THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THOMAS JEFFERSON, CHARLES DICKENS, AND COUNT LEO TOLSTOY: DISCORD
If you want the God’s honest real true gospel story, stop in to catch Washington Stage Guild’s latest production of Scott Carter’s - THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THOMAS JEFFERSON CHARLES DICKENS, AND COUNT LEO TOLSTOY: DISCORD.
These three eminents find themselves after death in a locked room (a No Exit situation, seemingly eternal but not specifically either heaven or hell) with the task to figure out why they are put together before that door will open.
What is given is that each has written his own gospel, extracting from the original four evangelists what fits his construct of ideas simmered by his personal quirks.
The rational Jefferson (Brit Herring), the sentimental Dickens (Peter Boyer), and the passionate Tolstoy ( Steven Carpenter) set about this task.
How will these three ever agree provides the format for a romp through the history of ideas. Fact checkers will be satisfied to know that many of the spoken lines in the quirky script are documented in these great men’s writings. Both believers and non-believers will be delighted
at the cleverness . Everyone will enjoy the comic ride.
The three great men are not unlike the rest of men, their private lives quite contradicting their
public persona. To play a bit with symbols, they must look in the murky mirror of who they really are before that stuck door will open to free them.
And when it does, in a flash the differences disappear and we all know at once why we are here—that is on earth and at this wonderful theater.
UNTIL APRIL 24, 2016 AT
The Undercroft Theatre of Mount Vernon Place
United Methodist Church
900 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC
For information and reservations, please call 240 582-0050 or email info@stageguild.org or go to www.stageguild.org