Children of Eden: A Beefcake-Free Adam and Eve

The musical Children of Eden is not the beefcake-fest you might imagine, with a retelling of the story of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and Noah. 

















1. The actor playing Adam is rarely nude.  He wears heavy Patriarch robes, or a modern costume.   They can wear heavy Patriarch robes, or modern costumes.

















2. So there is no reason to cast anyone particularly hunky.

What do you expect from something originally written in 1986 for a group called Youth Sing Praise? 
















The Adam and Eve plot is relatively faithful to the two Biblical accounts, but it ups the heterosexism: love! love! love! is the key to everything.  Always choose love over power, regardless of what the Serpent says.















Cain's story is different.  He wants to leave the family, and bring Abel with him, but Adam forbids it.  They fight, Abel takes Adam's side, and Cain in a rage beats him to death.  Then, heartbroken, Cain says it should have been him who died and leaves.

Ok, there's a little homoerotic buddy-bonding there, but it's drowned out by the Second Act, a forbidden romance between Noah's son Japheth and Yonah, who belongs to the wrong race (it's as uncomfortable as it sounds).

I suggest that you wait around for the Community Theater's next production of Tarzan.