DRAFT 10/1/08

GOD FOR PRESIDENT

ESSAY read:

This project sprung from my own curiosity about American’s and Religion. I was curious out of ignorance, and what I discovered was how ignorant I really was.

I started with a broad idea—perhaps too broad. But as time went on, I realized that what this play was going to be about was my generation. These focuses simply sprung up out necessity—political and generational. Blah, blah, more, blah.

Scene One: Origins
(Lights Out. Projector turns on. Media montage of different images. As montage goes in silence, music begins, and then in the darkness.)

Lauriann
I’m from Detroit, Michigan.

Kyle
Born in Boston, Massachusetts.

Heather
Topeka, Kansas.

Sarah N
I was born in Rinton, Washington. Lived in Oklahoma.

Brooke
Las Vegas, Nevada.

Sarah N
Colorado for a few years. West Virginia. New Hampshire. Connecticut.

Jana
Provo, Utah. Pason, Utah. Genola, Utah.

Adam
I was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Christian
Rochester, Minnesota.

Adam
My ancestry is from England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Mexican, and the Mexican has some Jewish again—they came to Mexico to escape the Spanish inquisition.

Sierra
Rexburg, Idaho. My dad is from Chihuahua, Mexico. And my mom is from Idaho Falls.

Sarah F
I’m from Westward, Massachusetts. I was born in Cambridge.

Leticia
I’m from Arizona. Thatcher, Arizona.

James
I’m from Columbus, Ohio. My mother’s mother grew up in Mexico. My mother’s father is from India. My father’s mother is from California. My father’s father was born in Minnesota, but his father was from Romania and Jewish.

Scene Two: Fliers

(Lights begin to come up slowly on a tableu of the actors. The set is comprised of chairs. The video montage continues. Two or three individuals begin to pass out fliers. Other individuals mingle with each other, talking about work or classes or music or movies.)

PERSON A
Here take a flyer.

PERSON B
God for President.

PERSON A
Here.

PERSON C
Thanks.

PERSON D
God for President? Are you serious?

PERSON C
Yeah, she’ll be great.

(Kyle steps out of group and goes to other lighted area.)

Kyle (as Eric)
I think your generation is much more cynical about politics than mine ever was. I know that’s true in relation to the Iraq war. You guys really genuinely don’t think about the Iraq war anywhere near as much as my generation thought about Vietnam. We also had the constant anxiety of the draft looming over our heads. But I think in part you guys are really way more media savvy than we ever were. You assume as a matter of course that all political ads are lies, that all political speeches are fundamentally untruthful. I don’t want to say that you guys aren’t partisan, or that you’re ill-informed. I just think that you process politics differently than we do.

(James steps out of group and into other lighted area.)

PERSON B
Yeah we’re serious.

PERSON E
Whose god is this?

JAMES
I was thinking, and we were talking, about the way that religion used to be a much more all encompassing world view and that now, everybody exists in multiple cultures and narratives and ways of seeing things. But particularly, I mean, in America where democracy where is a strong part of our tradition and our way of seeing things and partisan democracy is an important element of that. People are trying to bring their spirituality, religion, whatever articulately and overtly into their political philosophy. Which is only natural, because it used to be that religion was politics, religion was economics, religion was everything!

PERSON A
They’ll be a debate.

PERSON F
The American President?

PERSON A
Primetime. The info’s on the flyer.

PERSON B
Yes, the American President.

PERSON C
Which party?

PERSON A
(simultaneously)
Democrat.

PERSON B
(simultaneously)
Republican.

Kyle (as Eric)
Okay, and this is so obvious I feel stupid saying it, but technology. You guys are just intuitively more comfortable with technology than we’ll ever be.

JAMES
When you’re set up in a partisan dichotomy, you start drawing on the kind of God that fits your half of a political philosophy. One of the classic halves of God we talk about in Christianity is God’s justice, God’s mercy. How many times have you heard Jesus reduced to one over the other, especially in a political sort of context or a liberal vs. conservative religious argument? You get this icon of Jesus as the poster boy of ultimate tolerance, unconditional love, etc, which he is! But then you filter out the side of Jesus that is justice, that’s strictness, that’s a whole different thing—that’s sometimes an alarming strict preservation of values.

