To prepare The Fall of Man for performance in front of our Literature in Drama class at the University of Puget Sound, we decided that our first task should be to cast ourselves into the play. Since there were four of us, and there are five roles in the play, we chose to cut the role of the "Angel" rather than double cast somebody. (After some minor adjustments, we gave the "Angel's" few lines to "God.") Jessica preferred the least amount of lines, so she was given the role of "God." Jennifer wanted to be "Eve", and since Jon was the only man in our ensemble, he accepted the role of ""Adam"." That left me as "Satan", which made both supernatural characters portrayed by women.
Besides playing "Satan", I was given the task of blocking and designing our version of The Fall of Man. My first request was for a modern translation of the play. The Oxford University Press's version, although in "modern spelling", still tripped up our tongues too much for our satisfaction. For costumes, we wore graduation robes. "God" wore white, "Satan" wore black. ""Adam"" and "Eve" wore both colors, black and then the white one over it. Each color symbolized the obvious. Black = bad, white = good.
"Satan" was also given a symbolic stance at the beginning of the play. In order to make the Tree look fuller, "Satan" stood on a chair behind "God", backs touching, with her arms up in the air. I decided that this symbolically stood for "Satan's" desire to be like "God", but even though she mimicked "God", she was still only behind "God", a shadow. "Adam" and "Eve" were pre-blocked to sit as close to the right side of the Tree as possible, representing their closeness to "God."
All of this blocking help set up character intention. "God", as the Tree, was in the center of the wagon set, the center of our "Garden of Eden." "God", although silent through much of the play, was therefore able to see and hear everything in the "Garden."
Because "Satan" could only, at best, play second to "God" and his creation-mankind-, she was angry. Therefore she was propelled to give her soliloquy at the beginning of the play which detailed a plan of revenge by "disrupting God's plan / And (taking) woman from man." During her soliloquy, "Satan" has walked away from her role as the backside of "God" (Tree). She approaches "Eve", yet never crosses completely over the path in front of the tree, there by staying on the "damned" left side of "God." "Eve" remains on the right, and she never crosses over to the left. But when "Satan" gives her the apple, they both pluck it from "God's" hand together, implying "Satan's" forceful role in leading man to his fall from grace.
"Eve" is thoroughly naive throughout the length of the play. This becomes obvious because not only is she somewhat easily tricked by "Satan", but her reaction to eating the apple is very pleasant, especially when compared to "Adam's" reaction when he tastes the apple. "Eve" is excited when she eats, perhaps knowledge tastes good to her. But when "Adam" eats, he immediately feels shameful and drops the apple to the floor. He blames "Eve", and she transfers the fault to "the worm." At this time, "Satan" has already retreated to the opposite side (the left side) of the wagon set. "Adam" and "Eve", in order to hide their nakedness, move farther away from the Tree, from God, and place themselves to the extreme right of the wagon set. There they crouch in shame.
"God", who has witnessed the whole episode, calls on "Adam". "Adam" stands, and cannot see "God" anymore. "Eve" also stands when she is addressed, and also cannot see "God." When they are banished, they let the white robes fall to the ground, revealing the black ones underneath. This symbolizes both their fall from grace and their loss of innocence. As "Adam" speaks his last lines, they leave the wagon set, representing their banishment from "Eden."
The Fall of Man is a short play, and our version only took us five minutes to perform. Some lines did draw laughs. ("Eve's" reply to "Adam's","My body is naked and bare" was "Oh Adam, so am I", which made the whole class laugh.) All in all, we felt that we pulled off a successful performance-even if it was nowhere near authentically blocked.