The Green Pastures by Marc Connelly

First published: 1929

First produced: 1930, at the Mansfield Theatre, New York City

Type of plot: Folk

Time of work: 1929 and biblical times

Locale: Lower Louisiana and Heaven

Principal Characters:

• Mr. Deshee, the preacher
• God (de Lawd)
• Gabriel, an archangel
• Adam, and
• Eve, the first human beings
• Cain, their son
• Noah, who built an ark to escape a great flood
• Abraham,
• Isaac, and
• Jacob, the founders of the Israelite nation
• Moses, who led the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt
• Zipporah, his wife
• Aaron, his brother
• Pharaoh, the ruler of the Egyptians
• Hezdrel, who challenges de Lawd

The Play

Part 1 of The Green Pastures begins in a black church in lower Louisiana. An old preacher, Mr. Deshee, is teaching a Sunday school class of ten boys and girls. All the characters speak in the black dialect of Louisiana. Mr. Deshee begins the lesson by reciting the lineage of Adam. Expressing his belief that the Lord expects man to figure out a few things for himself, he replies to their questions by stating that before God made the earth, there was nothing but angels, who had a fish fry every week in Heaven and Sunday school for cherubs. The lights dim as Deshee reads, “In de beginnin’, God created de heaven and de earth. . . .”

Scene 2 opens with the angelic singing of “Rise, Shine, Give God the Glory” to reveal a pre-Christian Heaven. Mammy angels wearing hats and men angels smoking cigars are enjoying a gala fish fry. After Gabriel awards diplomas to a class of cherubs, de Lawd enters, dressed in a white suit and Prince Albert coat of alpaca. Noticing that the custard needs more firmament, de Lawd passes a miracle and makes it rain. To provide a place for the firmament to drain, he also creates the earth. To dry off the cherubs’ wings, he creates the sun. De Lawd then creates humankind because he agrees with Gabriel that it would be a shame to let the earth simply go to waste.

The promise with which de Lawd’s creation begins in scene 2 changes to disillusionment by scene 7. Although Adam and Eve, represented by two farmhands, are the picture of confidence and health, the tree of knowledge at which they stare foreshadows Cain’s murder of Abel in scene 4. Cain’s attraction to a seductive girl in a tree in scene 5 causes de Lawd to return to Heaven. When de Lawd visits the earth again (in scene 7) after an absence of three or four years, his worst fears are realized. After witnessing a small boy gambling, he goes to Noah’s house in the guise of a country preacher. Once he is convinced that Noah agrees with him that humankind is “goin’ to the dogs,” he reveals his true identity and instructs Noah to collect seeds of all the plants and two of every kind of animal.

Part 1 ends with a dramatization of the consequences of incurring the wrath of de Lawd. As Noah and his family are preparing the ark, they are mocked by a sinful crowd. Just before the ark sets sail, Cain the Sixth confirms de Lawd’s harsh opinion of humankind by stabbing to death Flatfoot, his girlfriend’s lover. In scene 10, with a drunken Noah at the helm, the ark finally makes it to dry land, prompting de Lawd to remark to Gabriel that his creation of the earth has turned out to be quite a proposition.

Part 2 begins in despair and ends in hope, a clear reversal of the pattern followed in part 1. Scene 1 of part 2 takes place in the office of de Lawd. Although frustrated by the seeming incorrigibility of humankind, he resists Gabriel’s suggestion that he start all over again with another creature. Putting away the thunderbolts that he has been hurtling to earth, de Lawd summons Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to his office and offers to turn over a valuable piece of property to their descendants. They choose the Land of Canaan and Moses as the overseer of the land. The scene ends with de Lawd voicing his intention to return to earth.

Scenes 2 through 4 chronicle God’s efforts to save humankind through Moses. In scene 2, God reveals himself to Moses in a turkey-berry bush and provides him with a spokesman, Aaron, and the means for impressing Pharaoh: magic powers. Scene 4 depicts the attempts of Moses and Aaron to persuade Pharaoh to let their people go. When electrical shocks and swarms of gnats fail to change Pharaoh’s mind, Moses asks de Lawd to kill the firstborn sons of all the Egyptians. As four men carry off his dead son, Pharaoh finally agrees to the Israelites’ departure. While the Children of Israel are marching to Canaan, de Lawd promises Moses that he too will enter the Promised Land, though not Canaan, because he killed a man in Egypt. He also assures Moses that He will be with Moses’ people even after Moses is gone. De Lawd offers proof in the form of Joshua’s victory over Jericho, which is heard in the background. As the stage darkens, Mr. Deshee’s voice is heard saying that the people “went to the dogs” again and returned to bondage, this time under the Babylonians.

