LEAVING EDEN Places Lilith at Center Stage

There’s trouble in Paradise. Before Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge, Lilith was wandering through the Garden of Eden, awe-struck at the many creatures she found and making exciting (and sometimes scary) discoveries with Adam, including each other’s bodies. Not content to follow Adam blindly, Lilith insisted on being his equal, even trying to tempt him to eat the fruit from the forbidden tree. She refused to submit to Adam and was subsequently banished from Eden and recast as a demon. Leaving Eden is a clever, female-empowering musical re-telling of this story of Adam and Eve and Lillith, who, according to some myths, was the first woman created by God. 

Parallel to the ancient story playing out in Eden, Leaving Eden also tells of a modern couple, Lily (Janet Krupin) and Adam (Azudi Onyejekwe). Reeling from the loss of their unborn child and Lily’s resulting hysterectomy, the couple ask their good friend, Eve (Gabrielle McClinton), to help them have a baby by being a surrogate. A sort of threesome ensues, with Lily being the one in the middle of a reluctant Adam and an even more reluctant (and lesbian) Eve.

This storyline weaves nicely throughout the biblical Eden story, to the point where they almost melt into each other, sometimes singing to one another. The constant back and forth between now and then keeps the story moving along, and an integrated set (Alayna Klein) allows the modern and ancient worlds to blend nicely. This culminates with Eve stuck between both worlds where ancient Adam (Ian Ward) and ancient Lilith (Sarah-Anne Martinez) are forced to come to terms with their inherent natures.

Personally, I find the play relies a bit too much on cliché tropes about women, both flattering and otherwise: The woman who desperately wants to have a baby (which goes hand-in-hand with the woman who feels she’s not fully a woman because she can’t create life in her womb), the lesbian artist who takes photos of naked women, the woman who realizes she is smarter than man. The overall effect feels like an attempt to mollify the #MeToo set, my support for that particular movement notwithstanding.

Yes, these women exist, but to have them all in one play is a bit jarring. Also jarring is an infidelity half-baked into the modern story that has absolutely no lead-up and too quick a resolution. In fact, the modern storyline sometimes feels a bit too contrived and rushed. It’s not as natural as the ancient story, which makes sense given its ubiquity in our culture. Its saving grace is that it dovetails into the Garden of Eden in a fairly satisfying way.

Other than these minor grievances, I found the performances charming, the story interesting (book and lyrics by Jenny Waxman), and the music quite good (a mixture of rock, balladry, and a sort of retro 60s pastiche reminiscent of Sondheim by Ben Page and Ada Westfall). I can’t say I’ll be humming any of the songs to myself anytime soon, but the pacing of the show, directed by Susanna Wolk, lends itself to a more natural style of musical storytelling, one where the characters do burst into song but in not so random a manner.

Leaving Eden is currently playing at The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre as part of the New York Musical Festival (NYMF) with performances through July 21. The NYMF runs through August 4.