“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.” — As You Like It

So begins the famous “seven ages of man” speech in Shakespeare’s As You like It. It is an interesting analogy for our journey through this life. But if I’m really an actor in a play then I have a lot of questions and some comments for the playwright. Why do I not have a script? What is the motivation of my character? Can we just stick to a single plot line? I think this play could do without so many plot twists. Oh, and what’s the ending? I play the role of a needy actor quite well.

Except it’s not a play, it seems more like improv. I don’t have a script or cues to help me through this bumbling performance. I walk onto a stage waiting to see what scenario awaits me once the curtain rises, and after that the play will just be me reacting to what is given to me to the best of my ability. The whole thing feels like a bit of a mess, a sort of comedy where all of us actors are the joke?  I don’t want to be the punchline to a cruel joke; I take myself far too seriously for that. “It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one’s self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do … For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap,” Chesterton states in Orthodoxy.

Lately my book group has been reading through Dorothy Sayer’s Mind of the Maker (a book I cannot recommend highly enough) and the analogy of being an actor in a play is softening in my mind. Perhaps it’s not the cruel joke I thought the playwright was intending, maybe we just don’t know the playwright very well or we don’t fully understand their intentions. Maybe if I could get to know them a bit more I could make it to the final curtain.

One of the first things I learned about Shakespeare in high school was that you could tell you were reading a comedy if it ended in a wedding. I prefer Shakespeare’s comedies to any of his other genres, after all, a wedding is such a satisfying ending. I think of the endings of Twelfth Night and Much Ado About Nothing, both plays filled with mistaken (and deceiving) identities, followed by even more mixed up and muddled emotions, and at last at the end all is made clear to the characters. Shakespeare captured humanity’s confusion about our own emotions better than any other playwright. Through absurdities, Shakespeare reminds us that none of us humans really have any idea what is going on. But there he sat, the genius playwright, writing play after play, every plot, every twist and turn, clearly plotted out in his mind.

And so I return to this stage, still feeling confused about the role I am to play, and still curious as to what the playwright had in mind for this whole production. But what if I knew the playwright was the perfect creator, that he made no mistakes in his plots or plans? That every twist had been carefully written out, and that there was a purpose to it that would be made known in that final scene. This is heartening to the confused actors. And what if we knew that he had carefully written each of our roles to suit each of our unique talents and abilities, that we were all given the space to play our part to the best of our skill, but we also knew that he had written that part especially for each of us? That in his mind he had thought this play should have a “you” and “me”, and that every scene  was tailored to our unique personalities while also paying tribute to the genius of the playwright. That through our character others might see the brilliance of the playwright.

But what about the painful parts? Is this play to be a tragedy or a comedy?  Sometimes the plot twists we stumble through aren’t merely confusing, they are downright catastrophic. This whole production feels more like a tragedy than anything else when we’re in the middle of it. But the playwright knows our longing for that happy ending, we yearn to find out that perhaps this really was all a comedy, and a wedding is coming. In his great mercy our playwright has given us that final scene so we may know what the ending is.

“Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory. For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready … Blessed are those who are invited to wedding supper of the Lamb!” (Rev 19: 7, 9)

More than allowing us to know the ending, he did something extraordinary. We fancied him sitting in the balcony, judging our performance, angry at the way we were messing up his story. But when the plot seemed bleak, when all seemed rather lost, the author walked on the stage, becoming a character within his own plot. Some loved that he now walked in our midst, others rejected it, but it was the plot twist he had long been planning and writing. Sayer’s describes it perfectly:  it was “the leading of the story back, by the new and more powerful way of grace, to the issue demanded by the way of judgement, so that the law of nature is not destroyed but fulfilled.”

The play, this comedy, has been redeemed by the playwright writing himself into the play to come alongside of us in our confusion and struggle. He has told us we are in a comedy, a happy ending is coming and all will be revealed in the end. and what’s more he has shown us he is not going to sit idly by watching us suffering alone, he will walk on the stage. But we can rest assured in his humor as well. Buechner says “God is the comic shepherd who gets more of a kick out of that one lost sheep once he finds it again than out of the ninety and nine who had the good sense not to get lost in the first place.” And so where does that leave us? We have a playwright not seeking to make us the butt of the joke, but wanting us to join in this sort of joke. Sarah laughs when she finds out she will be pregnant, is there no irony that Isaac’s name means “one who laughs”? But we must not think he only laughs. He understands the tragic twists and turns we experience, he knew they were in the plot, but when he stepped on that stage he knew he’d be part of the most painful and yet most joyous plot twist for all of mankind. He is sympathetic to our pains because he has taken them upon himself.

But what we wait for now is that moment where he walks onto the stage again, not as one of the cast but takes that final bow as the playwright, and all of us recognize him as such. Like the characters of Shakespeare all our disguises and charades will come down as that curtain drops, the glory of the playwright will finally be revealed and the sound we wait for will be that of his applause and his cheers. G.K. Chesterton reflects that “there was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth.” And so I find myself less terrified by this improv production because I am beginning to know the author. The wedding is coming, like Beatrice and Benedick, Viola and Duke Orsino, all will be made known to us. And we as the characters will join in the joke and share in the laughter and joy of the playwright.

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