Paul

by Howard Brenton

  Howard Brenton

  PAUL

  NICK HERN BOOKS

  London

  www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

  Contents

  Title Page

  Original Production

  Characters

  Paul

  About the Author

  Copyright and Performing Rights Information

  Paul was first performed in the Cottesloe auditorium of the National Theatre, London, on 6 October 2005 (previews from 30 September). The cast, in order of speaking, was as follows:

  PAUL (at first SAUL) Paul Rhys

  BARNABAS Colin Tierney

  YESHUA (Jesus) Pearce Quigley

  ARAB TRADER Howard Saddler

  PETER Lloyd Owen

  ROMAN GAOLER Dermot Kerrigan

  MARY MAGDALENE Kellie Bright

  JAMES Paul Higgins

  NERO Richard Dillane

  ENSEMBLE Tas Emiabata

  Eugene Washington

  Other parts played by members of the company

  Director Howard Davies

  Designer Vicki Mortimer

  Lighting Designer Paule Constable

  Music Dominic Muldowney

  Sound Designer John Leonard

  Company Voice Work Patsy Rodenburg

  Characters

  PAUL (at first SAUL)

  BARNABAS

  YESHUA (JESUS)

  ARAB TRADER

  ROMAN GAOLER

  PETER

  JAMES

  MARY MAGDALENE

  NERO

  TEMPLE GUARDS, ROMAN GAOLERS, CHRISTIANS AT CORINTH

  AD 36 to AD 65 in a Roman gaol, on the Damascus Road, in Arabia, in James’s house in Jerusalem, in Corinth.

  Scene One

  Rome, AD 65. Prison. PAUL, aged 54, is in chains. He prays.

  PAUL. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen Jesus . . .

  A beat.

  No! I must not! Must not! No! In Rome, here in this prison? What do I want, my God to come through the wall and rescue me? No, no!

  A beat.

  Christ is risen. Christ is risen Jesus show me your face again. No no no no, out of the question to pray for that! Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen Jesus, oh my risen Lord, now, tonight, before I die for you, let me see your face once more . . . no, no.

  A beat.

  Be content with the memory. Yes. I had the revelation of my life. I saw you, thirty years ago, on the road to Damascus.

  He stands, free of his chains. He turns and walks into . . .

  Scene Two

  The road to Damascus, AD 36. Night beneath moon and stars. SAUL, aged 25, is camped with BARNABAS – a captain of the Jerusalem Temple Guards – and four of his MEN. A fire.

  SAUL. Eat, sleep. We’ll wake and move on before dawn. I want us at the city gates by sunrise.

  The four GUARDS slope off, not looking at him.

  (To BARNABAS.) What’s the matter with them?

  BARNABAS. They don’t want to go to Damascus.

  SAUL. Why not? They’ve arrested heretics in the past.

  BARNABAS. But this time it’s out of Judea.

  SAUL smiles.

  SAUL. When have we Jews been frightened of a raid into a foreign country?

  BARNABAS. That’s not it.

  SAUL. No? So what . . .

  BARNABAS. The work begins to sicken them.

  SAUL. But it’s God’s work!

  BARNABAS. They’re not brutes! They’re Temple Guards, simple religious men. Sometimes you’re just too . . .

  SAUL. Too what?

  BARNABAS. Too . . . fierce.

  SAUL. We are doing this to save our religion and our country. Surely they . . .

  SAUL stops, turns, as if startled by something.

  BARNABAS starts, concerned.

  BARNABAS. Saul?

  SAUL (sharp). Yes?

  BARNABAS. What is it?

  A beat.

  SAUL. Nothing. I’ll speak to them.

  SAUL goes to the GUARDS. They are uneasy. BARNABAS follows.

  Listen.

  A beat.

  Listen, I know how you struggle with this work. I know how hard it is for you to arrest men and women at night, drag them from their houses to the religious court, stand by when they are stoned to death in the execution pits, with a crowd screaming as if it were sport, not a terrible necessity sanctioned by God’s law. I stood by, holding men’s coats. They were stoning a young man called Stephen. With his last breath he shouted that he would be in Paradise. His fanaticism shocked me to the marrow of my bones. Belief that strong could destroy the Temple itself. So I decided I must do this thing. But I know it’s not easy. It can eat into the heart, bring bad dreams, yes?

