FROM THE PLAYWRIGHT: THE GENESIS OF EDEN.

I believe that it was the late philosopher Alan Watts who said that trying to define oneself is like trying to bite one’s own teeth. I believe this to be the case for most playwrights, indeed most artists, when it comes to defining or explaining their work. The process, yes, sometimes we can explain that; and then, sometimes not. The very nature of the artistic experience, whether creating it or observing it, is in fact an evanescent event. The observer, the viewer, the audience if you will, takes from a work of art what within it relates to their lives, or vice versa.

Here is what I can tell you about the genesis of EDEN’S END. I set our to write a play about flawed human beings, because I believe we are all flawed to some extent, and I believe that not to be a judgment of any sort so much as a fact: the human condition is a growth process, and perfect is a thing I know nothing of --- and am suspicious of those who claim to. I am interested, as a playwright, in shining a light on the real world and not one of what could, should, or ought to be. It is by looking at ourselves that we come closest to making a better world for ourselves and others.

So it is with the three characters in this play. In some form or another, I have met and known these people. What I have done here…or perhaps accommodated…is the telling of their individual stories --- and through that tried to tell a larger story about how the actions of some impinge upon the lives of others in ways that are both illuminating and often devastating. I don’t write plays about redemption, and I’m not much for plays where resolution is a central theme (to my mind, very little in life, in reality, is ever totally resolved). Fairytales, which are nice, have beginnings, middles, and neat little ends tied up in ribbons and bows. Life, from my perspective, is rarely like that. I write, then, I suppose, about conflict and consequences. I believe that a long and well-lived life runs the gamut from innocence to indifference, and touches all conditions and events in between those two. With EDEN’S END, each of our characters has taken and will continue to follow that path of growth and self-awareness through the behaviors and actions of those central to their lives. Where there is darkness, a light will shine through; when all is light a cloud or shadow will move across our personal landscape to remind us that without one we do not appreciate the other. This is a play very much about light and dark and the human landscape as it is, rather than as we’d have it be.

Jean-Paul DeVellard - June 2005