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Ephesus Schmephesus

    by Laurence Marks & Maurice Gran

Synopsis

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In 2011 the Bush Theatre in London moved from a room over a pub in Shepherd’s Bush, to a swanky new home in a former public library. Coincidentally, this move took place exactly 400 years after the publication of the King James Bible, so Josie Rourke, Director of the Bush, mounted a festival of 66 new short plays, one for each book of the Bible. Laurence and Maurice take up the story...

"Most of the plays were serious. Many of the plays were religious. Ours is neither. When approached we didn’t have a favourite book of the Bible, but if we had we doubted that it would come from the New Testament. However, when we were told that St Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians is one of the shortest books, that’s the one we chose.

We were intrigued by St Paul because he was such an enthusiastic letter-writer. He dashed off more epistles than we’ve had salt beef sandwiches. We couldn’t help wondering what his poor mother thought of all of this nonsense. One minute she has a nice observant Jewish son called Saul, then he takes a trip to Damascus, a very popular holiday destination at the time, has a vision, changes his name, announces he’s a saint and starts eating shellfish."

What’s a Jewish mother to do? Send for the rabbi, of course. Rabbi Mordachai is a wise old sage, who knows the Bible backwards…which is a problem because everyone else only knows it forwards. Can he persuade Saul, sorry Paul, to turn his back on the gimmicky new religion – Christianity – or will Miriam have to put up with Paul’s twelve best friends moving in and eating her out of house and home?

Duration
15-20 mins approx

Characters

(2m, 1f)
  • Saint Paul aka Saul
  • Miriam - Paul’s Mother
  • Rabbi Mordechai Ben Warris
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