COTTON PATCH GOSPEL, The Brooks and then The Drury, Directed by Will Rhys

ABOUT THE PLAY

(From my program notes for the CPH production)

The musical you are about to experience is just what the title says it is: a "cotton patch" version of the entire Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is certainly not a conventional musical, though it has played in theatres all over the country; with abundant music by the late Harry Chapin, it is more than a recitation of the Bible, though it is based on a translation made directly from the Greek (Nestle-Alend text, 1957). It is also more than a "pop/gospel" concert; though it will frequently sound like one. It is a unique theatrical event that grew out of Clarence Jordan's desire to communicate the gospel he loved with the people he grew up with in the cotton patches.

Clarence Jordan (rhymes with verdant) grew up in rural south Georgia. He attended both the University of Georgia's School of Agriculture where he earned a B. S., and (in one of the more unusual combinations) Southern Baptist Theological Seminary where he earned a Th. M. and a Ph. D. in New Testament Greek. In 1942, with his wife Florence, Clarence established Koinonia Farm, an experimental, interracial farming commune near Americus, Georgia. The group survived considerable physical violence and more than a little name-calling. Rather than retreat into the relative safety of the farm, Jordan set about translating his "cotton patch" versions of the gospels and preaching in ever widening circles until his death at Koinonia Farm in 1969. He was apparently the sort of preacher my grandmother would have called a "stem winder." His associate and friend, Dallas Lee, described his improvisational style: "When he spoke, he communicated all over. The message was in his tone, in his motions, in his eyes, in his often deliberate, stumbling mususe of words, and most of all in his spirit. His brand of communication was meant to be heard and felt and tasted--in short, experienced. When you heard him, you didn't just get new information or a new scholarly angle on some theological issue. You encountered a man..." This personal effect was what Jordan was all about. The main thrust of his teaching was centered on what he called incarnational evangelism with the emphasis on the "humanity of God": the idea that God became man, not the other way around. He thought the important feature of Jesus' incarnation was His ability to communicate directly with other men. Jordan, the evangelist, insisted he wanted "participants in the faith, not merely spectators."

All of which leads us to an important question. Given the existence of so many fine translations of the Scriptures, from the glorious King James version to the modern-day Revised Standard and Jerusalem Bibles, the question may rightly be asked, "Why a 'cotton patch' version?" Jordan himself addressed this question at considerable length in his introduction to his Pauline epistles, first of the "Cotton Patch" versions to be published: "While there have been many excellent translations of the Scriptures into modern English, they have still left us stranded in some faraway land in the long-distant past.... When Jesus told us the story of 'a certain man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho,' every person in his audience felt as though he himself were that 'certain man' who fell among thieves on the familiar and oft-traveled road. To give us a sense of participation or involvement, that 'certain man' would need to be going from New York to Boston, or from Atlanta to Savannah, or from San Francisco to Los Angeles, or from our home town to the next one.... Another reason for a 'cotton patch' version is that the Scripture should be taken out of the classroom and stained-glass sanctuary and put out under God's skies where people are toiling and crying and wondering, where the mighty news of the good news first happened and where alone they feel at home." Logically he set his translations in the South because the people for whom he originally wrote them were there.

No one was more painfully aware of the perils of such a translation than Jordan. "Of course, one can never make a perfect translation even from one contemporary language to another, simply because words seldom have precise equivalents in a different language. It is even more diffucult when the two languages are separated by thousands or even hundreds of years. Then add the barriers of culture and space and the task is indeed formidable. I readily admit, then, that my attempts to find present-day equivalents to many New Testament expressions and concepts are often strained and crude and perhaps even inaccurate. For example, there just isn't any word in our vocabulary which adequately translates the Greek word for 'crucifixion.' Our crosses are so shined, so polished, so respectable that to be impaled on one of them would seem to be a blessed experience. We have thus emptied the term 'crucifixion' of its original content of terrific emotion, of violence, of indignity and stigma, of defeat. I have translated it as 'lynching,' well aware that this is not technically correct. Jesus was tried and legally condemned, elements generally lacking in a lynching. But having observed the operation of Southern 'justice,' and at times having been its victim, I can testify that more people have been lynched 'by judicial action' than by unofficial ropes.... They crucified him in Judea and they strung him up in Georgia, with a noose tied to a pine tree."

So lively a preacher naturally made a translation that appealed to an actor, Tom Key, who adapted The Cotton Patch Version of Matthew and John into a one-man show. The story is a good one and a theatrical one. Play House regulars may remember Alec MacGowan's masterful "reading" of the King James' version of the Gospel According to Saint Mark several years ago. [and my fans may have seen my ongoing performance of the same] When Harry Chapin saw Key's stage version, he saw right away the contribution music would make, and the version you will experience tonight was born. So, c'mon, now. Participate! Everybody, say, "Whooeee! Jubilation!"
________________________________Wayne S. Turney, Dramaturg and Participant