  He has touched them. They shift uneasily, hanging on every word.

  1ST GUARD. What gets to you, is the atrocities. What the Yeshua people do. Eat the flesh . . .

  2ND GUARD. Drink the blood . . .

  3RD GUARD. Drink the blood, eat the flesh of helpless little children.

  1ST GUARD. You’re right, Rabbi. The bad dreams are from having to be anywhere near these people.

  4TH GUARD. They’re Jews like us, but what they do, it’s obscene!

  BARNABAS. On the other hand, every new cult that appears is accused of eating babies.

  SAUL. Yes, Barnabas. These atrocities are useful stories to the Temple, but not true. But listen, listen, we must do this work: these are dangerous times. We Jews have lived under empires over the centuries: Egypt, Babylon, Syria, Greece, now Rome . . . and we have endured. But under this occupation, under Rome, our religion itself is under attack. But where does the attack come from? Not from pagan, kiddam priests from Rome. From ourselves. Our country is torn apart by fanatics. In the cities different sects at each others throats, in the countryside whole villages gone heretical, ragged preachers on the roads with their begging bowls; Judea seethes with religious revolt. And Yeshua’s not the first fanatic from Nazareth the kiddam have crucified. That particular rural slum does seem to be overrun with religious madmen.

  2ND GUARD. They grow Messiahs in the fields.

  3RD GUARD. The only crop: religious lunatics.

  SAUL. Or it’s just something in the water.

  Amusement.

  4TH GUARD. The back-from-the-dead magic is new, though.

  2ND GUARD. Walking down off a cross? Yeah, some magic trick.

  The 1ST GUARD is not amused.

  1ST GUARD. But blasphemous. The dead will not rise.

  SAUL. Oh I believe they will.

  1ST GUARD. Rabbi Saul, with respect, that’s because your family are Pharisees. Mine are Sadducees, for us we were made of mud and to mud we will return. The religion of Moses is for the living.

  SAUL. You’re wrong, you’re wrong, but that doesn’t divide us. Yes, we Pharisees do believe that when God ends the world, the dead will rise again. But not just one man! Who is, magically, the son of God! That is chaff, the flimflam of overheated minds. And it’s not that insane doctrine that makes the Yeshua cult so dangerous to us and to our country.

  1ST GUARD. The Kingdom of God is the danger.

  SAUL. Yes yes, you understand: the Yeshua people call for ‘the Kingdom of God’. Now. In Judea. And they find an eager audience! The people are feverish for signs and prophecies, anything to end the Roman occupation. They look for a chariot of fire to appear amongst us, they’ll listen to any beautiful yo
ung man out of the desert, dressed in rags, his eyes shining with the light of a new Israel. And here we have this Yeshua sect, with its filthy blasphemy, preaching a Kingdom of God? To kiddam ears that sounds like one thing: insurrection! We must . . .

  A beat. They stare at him. BARNABAS is about to move to him . . .

  . . . be perfect! And the Lord God looked on Moses . . . and saw . . .

  1ST GUARD. Perfect.

  2ND GUARD. Saw he was perfect.

  3RD GUARD. And the Lord looked on Moses and he was perfect.

  SAUL. That is what we must be in this work. We must struggle to keep the religion of Moses pure. Or Judea will be drowned, not with the sea, but with Jewish blood. And that is why we are on the Damascus Road, tonight, under the stars. Be pure and we will save Judea.

  They all stand.

  ALL (sing).

  Protect me, O God, in you is my refuge.

  I bless Yahweh who is my counsellor,

  Even at night my heart instructs me.

  I keep Yahweh before me always,

  For with him at my right hand, nothing can shake me.

  So my heart rejoices, my soul delights,

  For you will not abandon me

  You will teach me the path of life,

  Unbound joy in your presence,

  At your right hand delight for ever.

  Amen.

  SAUL. Barnabas and I will take the night watch. Goodnight, God go with you.

  GUARDS (variously). Goodnight Saul of Tarsus. / Goodnight Captain. / God go with you.

