The Firstborn by Christopher Fry
The summer before I started grad school I decided to read Shakespeare’s plays. Somehow I had missed them in school, and I was a little embarrassed that I could get so much education without ever reading his work. I find reading plays difficult. In narrative I have pictures painted for me; in plays I must imagine much more. It is unfamiliar brain work for me, and I enjoyed learning how to do it.
I say this to let you know that my evaluation of a play may lack something. I started reading Christopher Fry when I was looking for modern interpretations of Moses. I was blown away by The Firstborn. But I have never seen it performed, and envisioning a play is still something of a challenge. I read the play primarily as poetry.
Christopher Fry was a twentieth century playwright who wrote both verse plays and screenplays. He wrote the screen adaptation of Ben-Hur. In 1938 he began The Firstborn, a modern interpretation of the Exodus story that worked in themes of the Holocaust then beginning in Nazi Germany. He finished the play in 1945.
When the play begins, Moses has long been absent from Egypt, having fled to Midian after murdering an Egyptian. The Pharaoh, Seti, discusses with his wife, Anath, the possibility of inviting Moses back to Egypt to lead their army against a new enemy. Moses appears before Seti and Anath make a decision, and condemns them for the oppression of the Hebrews.
The play explores many issues, too many to discuss here. The responsibilities of power, the love of the homeland, the solace of pride, and the ties of ethnic identity. Throughout the play there is a tension between the comfortable life of the wealthy and safe elite, and the desperate misery and violence of the Hebrews. The focus of the play is the internal crisis of Moses, in his decision to stand in solidarity with his Hebrew brethren and as he realizes what God’s demands will mean for Egypt. When Moses first appears to demand freedom for his people, he explains his return by saying:
My blood heard my blood weeping
Far off like the swimming of fear under the sea,
The sobbing at night below the garden. I heard
My blood weeping. It is here it wept and weeps.
It was from here I heard coming this drum of despair,
Under your shoes, under your smile, and under
The foundations of your tomb. From Egypt.
There are several elements of the play that become troubling when it is seen in light of the Holocaust. One is the character of Shendi, Miriam’s son, who is effectively a collaborator with the Egyptians. The difference between enslavement for labor in the biblical story, even with its horrors, and the programmatic annihilation of the Holocaust make the Shendi character somewhat implausible and possibly offensive, if the play is seen as an interpretation of the Holocaust.
Another possibly troubling line occurs in Moses’ debate with himself when Pharaoh’s son offers the generalship of an Egyptian army:
Egypt and Israel both in me together!
How would that be managed? I should wolf
Myself to keep myself nourished. I could play
With wars, oh God, very pleasantly. You know
I prosper in a cloud of dust - you’re wise
To offer me that. And Egypt would still be,
In spite of my fathers, a sufficient cause.
Moses refuses the offer, but his consideration of it shows that the play should not be read too precisely as an examination fo the Holocaust.
But Fry’s deft use of tension left me feeling that these jarring choices were deliberate and meant to make us consider more thoroughly the ripple effects of oppression. There is a necessary tragedy to justice. By the end of the play, the violence and horror which Egypt inflicted on the weak has been brought home to the powerful, even those of good will and relative innocence.
A noticable difference between the biblical story and Fry’s play is the absence of God as an active character. In Exodus, YHWH has many speeches; in The Firstborn he says not a word. God’s speeches to Moses are implied but never described, and the closest God comes to speaking is an ambiguous rumble of thunder after Moses calls to him. But this does not mean God is uninvolved in the play. Fry was a Christian playwright, and the theology of his plays can be seen in Moses’ description of God as “the infinite eavesdropper,” a paradoxical title. An eavesdropper sits outside the action, listening in on what others are doing. But an infinite being cannot be outside the action; there is no place where he is not. In all of Fry’s plays God appears not as a character, but as the ineffable mover in all actions, the omnipresent spirit, the place in which all places have their being.
Fry’s metaphors and careful rhythms are not easily reviewed in this little prose description, and I urge you to read the play yourself, if you have any enjoyment for poetry. I find myself frustrated in trying to convey the power and complexity of his work. I have read The Firstborn five times now, and the characters are so complex that I find something new in it every time. I would love to see it performed someday, but until then, I am content to read and re-read it.