(During this last monologue, fliers have been scattered around the stage, and people have rearranged themselves, some exiting and some creating the next scene.)

JAMES
What gets left out…what gets left out is…everything else that God is.

Scene Three: Idealogy

(The chairs on the stage have been rearranged to look like a classroom. Actors sit in chairs. James and Kyle join them or exit. Person A goes to spotlight area. On the screen it says: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his inheritance.” Complete Psalms 33:12)

PERSON A (as Katherine)
You ask me this question: “What is America’s Relationship with God”, which by the way, is a huge question. A question I don’t think any of us can accurately answer. First off, you have to acknowledge the role that religion played in the formation of America—or more accurately, the formation of America’s ideologies. Ideologies we still adhere to today.

(“Students” stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.)

STUDENTS
I Pledge Allegiance to the Flag of the Unites States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

PERSON A
And of course, I think it’s vitally important that we study and acknowledge what preceded us. What made us who we are…I have a theory. No matter the role that God played in our formation, or how influential He actually is today…I just don’t think it’s “under one God” we stand.

HISTORICAL MOMENT
(What this means is there will be a quote or information about founding fathers, past presidents, historical moments, etc. That will mirror or juxtapose to everything else that is said here. They will be read as “reports” by the students in the classroom. I have a lot of them, I’m just in the middle of sourcing them.)

PERSON A
Everyone has their own god. It’s a democratic nation, which gives the power, in essence, to the people. Liberty allows for people to create their own niche…and the economy necessitates they create their own niche, if they want their voice to be heard. So in a round about way, endless freedom leads to specialization, not just in career, but in personality. So, everyone has the opportunity to create their own god, or discover some pre-existing one they relate well to.

HISTORICAL MOMENT

PERSON A
For example. Swimming. Maybe your god is swimming. Or your god is the Politics—TV, the latest sitcom. Your passion is academia—it becomes your god. The arts especially create a cult-like following, Theatre. Music. Pop-culture and Entertainment. You may all be the same religion—in fact I would say the majority of American’s are Protestant Christians—but you have completely different gods.

HISTORICAL MOMENT

PERSON A
So when you say, “God for President”, whose god are you talking about?
(Beat. Change of the slide.)
And maybe that’s essentially what we’re asking in every election. Vote for me, whether I be Democrat, Republican, Black, White, Women, Obama, McCain, Clinton, Palin, Bidan, Nader—whoever, whatever. Vote for me, and I’ll be your god, or at least I will represent what your God is, and who your God is.

HISTORICAL MOMENT

PERSON A
And…maybe that’s why, you can’t separate religion and politics…in this country. Because what you believe absolutely dictates who you believe in.

HISTORICAL MOMENT

PERSON A
You can’t say “God for President”…He, or She, wouldn’t win…unless you find America a God that is everything Democracy and Freedom allow Him to be.

(The students disperse. Person A exits.)

Scene Four: Apathy

(Person B exits students and goes to differently lighted area on stage.)

Person B
My best friend’s Valedictorian speech went over all of our heads. Some thought she was showing off how intelligent she was and were angry about it, but most just said they didn’t get it. Which is a real tragedy, because I asked her about it afterwards, and she said that she was talking about apathy. There’s a chance that this generation—our generation—will be inundated with so much, have access to so much…in order to process it all, we will simply let go and become apathetic.

Person C
Would you say that’s why there are atheists?

Person D
I don’t think we’re apathetic. It think we’re confused.

Person E
Or cynical.

Person A
Maybe I was wrong about the apathy thing—but our weird obsessions maybe can look like we don’t care about what really matters.

Person D
No, okay, maybe we are apathetic. But maybe that’s a result of our confusion.

Person C
I was being harsh about the atheists—I’m sorry. But don’t you think it’s laziness?

