…and I blew it.
I’m currently reading the Bible in great whacks, using Grant Horner’s Bible Reading Plan It assigns 10 chapters of the Bible to read every day, each from a different part of the Bible: Gospels, Law, Epistles, Wisdom, History, Prophets. Professor Horner devised the scheme in 1983 as a new believer, wanting to learn as much about the Bible in as short a time as possible. It takes about half an hour a day, because the aim is not close study of each chapter, but rapid reading to get a good overview. This helps the close study that you can do later.
One of the things I love about it is the way a familiar verse can suddenly strike you in a way you’ve not seen before. Or can bring back memories of a significant time you read or hear it before, or listened to a sermon about it.
Just yesterday I came across the Angel Gabriel’s words in Luke 1.37: For with God nothing shall be impossible.
And suddenly I was taken back 60 years to 1965, when I was in the Sixth Form and took part (a very small part!) in two of the annual School Plays. I can’t remember what it was that induced me to do it. Perhaps there was some talk somewhere about how extra-curricular activities could enhance your chances of getting into university? It wasn’t so much the buzz of performing in front of an audience that attracted me, as the socialising in the Green Room while waiting to go on stage. Playing cards, or chatting to the girls. Things I might be ashamed of now (why wasn’t I trying harder to get a really good, big part?) but thought were pretty cool at the time.
The two plays we put on in those years were Bertolt Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and The Government Inspector by Nicolai Gogol. In which I played the part of a Russian gentleman by the name of Rastakovsky, who has one line to say. It’s in a scene in which the townspeople are at a party in honour of the Government Inspector, when the Governor expresses a longing to be made a General. And the otherwise silent Rastakovsky interposes, “Nothing is impossible with God.”
When I delivered this line in performance, it invariably got a laugh from the audience. Which startled me, because I could never understand why. The line wasn’t funny in itself. I didn’t deliver it in a comical voice or with extravagant gestures (more on this later). I’ve sometimes wondered whether the teacher who directed the play had given the part to me because he thought – and everyone in the audience may have thought – that I gave the impression of being a pious bore who might start talking about God at a social gathering? If we had had school yearbooks back then, would I have been the person voted ‘Most likely to become a Vicar’? At 16, I may have been serious and a bit dull, but I wasn’t in any way religious, so surely that can’t have been it.
The Government Inspector by Nicolai Gogol
Some time later, the school arranged a trip to see a performance of The Government Inspector in the West End. The only thing I remember about it is the performance of Rastakovsky, who, when he came to deliver the line, stood up, clearly as a very old man, gesticulated wildly, uttered the one line, had some kind of a fit, collapsed and was carried off stage. It got a much bigger laugh even than the way I did it. Now, why hadn’t I thought of that? Or maybe, been encouraged (by the director, or someone) to embroider it in some way like that? It was an opportunity which I simply didn’t have the experience, or the imagination, or the guidance, to take advantage of. Instead, I just sat there, and delivered it solemnly and po-faced. Maybe that was funny enough. But I can’t help thinking that (like so many other things I remember at this age) it was just another of life’s Great Missed Opportunities.
And do you recognize me among those aspiring Thespian teenagers? I’m the lad seated, 4th from the right, among all the young ladies…
Godspelled 