Children of Eden
As the song from Dreamgirls mentioned, Cadillac Palace Theatre presented a "One Night Only production of 1991 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by John Caird, Children of Eden. The two-act musical is based on the Book of Genesis, with Act I telling the story of the first humans, Adam and Eve, and their children Cain, and Abel, while Act II deals with Noah, his wife, and children, ending with God's wrath over the evil of mankind with the Flood.
Children of Eden's storyline of family and love, where we see the beginning of a conflicting relationship between parent and child, includes how Adam and Eve, God's first created humans disobeyed the father; God demands not to eat from The Tree of Good and Evil. Just like the separation of church and state, Children of Eden separates theater and religion with this presentation loosely based on the Biblical Book of Genesis — and the key word here is loosely. In a concert-style presentation where the cast read their lines from the script on stage, The Children of Eden describes the account from the bible that depicts the story of creation through the epic of Noah's flood starts an impressive 3D visual look at how God created, humankind, the world, and aminals.
The music, songs, and singing this night were fantastic. The cast features the incredible Michelle Williams, the phenomenal voice of David Phelps and Randel Keith, with great singing from Sam Tsui and Koryn Hawthorne. I also enjoyed hearing the cast of singers that sang within the auditorium's outer aisle and when the entire cast sang "In The Beginning" at the play's climax.
However, I was disturbed by how Grammy, Academy, and Tony Award winner Schwarts, writer of hit musicals like Godspell and Wicked, and Caird, who has written many books on religion, depict God. They describe God as a very ill-tempered, cruel, and unforgiving creator whom men have to help Him become a benevolent father. The musical has 37 songs and is nearly three hours long, and in my judgment, it is about forty-five to an hour too long — and with our neighbors snoring through most of the second act, we saw that many of our surrounding guests fell asleep.
Although many non-Christians may enjoy the themes of family and love, Christians like me understand why Children of Eden has had very little theatrical success. Its antagonistic views of God and loose interpretation of creation, where it seems to idolize the goodness of men, unfortunately, misrepresent the biblical story of Genesis.
I would love to see a representation of Children of Eden that follows Genesis more closely to its scriptures — and I have to admit I'm not historically knowledgeable if a closer interpretation existed. With thirty-one years and thousands of production already created, I'm sure some local churches have tackled this assignment to purify its message and meaning. However, its success, or lack thereof, with theater audiences will be based more on this version of Children of Eden. I'm sad to say.
With all that said, you may consider me slightly biased; however, I still feel that this production, with its excellent beginning and grand ending with outstanding singing and musical score, will delight audiences unfamiliar with the true story of creation. That's the joy of being a theater critic. We all have different opinions, and you, the reader, get to read many reviews where you can make a somewhat reasonable decision about whether a play or musical is worthy of attending — because the real critic is you!
See you in the theater!
Children of Eden
Cadillac Palace Theater
