‘The God Game’— A Play About Political Personas and Beliefs
If you’re running for a political seat in Washington, there isn’t much the public doesn’t know about you. National candidates are constantly in the public eye, especially in a presidential election year, and we seem to know everything about them from their daily routines to their DNA. And if you’re vying for the oval office, you’d better be ready to bare your soul — especially when it comes to religion. But what if you don’t believe in God? Can you lie about something you don’t believe in?
Now, in the last nine weeks of the 2012, news-saturated presidential election, playwright Suzanne Bradbeer poses this very question in her play “The God Game.” A reading performance of this play by the Hudson Stage Company is scheduled on Friday, September 14 at the Croton Free Library.
The three main characters in “The God Game” are Tom, a popular and well liked U.S. senator from Virginia, his wife, Lisa and their old college friend Matt, who is working for the Republican presidential candidate. On a summer weekend when Tom and Lisa are privately celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary in their Richmond, Virginia townhouse, they are interrupted by a surprise visit from Matt, who comes, hat in hand, to ask Tom to be his party’s vice-presidential nominee. The one polemic caveat for Tom, who is basically an atheist: sound more Christian.
Amidst the moral dilemma, Bradbeer’s crisp, witty, dialogue induces laughter, sadness and real, heartfelt emotion while philosophically grappling with how candidates are expected to publicly reveal their private beliefs. Bradbeer, who grew up in Virginia and lives in New York City, became interested in a candidate’s shifting persona and ideology during the 2008 presidential election.
“A part of the impetus [to write this play] was the choice of John McCain of Sarah Palin in the last election and how quickly that happened,” said Bradbeer. “We thought of him [McCain] as a maverick and a moderate and he ended up picking a more conservative, right wing running mate. In “The God Game,” I wanted to have a conservative candidate picking a moderate. It also seems that more lines are drawn in the sand where you have to hold to a certain position or you’re not accepted.”
Bradbeer considered what McCain might have forfeited ideologically when he decided to run for president. “McCain would talk about torture or immigration, which showed he was more interesting. But he stopped doing that when he ran for president. I wondered what his wife might of thought, sitting across the breakfast table, if it [these issues] was something she felt passionate about? Could it be a deal breaker?
In “The God Game” Tom’s wife Lisa regularly attends church and she believes in God, making it plausible that her religious beliefs might affect Tom’s decision to either accept or reject running for vice president. Tom thinks because his lack of faith is private, it shouldn’t matter to the voters, but Lisa sharply criticizes Tom’s naivety and tells him “Better you had been a former drug addict than not believe in God. Better you had had multiple affairs, exaggerated your military service, kicked small dogs, sent pictures of your penis across Twitter…”
Bradbeer says that more and more, politicians are being pigeon holed where they have to “tap dance to get elected.” She recalled Jack Kemp, who ran for vice president in 1996 on the Republican ticket with Bob Dole. “It’s worse than it used to be. Jack Kemp, a conservative, was asked to up his Christianity talk, but he didn’t want to do it because he felt it was private. And he didn’t do it. I’m astounded that people want there to be a litmus test.”
Each of the characters’ background unfolds seamlessly while highlighting some golden nuggets of history. That Tom is a fan of both Thomas Jefferson and Richard Nixon, pose solid historical bookends of American history. To his defense, Tom reminds us that Jefferson actually created his own bible by “cutting and pasting” excerpts into the New Testament and writing in his personal account of Christ’s philosophy. This factoid, while both sensational and illuminating, illicits the jarring question: do the practices and beliefs of one of our founding fathers somehow carry through and register with 21st century voters?
Tom also evokes the forgotten triumphs of Richard Nixon, the only American president to resign office because of his involvement in the 1972 Watergate scandal. Among Nixon’s successes often overshadowed by Watergate was his visit to China, the first by an American president in decades, and that he established the Environmental Protection Agency. In “The God Game” both Lisa and Matt are wary of what they call Tom’s “Acute Intermittent Nixonmania.”
The reading performance of “The God Game” is directed by Lisa Rothe. Bardbeer’s play, “Full Bloom” was the Hudson Stage Company’s premiere production in 2000. Immediately after the performance of “The God Game” there will be a Q&A session with participating artist. The performance is free and open to the general public.
The God Game
Hudson Stage Company
Friday, Sept. 14, 7:30 p.m.
Croton Free Library
171 Cleveland Drive, Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520
www.hudsonstage.com or (914) 271-2811
By Abby Luby
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.