  They go a distance away and prepare to sleep.

  BARNABAS. Saul, I have to speak to you so don’t be angry.

  SAUL. Oh! I already am.

  He laughs.

  BARNABAS. You remember when I saw you fall? By the Temple wall?

  SAUL stops laughing. They look at each other.

  SAUL. Go on.

  BARNABAS. Before it happened . . . there was a look about you. You . . .

  SAUL is an interrupter.

  SAUL. No cause to think that now. None at all. Would God let me be sick? When, come the morning, we’ll be in Damascus, doing his work?

  BARNABAS. Saul, you had it tonight. While you were talking to the men.

  A beat.

  Then SAUL smiles.

  SAUL. Barnabas, you’re a great worrier.

  BARNABAS. Don’t smarm me, what a smarmer you can be . . .

  SAUL. No no, please, you’re right to speak to me. I love you for it, worry in a soldier is a great gift . . . Look, when this thing, whatever it is, comes on me, I smell flowers. Madness, eh?

  BARNABAS. A holy madness.

  SAUL. No no no no! It’s a flaw. A thorn in the flesh. There’s a wrongness, cut deep inside me. God hasn’t made me whole.

  BARNABAS. Have you talked to the Temple priests about this?

  SAUL. Our priests are more primitive than you think, they’ll rave about casting out devils.

  BARNABAS. Then consult a Greek doctor. Your family’s got the money.

  SAUL laughs.

  SAUL. Do you know what goes on in a Greek hospital? You’re given drugged wine to make you sleep. So that, while you sleep, the god Asclepius, son of Apollo, can appear in a dream and whisper your cure to you. There is a limit to my love of things Greek.

  BARNABAS. Do you . . .

  SAUL. At this moment all I can smell is soldiers’ feet and soldiers’ farts. If it does come on me, you’ll know. All . . . all that I ask is that you don’t let the men see.

  BARNABAS. Oh they’d love it. Prophets are meant to foam at the mouth.

  SAUL. Yes. Well, I fit that criterion.

  Suddenly heated.

  So many superstitions! So much to cut out of the way we think! We are barbaric, we see only in a dark mirror, we are all but blind to God and his world.

  BARNABAS. Saul, softer. You’ve already preached this evening.

  SAUL. You don’t think I’m a prophet, a holy man, do you, Barnabas?

  BARNABAS (he does). No.

  SAUL. I mean, I’ll roll around in the dust spitting foam if you want.

  He smiles.

  BARNABAS. No.

  He puts his hand on SAUL’s arm. For a moment they are still. Then BARNABAS removes his hand.

  SAUL. I’ll take first watch.

  BARNABAS. Are you . . .

  SAUL. Wide awake!

  BARNABAS. Wake me when it’s my time. Don’t sit through the night on your own.

  SAUL. No no. God be with you. Good night.

  He moves away.

  Scene Three

  The GUARDS and BARNABAS are asleep.

  SAUL sits hugging his knees. He raises his head and smells the air.

  SAUL. Jasmine?

  He is alert, looking about him. Then his head falls. He slides onto his side, asleep.

  Out of the night a figure in a ragged loincloth comes into the camp. He has a blanket about his shoulders. It is YESHUA.

  He touches the sleeping SAUL, whispers into his ear then steps back.

  SAUL wakes with a start. He turns and looks at YESHUA.

  YESHUA. Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?

  SAUL. Who are you?

  YESHUA. Yeshua of Nazareth, whom you want to destroy.

  SAUL. No. Yeshua of Nazareth was crucified.

  YESHUA. And I’m alive.

  He smiles, displaying terrible wounds on his wrists. He is very relaxed, watching SAUL with a constant gaze.

  A high-pitched noise begins, a long single note. It grows and grows until it is very loud.

  Then simultaneously it stops and the stage blazes with a burst of light, which fades.

  SAUL. How can that be?

  YESHUA. I’m here with you.

  SAUL. No one can survive a Roman crucifixion. The soldier on execution duty makes sure the criminal is dead with a wound in the side of the body . . .

  YESHUA raises his arms. SAUL stares at a terrible wound in YESHUA’s side.

