Brigadoon and Theology

[Goblinmonger]

OK, I went back and for about whether to post this in the Atheists group or here. I landed here, because I really do want feedback from the theists on my perception of the musical.

I took my daughter down to the Madison area to watch a friend of hers in the chorus of the musical. As far as the production itself, it was OK. Typical community theatre stuff. Pit was great. Singers were OK. Scottish accents were generally awful.

My problem is with the book. First off the premise is just stupid. OK, I don't like musicals in general so I'll let that pass. But here's my real problem:

First scene just pissed me off. It was this discussion between two guys about how one doesn't "believe in anything" and how it must be "so easy for him to just dismiss everything else." Honest to your god, it reminded me of this forum. I knew from the first 2 minutes that the book was based on "faith = good; no faith = bad." (I'm assuming most of you know the story, so let me know if I'm not filling in enough details.) Then we get to the "miracle" of the story. And this is just the complete bullshit part. There were witches (not real witches mind you, the guy in the town telling the story admits this and says they are just not believers) who were coming by and the priest of the town was afraid that these godless women (my word, not the plays) would take the good townsfolk away from god (plays words). No indication of how or if it ever even happened once. So the priest prays to god that god take the town and have it only be "in the world" one day every 100 years. So they go to sleep that night and when they wake up the next morning it is the next century. Go to bed again and it is another century (and the setting of the play in the 1900s). Everyone (except one guy) is just damn happy that this is happening.

What kind of crap is this? We are clearly supposed to like the concept of this town being isolated. How is that a good thing? God forbid people actually be exposed to different ideas. No, it's better to just never have to deal with anything other than our own kind. And clearly their faith is so weak that just coming into contact with someone who doesn't believe like them will cause them to lose faith.

So, anyway, I welcome your perspective.

[Duke Newcombe]

1. We ALL have our "Brigadoons".

Some use DU as one. Our little Freeper friends use FR. How many times have you heard folks here say "I come to DU to hear Progressive conversations only-I don't need 'other views'"?

Now, is LIVING there a good thing? I agree with you--no it isn't.

Duke

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. I'm not really familiar with the story

I've never seen the play nor read the book. I vaguely know that it is about a town that wakes up every 100 years--frankly, until I read your post, I figured it was based on a fairy tale, like Sleeping Beauty or something.

But, keeping this in mind, I'd like to comment solely upon your comments, if I may.

I think there is a prejudice against not only atheists but anyone whose universal view of things is different from one's own. Part of this is fear--people get comfortable with their views, and perceive anyone with a different view as threatening. Which brings up a very good point, and one that I often ask myself--why does a different view make me feel threatened? Could it be that I am really not sure and secure in my beliefs? I have come to the conclusion that the one thing that can be said of people's beliefs is that they change. That no one has the definitive answer. The Hindus wisely said thousands of years ago that we live in the state of maya, which is change and illusion. The Lakota say that That which we desire to know is really unknowable, at least in our present state. And yet, there's something within ourselves that craves security, craves keeping things the same. The fact that things are ever changing creates the great drama (or comedy, depending upon one's point of view)that is our life.

[Goblinmonger]

4. FIrst a terminology difference.

By "book" I meant the non-musical "script." Sorry.

As to the rest of your post, I appreciate your insight. I would imagine that the world of Brigadoon would be highly intolerant of your viewpoint.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. You can see how unfamiliar with it I am

I wasn't sure whether you meant the musical script or if it were based upon an actual book. Thanks for the clarification.

[knitter4democracy]

3. I always thought that was just a sop to the love story.

The "I really love her, but am I willing to leave everything I know to be with her" part of the story overwhelms the rest, which never rang right to me. They had to have a reason the town disappeared, and considering the time and culture the play was written in, they went with that bogus one. I wish they'd done something more along the lines of a fairy tale, though.

[Goblinmonger]

5. I guess I was reacting

to what I perceived as an overarching tone that belief is good and nonbelief is bad since that was in the "prologue." I will admit that perhaps I was in a hightened sense of touchiness given a few things I was reading prior to going to the musical.

Absent the stuff I wrote about in the OP, the rest of the story is puke inducing; I'm with you.

[knitter4democracy]

8. Nah, I agree with you. It's annoying that they went with that.

I mean, why not use some other reason? The town was under a spell, the faeries did it, the town decided they hated the world together and made it happen by wishing, who cares. There was no good reason to make it out as being about belief v. non-belief.

[JerseygirlCT]

7. I'd go with that theory, too

Here's the wikipedia entry on the origins of the story:

Origins of the story
Lerner's book was based on a much older German story by Friedrich Gerstäcker about the mythical village of Germelshausen that fell under an evil magic curse. In 1947, memories of World War II were too fresh to present a German-themed musical on Broadway, so Lerner reimagined the story in Scotland, complete with kilts, bonnie lasses, bagpipes, Highland flings and "Heather on the Hill". Lerner's name for his imaginary locale was probably based on a well-known Scottish landmark, the Brig o' Doon (Bridge of Doon), in Alloway, Scotland, in the heart of Robert Burns country. According to Burns' poem "Tam o'Shanter," this 13th century stone bridge is where the legendary Tam o' Shanter fled on his horse Meg in order to escape from three witches who were chasing him.

"Brig" is a common Lowland Scots word meaning "bridge." It occurs in several English versions of Scottish placenames, such as Brig o' Balgownie.

Other sources suggest that the fictional village's name was constructed from the Celtic word "briga," which means "town" (such as in the old city names of Segobriga, Brigantium....) and the Scottish Gaelic "dùn," which means a fort, e.g. Dundee or Dunfermline. The name may also be a reference to the Celtic Goddess Brigid, as in "Brigid's Hill." See also Alloway for another interpretation.

