s traveled widely and thought much, and is revered as The Wise. 

Uncomfortably on the spot, Nathan knows if he denies his own creed, he loses believability and face; if he exalts Judaism, or even Christianity, he might anger the Muslim sultan.  

Instead, he asks if the sultan would like to hear a story. “There’s always time to hear a story, if the storyteller’s good,” says Saladin.  

Nathan spins out the old parable, The Story of the Three Rings, of how a father bequeaths his ring to each of his three sons, who approach a magistrate after his death to settle who possesses the true ring, the true legacy. 

The magistrate’s judicious response is more than Solomonic, for though it demands the most from the litigants, it divides nothing. The sultan is profoundly impressed—and the much-befriended Nathan has acquired yet another friend. 

This vignette, and the Story of the Ring itself, are the jewel set in the midst of a playful, constantly shifting carousel of scenes that pose the same question as the ancient tale, as well as its various corollaries. 

Nathan’s daughter, Rachel, the light of his life, has been raised by a Christian woman. Rescued from a burning house by a Knight Templar—who has been captured, then mysteriously pardoned by Saladin—a budding romance between Rachel and her hero is on and off again, due to the knight’s abrupt moodiness, to tolerant Nathan’s strange balking at the match—and questions over Rachel’s actual lineage. 

In the background, there’s a conspiratorial Christian patriarch, a friar (the patriarch’s go-fer) with a warrior’s past and the sultan’s treasurer, formerly a dervish who played chess by the Ganges. 

The play’s set in the city sacred to all three faiths during a time of war and mistrust. Yet, “welcome to the land of miracles!” it is a utopic Jerusalem, in many ways the heavenly city, where opposition’s mysteriously recounciled, the hidden ways made plain.  

It’s also a comic, even satiric utopia. The manners and mores of all three confessions are hilariously put to the test, though never ridiculed. The dialogue excels in a droll repartee that is nonetheless rich in thoughtful implication and tempered with irony. 

Lessing, along with Diderot, is considered the founder of what became modern dramaturgy, breaking away from the academically classic drama of the mid-18th century and substituting for it a theater that could test ideas, could argue philosophical and social problems from the mouths of characters with interests like those they (and their audience) had in life—and constructed plays from a theory of the image that led to its more modern conceptions. 

What Diderot called “tableau,” Lessing referred to as “the Pregnant Moment.” 

And Nathan the Wise is rife with such moments, in which everything we’ve seen hinges on a question, a discovery, a true moment of intellectual and emotional tension and suspense. 

TheatreFIRST, a small, game troupe with high production standards and an ambitious, socially aware repetoire based on an internationalist perspective, has come close to outdoing itself with this show. 

The importance of such a play being staged at such a moment in a world overflowing with strife and suspicion on all sides is matched by the fine direction of Soren Oliver of a lively, perfectly cast ensemble. 

Their crystal-clear characterizations parade and speak on Jacquelyn Scott’s wonderful set that rises up from the earth tones of a chessboard floor to the fanciful geometric abstraction of the domes, spires and towers of a city in the desert. 

Will Huddleston as Nathan, Terry Lamb as Saladin (and the scheming patriarch), Megan Briggs as ingenue Rachel and Jessica Powell as Daya, her nurse; Christopher Maikish as the Templar, Sandra Schlechter as Saladin’s sister Sittah, and Clive Worsley as both grave friar and comic dervish—all deserve applause, both as performers of excellence and as excellent ensemble. 

Nathan the Wise, seldom produced, should be seen because of its importance and rarity and the timeliness of this staging. 

But also because TheatreFIRST, at the top of its game, is faced with a radical cut in funding, and possible disbanding after their next production in their best-programmed year, the eagerly-awaited revival of John Arden’s hit of the ‘60s, Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance this spring. 

They’ve made themselves the only company resident in downtown Oakland, with shows consistently thoughtful and entertaining; TheatreFIRST needs the kind of support that will guarantee a future they truly deserve.