  YESHUA. I am with you and I am with my Father in Heaven.

  SAUL. You’re not real. You’re a ghost! No, a demon.

  YESHUA. Touch me.

  SAUL. No.

  YESHUA. They all want to touch me. To prove it. They stare at my wounds. The wounds are more important than anything I say. Proof? What is that? All I need to know is what my Father has told me.

  SAUL. This can’t be so.

  YESHUA. It is so.

  SAUL. No.

  YESHUA. You are near to believing in it. It’s in you. Growing now.

  SAUL. No. What your followers say, that you came back from the dead, that can’t be!

  YESHUA. We are both Pharisees, Saul. We both believe in the resurrection of the dead.

  SAUL. No no.

  YESHUA. You long for the Kingdom of God. And it is coming. The world as you know it is about to pass away.

  SAUL. No no.

  YESHUA. The Kingdom of God is coming. That is why I’m with you.

  SAUL. No. No no no.

  YESHUA. Saul, Saul, why do you deny me, why do you kick against the truth?

  SAUL can barely stand or breathe.

  SAUL. Because!

  A beat.

  Because if what you say is true, you are the mystery Isaiah spoke of . . .

  They quote together.

  YESHUA and SAUL. Which for endless ages has been kept secret but will be revealed at the end of days.

  SAUL. What no eye has seen and no ear has heard, what the mind of man cannot visualise.

  YESHUA and SAUL. The secret promised by Isaiah that this age will pass away. And a new age will come.

  SAUL. And God will send his son.

  A silence.

  Are you the Messiah, come to end the world?

  A silence.

  YESHUA. Is that what I am?

  SAUL. I’ve killed your followers. If you were the Messiah you’d never have allowed their deaths.

  YESHUA. The last of days is with us, they will rise from their graves in the twinklin
g of an eye.

  SAUL. Then what? Have I been doing Satan’s work? If you are what you say you are . . . it’s unthinkable! How could I live with what I’ve done?

  YESHUA. Why are you so riven inside? Why do you feel a great wrong, twisted within you? That is what you feel, isn’t it?

  SAUL. Yes.

  A beat. He is stunned by YESHUA’s accuracy.

  Yes. Who am I arguing with?

  YESHUA. Why do you even ask?

  SAUL. Am I like . . . Moses on Sinai? Challenging God?

  YESHUA. My truth was always in your heart. The stronger it burnt within you, the more you fought it, the harsher you became. But now I’m with you, the struggle within you is over. This was always going to be so, Saul. Like the prophet, from when you were in your mother’s womb, you were mine. But you didn’t know it, and now you do.

  SAUL sinks to his knees.

  SAUL. My Lord.

  YESHUA goes to him and tries to help him to stand. But SAUL will not. He flinches at the sight of the nail wounds on YESHUA’s wrists. Then he kisses the wounds.

  YESHUA pulls him to his feet.

  YESHUA. I’m giving you a new name. You’re Saul my persecutor no longer. Now you’re Paul, my follower.

  PAUL. What . . . what shall I do? The guards with me . . . young killers whose minds I’ve . . . And the letters from the High Priest of the Temple. To the synagogues. Instructing them to give up your followers . . . I’ll go back to Jerusalem. Denounce the letters! Denounce the persecution!

  YESHUA. Go to Damascus. Avoid the synagogues. Find Ananias, he will help you.

  PAUL. He’ll think I’ve come to kill him.

  A flicker of weariness in YESHUA. He turns away.

  YESHUA. No, Ananias will help.

  PAUL kneels again.

  PAUL. Lord . . .

  YESHUA. Go in peace, Paul.

  YESHUA kisses him on the forehead and turns to exit.

  And as PAUL falls to the ground in a fit, the bright light dies.

  Moonlight.

  Enter BARNABAS with the GUARDS. They are calling out.

  BARNABAS and GUARDS. Saul! Saul! Saul!

  1ST GUARD. There!

  They find PAUL. He is lying on his side, eyes staring.

  BARNABAS kneels beside PAUL.

  BARNABAS. Saul! Can you hear me? Saul!

  A beat.

  PAUL. Who’s that?

  BARNABAS turns to the GUARDS.