****************
So it sounds to me as if that was all just what was done to accomodate the love story, and dress it up in acceptably exotic costumes and scenery. I note that the whole "once every hundred years" sort of idea started as a curse, but was re-worked in Brigadoon into some sort of blessing. I suspect the whole curse thing might have been darker than was the norm and wouldn't have sold as many tickets when it was created. And to some extent, the bottom line (forgive me) is getting butts in seats!

[HamdenRice]

9. Quelle Horreur !!!

A play that has religious and fantastical elements!

Quelle Horreur !!!

Hamlet and Macbeth have ghosts and witches which we know don't exist and a generally morbid Christian theological framework. Guess I won't be going to the summer Shakespeare festival ever again.

Quelle Horreur !!!

"Death and the King's Horseman" by Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka incorporates Yoruba cosmology into a play about early 20th century colonialism. Oh, well, I guess I won't go to that revival!

Seriously, though I think you are misreading what the play is saying about "believing." It's not about religious faith, which is just used as a metaphor. (After all, the plot is by many standards blasphemous.) It is about believing in the magical legend of Brigadoon, and by extension, in the power of love, and on another level, in the "magic" of theater and creative invention itself.

Try not to take literature and theater so literally. It's "make believe" and it's supposed to be fun, magical and transporting. As Samuel Taylor Coleridge famously wrote, literature relies on the reader's "willing suspension of disbelief," which in other words, is about the reader "believing."

A play in which the main characters simply took turns reading chapters of an engineering textbook would probably pass muster as factually correct, but also probably wouldn't be entertaining to most people.

[knitter4democracy]

10. Well, if you're going to bring Coleridge into it . . .

His and Wordsworth's theories on literature (they weren't talking about drama, which was considered low art by most writers at the time) weren't exactly accepted by everyone at the time.

[Goblinmonger]

11. Dude

I'm an English teacher, I have no problem with suspension of disbelief. It doesn't take too indepth of an analysis to see that the religious framework between Brigadoon and Hamlet/MacBeth are strikingly different. Brigadoon is much more preachy.

Secondly, the deconstructive effort to look at why they decided to open the play with "believing good; not believing bad" does not require a great deal of literary analysis training. They set the tone with the first scene--theis is a scene about the mertis of believing and the horrors of not believing. Compare to the first scene of Hamlet. Sure there are ghosts, but none of the preaching about religion/belief being good--it's about Denmark being in a shitty state of affairs. First scene of MacBeth? Not the same either. Sure there are witches, but they set the tone that this play is going to be about power and fate. In case you aren't following along, the Shakespeare plays use the magical as a tool to get you to the point of the play. Brigadoon uses the play to get you to the point that magic is good.

[cosmik debris]

12. It wouldn't be like him to over react

Unless he over reacts to the wrong thing. :)

[HamdenRice]

13. "I'm an English teacher" ???

And that's your review of Brigadoon? That's a pretty disturbing statement given your "review." From what I can gather, the main point of your review is that there are hidden anti-atheist messages in the play. That seems very dubious to me, and no one has ever analyzed the play in that framework.

You also seem to be saying that the play is bad because it imagines an environment that you wouldn't want to live in. That's kind of like saying "Star Trek" is terrible science fiction because you wouldn't want to be cooped up on the Starship Enterprise during "Its five-year mission to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before."

Lastly, once again, given the context, it's hard for me to accept that the "believing" is solely about "believing" any orthodox religious doctrine; it's about believing in the transformative magic of theater and "make believe," and believing in the transformative power of love, not "believing" in religious doctrine.

[Goblinmonger]

14. Well, I'll give this a shot

though discussion with you is often like trying to move a mountain.

1. No that isn't my "review" of Brigadoon. If I were going to discuss Brigadoon in full it would clearly include a discussion about love and giving fully of yourself. And the story at that level is still pretty cheesy crap.

2. "No one has ever analyzed the play in that framework." No one? Really? That's a pretty bold claim given the number of analysis papers that are written every year in college lit classes. The good part for me is that I only need to find one example to prove you wrong. Oh, Google, don't let me down. Oh, looky, here's one
http://www.filmatheist.com/reviews/brigadoon.htm
Well, guess you're wrong.

3. I said the play was bad for more than that, thank you, but if you did read the whold thing I said I was reacting to something specific and there could have been current events in my life that caused that to happen. Kind of funny for you to chastise me for something I recognize and disclsim myself in the OP. But we get meaning from literature by looking at what the authors present as positive. They seem to think that kind of isolation (be it religious or "love" based) is a good thing. Do you? The Enterprise is about the complete opposite of isolation--exploration.

4. What context. The prologue to the play sets up the belief good/non-belief bad dichotomy. THAT'S the context the authors want you going into the play with; that's why they put it first. I never said it was about a specific religion, just that it was about religion/belief being preferred. And the "miracle" of the village supports that. The only person who thinks this "miracle" is crap dies during the play and is portrayed as an ass. Pretty strong endorsement from the authors.

[knitter4democracy]

15. I'm a former English teacher, too, and there was nothing wrong with the review.

Analyzing the text and looking for the theme and underlying messages is what we English majors do, for pete's sake. Given the text of the musical, it's pretty obvious that they're not talking about belief in fairies or the theatre.

Oh, and I'm sure the OP isn't the first to critically assess the issue of a Christian faith in the musical. It's pretty heavy-handed and obvious.