A family reunion can be a powerful setting for rediscovery and reconciliation, but it is often difficult to avoid the rifts and resentments brought on by years of estrangement. So when a group of teens from Michigan began to address a painful past, there was no guarantee that 4,000 years of misunderstandings could be untangled until they claimed their common forefather: Abraham.
The result is a theatrical production called The Children of Abraham Project, produced by Mosaic Youth Theatre, a 12-year old company of middle and high school students from the metropolitan Detroit area. However, it’s not the production but the process that is worthy of ovation.
The project is the brainchild of Brenda Rosenberg and Imam Abdullah El Amin, a Jewish peace advocate and the director of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan, respectively, who imagined what might happen through some creative conversation between Jewish, Muslim and Christian young people in southeast Michigan. They were moved by the simple premise: Peaceful coexistence between three of the world’s principal faith traditions -- Jewish, Christian, and Muslim -- may rest in their mutual claim to the lineage of Abraham.
Stories of prejudice and persecution
The Children of Abraham Project began as an invitation to listen to one another’s personal stories -- stories of being misunderstood and of experiencing prejudice and the religious persecution that often accompanies minorities within a majority culture. Through months of intense dialogue and building trust, the teens used theatrical improvisation to reenact what they heard within the group. The narratives and personal stories became the foundation of a play.
Many of the teens had a direct hand in writing the final script. The toughest challenge, said participant Sofia Begg, was “going back into my community and being in my comfort zone” and finding the courage to confront the common stereotypes and comments with a new understanding.
“The whole [idea] was getting people to rethink loyalty, bias and prejudices,” said Rachel Urist of Ann Arbor, the principal playwright. “It is very threatening to question loyalty.”
Seeing everyone -- from the project participants and actors to the religious groups that reviewed the nuances of language in the final script -- wrestle with fear while remaining firm to his or her tradition and family was both the challenge and the reward of the project, she added.
Rosenberg observed that everyone along the way had different truths and different traditions to honor. But what the young people discovered was that they did not have to change their personal truths or agree with someone else’s truth to validate what they experienced.
“This is where the deep healing took place,” said Rosenberg, who developed a four-step process that the participants followed during the project. The play itself -- part musical, part dance, all heart -- plants an eight-person ensemble on a barren stage with little more than stories to share.
Invitation to young people
The play weaves the stories of Abraham’s sons, Isaac and Ishmael, as they reunite to bury their father and to unravel the bitterness of their own broken relationship. The play also tells the stories of modern-day mothers -- Palestinian and Israeli -- mourning the deaths of their children in a war without end. And the play invites the stories of the young people trying to grow up in a world often marked by family rituals and religious education that turn on the lessons of fear and intolerance.
Just as Ishmael and Isaac are led to rediscover their connection through Abraham, Christians, Muslims and Jews are invited to rediscover their own common roots. It isn’t easy, and the play does not let the audience believe otherwise. Generally, the 45-minute production is followed by an equally long discussion.
The Children of Abraham Project has played in a dozen Midwest venues in the past year, none larger than on Feb. 28 when the Dearborn (Michigan) Ministerial Alliance sponsored a premiere that drew an audience of 1,000.
Chief among the challenges is the question of truth, explained Rick Sperling, Mosaic Theatre founder and the original director of the play. “Can we live with different versions of the truth?” he asks, summarizing a basic question in the production.
“There were people who were cast in the play that could not do the play because their parents wouldn’t let them,” said Sperling. “Their parents said, ‘This is not what our family is about.’
“We knew that this was not a play that could possibly make everyone happy,” he added. “Everyone wants to feel comfortable that their version of the truth has primacy.
“This is a play that [asks] the ultimate question,” Sperling said. “Can we live in a world where we disagree about things as fundamental as religion?”
CBS will feature The Children of Abraham Project in a special on Religion in America, which is co-produced by Episcopal priest Lisa Hamilton and also focuses on the work of Christ Church, Dearborn. Watch for it in your local area after the release date of April 17. Additional information about the project is available by calling Steve Spreitzer at 313-567-6225.
