Description
Leah and Jacob, in old age, look back at the night he wrestled with God, as a turning point in a turbulent family history. Cast 1 F, 1 M. Based on Genesis 32.
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Extract:
Cast: Leah, Jacob
Production note
Both talk to the audience, though aware of each other. The tone between
them is of long familiarity, neither warm nor bitter. Leah is present at the start
and Jacob comes on during her ï¬rst speech walking with severe limp (see
Gen 32v25).
.
Leah: You want to know about the wrestler in the night? Why that story, I
wonder? There were plenty of other secrets and strange tales in our family?
But, yes… something quite remarkable did happen in the desert heat. But it
is my husbandʼs story. Here he comes: Israel, as he has been known since
that night – but to me he is still Jake – Jacob. I remember the ï¬rst time I
heard his name – from the lips of my little sister, Rachel – tumbling excitement
of a handsome stranger watering our sheep at the well. He turned out to be
our long lost cousin. I little knew that decades later I would wait up a long
night with her, in a tent far from home - forgetting our rivalry in our fear that he
would never return.
Jacob: The wrestler? Perhaps you donʼt see a wrestler when you look at me
now. But as a boy I could floor anyone – except my brother. We were twins.
In our motherʼs womb we had learned that intimate tussle of limbs, the power
struggle of love, the probing of every weakness. I knew how to wrestle. And
that night – with the future at stake in the morning - I yearned to wrestle,
rather than for the soft comfort of my women. So I went back across the ford,
alone under the stars.
Leah: You havenʼt explained. We were all on the move – Rachel and I, our
children, and a great wealth of flocks and servants, leaving my fatherʼs
homeland. Yes, Jacob had married me – Leah – and also Rachel, the one he
loved. My fatherʼs idea of a mystery – veil the bride until morning, to marry off
the plain girl no-one wanted.
Continues ...