Person E
Laziness results in Apathy. Apathy results in Athiests.

Person B
Well, it’s not as clear cut as that.

Person D
Okay, okay—all of us here think, we study, we take ourselves seriously, maybe too seriously. So it’s this hybrid of confusion, pessimism and obsessive optimism.

Person B
I think you’re missing the point. I just think it will be easy for us to get shoved under some title, some label—the “Harry Potter” generation, the youtube, apple, blogging, google generation—and we won’t care.

Person C
We’ll care. We do care. We care a lot.

Person E
We just don’t take the labels that seriously maybe. We don’t care about the labels.

Person B
Okay. Maybe the apathy is really moral relativism, and maybe that moral relativism is just tolerance.

Person D
We are talking way to much about something that doesn’t really matter.

Person C
That’s our generation—we can talk your ear off about nothing for hours.

Person E
The school system trained us to do that.

Person B
Or maybe it’s a lack of God in our life.

Person D
I think it’s dangerous to try to summarize anything—even putting a lable on our generation, or try to put words in our mouth. The “voice” of our generation isn’t going to be found in conversations like this.

Person B
I was just talking about…apathy. And you know, the valedictorian speech.

Person D
Maybe she had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.

(Person B-E freeze, or lights shift to two students still in the classroom.)

PERSON F
Did you ever hear the story of the zen master? There was a zen master who lived in a village. In the village, a man owned a horse. Then one day the horse ran away and all the villages said "Oh no, this is terrible!" But the zen master said, "We'll see." Then, the man's horse returned with a heard of females and all the people rejoiced saying "oh this is wonderful." But then zen master said, "we'll see." Then the man's son was riding the horse and fell off, breaking his leg, and again the villages said, "Oh no, this is terrible."
But the zen master said, "We'll see."But then on day the army came through and conscripted every able bodied young man, except for the boy, and everyone in the village said, "Oh this is wonderful." But the zen master said, "We'll see." I could go on, but I think you catch the drift.

PERSON G
Okay...how does it end?

PERSON F
We'll see.

Scene Five: Freedom of Religion

(On the screen: “We claim the privilege of worshipping the Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.” LDS Article of Faith #11)

Person A
“Men have conceived not only of elves, but they have imagined gods, and worshipped them, even worshipped those most deformed by their authors’ own evil. But they have made false gods out of other materials: their notions, their banners, their monies; even their sciences and their social and economics theories have demanded human sacrifice. Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.” J.R.R. Tolkien

Person B
The theoretical separation of church and state in America has really fostered a unique religious culture. You of course have the legitimately faithful, that because they have this freedom are able to choose to be faithful in any way they so choose. You also have those that use their "faith" to achieve their own gains, and it is also because of this freedom that they too are able to do so. While it can be considered deplorable for them to do so, to disallow them this freedom would go against our constitutional foundation. This relationship could really be considered either positive or negative, and in my opinion the positive greatly outweighs the negative.

Person C
What is the relationship of god and Americans? Frankly, I don't think anyone can really tell you, as no one, in my opinion, has the cranal capacity to even get close to what god thinks. though, if I were to use His thoughts and actions that have been translated into our cranal capacity (i.e., bible), then I'd say he would be upset that we have forgotten to love thy neighbor and help the poor, before any other critisism. Because, once again in my opinion, god only has love, and thats what he tried to make us feel

Person B
God can be seen everywhere in all aspects of life in the United States. He's in our politics (ironic), our television, and our everyday lives as faithful believers. I think that it is the unique freedom of religion that we have that allows this.

>>>MORE of a montage of people’s different beliefs (particularly people our age) and why they believe what they believe. This includes discussions that people have sent me and interviews I’ve had. The thruline, or thread that weaves the entire thing should be visual—symbolic. While people share their accepting and differing opinions, people should tear up pieces of paper (like the audition piece with Christian, Ari, and Lauriann), or be acting out scenes from previous history/persecution.

