Background

The story of Jacob and Esau is a pivotal moment in the story of the Jewish people. As told in Genesis, it begins with twins struggling in the womb. As youths, Jacob, the younger brother, coerces the famished Esau into selling his birthright for a bowl of red pottage. Later, with the help of their mother Rebecca, Jacob steals the blessing which their father, Isaac, had reserved for his eldest and favorite son. Jacob then flees the wrath of his brother and does not see him again for twenty years. On the night before this fateful meeting, there is a famous episode in which an angel comes to Jacob's tent in the night and wrestles with him until daybreak. Triumphant, Jacob demands a blessing from his opponent, who blesses him and gives him the name Israel. Thus it is from this moment that Jews trace the spiritual vigor of their faith and their origins as a people.

Esau, cheated and betrayed by his younger brother, does not kill him on meeting him the following morning but forgives him, embracing him with kisses and tears. Yet, through the ages Esau has been reviled like no other figure in the Bible. He has come to represent everything that Israel is not - sensuality, brutishness, irreverence, betrayal. This visceral rejection of Esau is mysterious, and points to something deep in the heart of the religion - perhaps of all religions. Even more mysterious, Esau keeps reappearing in the stories of the Bible - the hairy, red hunter, the sensualist, the eldest son who is passed over, the traitor, the oppressor, the goat. Jewish rabbinical tradition identifies him with Rome, but if you read carefully, you find traces of him in the stories of Cain and Ishmael, of the hairy, violent heroes Samson, Elijah, and red-haired David and his favorite son Absalom. His signature is even recognizable in the origins and characters of both Jesus and Judas as well as later figures all the way down to the dybbuk of the shtetl, Red Emma and Jerry Rubin.

In mythology, the appearance of twins symbolizes a doubleness, the existence of two halves of one whole which cannot exist apart from each other - like light and shadow. As a people, our hatred of Esau is a complex hatred of something within us - an aspect of ourselves that the official story can never fully reconcile or subdue. Based on an unorthodox reading of the text (it says eesh - "a man" - it says he wrestled a man...), Red Angel presents a gripping drama in which Esau comes to see that his apostacy is necessary to his brother's redemption - and in accepting his role as the eternal villain in his brother's story, becomes a champion in his own.

Hugh as Esau
photo by Peter Crowley
(Click on photo to get large version)

The Play

The entire play takes place on the night of Jacob's famous wrestling match. Esau, recalls the betrayals by his younger brother and gives his side of the story, revealing a spiritual nature ill-suited to the yoke of religion. Still, he is bitter at losing his father's favor, and his decision to kill his younger brother in his tent ends the first act. The second act begins with a dreamlike caberet theatre with a modern-day Esau singing satirical songs that undermine traditional Biblical interpretations of.... just about everything. But after having his fun he finds the humor in his own situation equally ironic, and his brother's need for redemption too strong to ignore. He decides that the best way to fulfill his destiny and his father's blessing, is to use his strength on behalf of his younger brother precisely by using it against him - to force his brother to become stronger and more mature. At the end of the play, he reconciles himself to his family, and to the thankless role he now takes on. Donning a fierce angelic mask, he goes off to wrestle his brother - not to kill him but to give him life.

In this version of the story, Esau is both the biblical figure and a contemporary man who, through his nature and values, finds himself an outsider in his own family and religious community. In parallel ways, each comes to understand his lonely destiny and finally embraces it.