To be Continued/What’s to Come:

>>A scene of differing monologues about the future: A line of chairs is on the stage and a number of people say individual words “hope, isolation, privileged, etc.” and then they go into a monologues about the future they see for their children, while someone sings, or they all sing “America the Beautiful” in the background.

>>the third verse of the “Star Spangled Banner” will be sung.

>>While a video of fireworks plays, people tell alternating stories between 9/11, identity, and American holidays.

>>A debate, or an expectation of God arriving for the debate.

>>A Testimony of America>how America, or the idea thereof is a religion in and of itself. Talk about the lost faith in the Presidency, the economy, the war, etc, but we don’t talk about doubting the system itself (by and large) but rather ask for a change using the system. This conversation, or scene will be juxtaposed with the “European Athiesm I attribute to experience” and “They see us as children.” We have a deep faith in this constitution, and the system the founding father’s set up.

>>Manifest Destiny: Juxtaposed against historical evidence that shows how America has perceived itself in days past, how this has affected politics, etc. This should also be a montage of various “did you knows” that inform and shed light on American’s perception of themselves across the nation.

>>Identity, again, but talking about liking and disliking your Mother Nation (America) and how that changed or didn’t change—the embarrassment, the humility, the anger, or the indifference. Juxtapose this with Heather’s conversion story.

>>Theatre as a replacement to the religious experience and God.

>>Education, Economics, Private vs. Public, and Ridiculous new religions.

>>Apocalypse-how every niche or “god group” has their own version of how the world will end, and what that means for our generation and the future.

>>The Religious Experience—get more specific about the things that people do really find as spiritual, or the things that connect them either to each other or a higher power. Stories. Bring in America’s nature, and how America allows for all these things to take place—a variety of ideas and thoughts.

>>Mormonism—the “American” religion

>>Diversity—the PEW study—the demographics of America—and our effort for representation. All this ties into the idea of a “God for President”>if it is the God of our imaginations, would He heal the wounds? Are their wounds to heal? What would the policies of the Presidency be? And would it be a fair representation.

**Someone was quoted in the Daily Universe as saying, “I would rather have an idiot for a President than a Man without integrity.” I don’t know how I feel about that.

>>HOW SHOULD IT END?!?!?!?!?

With a question. A call to arms. A banner. A testimony of both religion and America. A herald of Hope. A “I can believe. I must believe.” And a song.

And a dance. And a marriage.

No, but seriously, someone talking about how much they do love America, how they are proud, and cautious, how they are cautious of rhetoric, but recognize the power of words. How they may believe in God, or not, but is it not best to at least understand? With a question, asking again, what are we doing? How do we see ourselves? How have we seen ourselves, and how will we? Are we on the axle of history? Or on the cusp?

Diatribe: The first thing I asked myself during 9/11 is “what will I tell my kids?” I had contextualized everything in the form of stories, in the form of a narrative. It was live TV of tragedy—it was media-ized and only so removed from the real. We are all too aware of our place in the present, as I was on that day. Though as years have gone by, I have become all the more conscious of my own identity, of our own history, I realize I still ask the same question: “what will I tell my kids?” as if there is a legacy of storytelling, passing down from generation to generation. Where is this generation—where am I?—in this chapter of our countries heritage. What brought us here in the first place? What made us American? What makes an American tomorrow? And why does it matter so much? Along that same vein, I believe what a person believes, or does not believe defines a portion of their personality, perhaps their entire personality, and certainly their identity. So I continue to ask these questions.

GOD FOR PRESIDENT

Welcome to the Blog for "God for President"!

I will be posting the updated play here every time we make a change. This way you can read it, makes changes, and suggestions, and even add your own thoughts about what we discuss here.

Don't forget the Performances:

The Provo Theatre Company

Oct 24 7:30
Oct 25 2:30
Oct 25 7:30
Oct 27 7:30

$7 ($5 for students and seniors)

Invite your friends, yourself, and your pesky neighbors!

And check back to make comments on the play! We should have our first draft by tomorrow night!

Thanks,
Katherine