Scenes 5 through 7 not only portray the Hebrews’ rebellion against oppression but also depict humankind as being wiser than de Lawd. Scene 5 opens in a New Orleans nightclub, where the king of Babylon orders the execution of a prophet who has just forecast damnation for the sinners. The high priest prays to de Lawd for forgiveness, but de Lawd renounces the people, refusing to deliver them again. Even though de Lawd refuses the requests of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in scene 6 to let their people go, He is visibly moved by the puzzling voice of Hezdrel, which is heard while the prophet Hosea walks past his door. Scene 7 takes place in a shadowed corner beside the walls of the Temple of Israel. After a corporal informs Hezdrel that Herod plans to take the Temple in the morning, de Lawd appears, once again disguised as a preacher. Hezdrel informs de Lawd that he is not afraid of Herod because he has faith in the Lord God of Hosea, who is a God of Mercy, not a God of vengeance, as Moses’ God was. He goes on to say that Hosea discovered the God of Mercy through suffering. Before leaving, de Lawd assures Hezdrel that there will be a place for him in Heaven.

Scene 8 duplicates the first scene in the play. God sits in an armchair near center stage, facing the audience. While eating custard, de Lawd tells Gabriel that he is thinking about what Hezdrel said about learning mercy through suffering. While he wonders out loud if Hezdrel meant that God too must suffer, someone points out that Christ is being made to carry the Cross and that he is to be crucified on a hill. The play ends with God murmuring “Yes.” The angels begin to sing “Hallelujah, King Jesus.” God smiles as the light fades and the singing becomes fortissimo.

Dramatic Devices

Marc Connelly employed a variety of dramatic devices to add the dimensions of folk drama to his religious play. Although most of the play takes place in the Holy Land during biblical times, the costumes, dialect, and setting give the impression that the action occurs in the American antebellum South. The human beings are dressed as field hands and country preachers, and even the heavenly host smoke cigars and eat fried fish. Both the costumes and the rural setting recall the pre-Civil War days of the South, during which African Americans truly were oppressed people, much as the Israelites were in Egypt. By portraying God as a black country lawyer, however, the play transcends the stereotypes that it seems to be projecting and forces audiences to rethink some of their opinions regarding the status of African Americans. Connelly’s replacing of the lofty language of the Old Testament with the black dialect of twentieth century Louisiana, with its connotations of illiteracy and ignorance, serves to add immediacy and relevance to the ancient stories of the Bible.

Although the play is firmly grounded in Judeo-Christianity and African American folklore, Connelly also relies heavily upon a device originated by the ancient Greeks: the chorus. Connelly eliminated the chorus leader and transformed the chorus into a choir, but he retained its primary function of commenting on the action of the play. For the most part, the choir foreshadows things to come, as it does in the end of scene 5 of part 2: The choir sings “Death’s Gwinter Lay His Cold Hands on Me” just after de Lawd has renounced his people. The choir also comments on action while it is taking place. During the battle of Jericho in scene 4 of part 2, it sings “Joshua Fit de Battle of Jericho.” At the end of scene 6 in part 2, however, when the choir sings “A Blind Man Stood in the Middle of the Road,” the choir is actually criticizing de Lawd, who has just refused to help Hezdrel. Only once does the choir comment on both past and future occurrences. After Pharaoh agrees to let Moses’ people go as a result of the death of Pharaoh’s son, in scene 3 of part 2, the Choir sings “Mary Don’t You Weep” and “I’m Noways Weary and Noways Tired.”

Classical Greek drama also seems to be the source for the ironic twist that occurs at the end of the play. The Green Pastures is essentially a history of the “folk” until the reversal that occurs in the last few scenes, when de Lawd loses his superiority. The ironic evolution of humanity from the primal Cain and Flatfoot to the noble Hosea and Hezdrel dramatically brings into focus the primary theme of the play: that the “folk” are not only African Americans, they are human beings, and magnificent ones at that. Thus, Hosea and Hezdrel hold the same position that Tiresias holds against Oedipus and that Antigone holds against Creon.

Critical Context

The Green Pastures derives its folk and religious origins from a book by Roark Bradford, Ol’ Man Adam and His Chillun: Being the Tales They Tell About the Time When the Lord Walked the Earth like a Natural Man (1928). As he adapted the book for the stage, however, Marc Connelly’s northern sensibility compelled him to make certain alterations. Though he preserved Bradford’s image of long-suffering black people who spoke in black dialect, he transformed God from a white southern planter to a strong black figure. Connelly also departed drastically from Bradford’s theme. At the end of Ol’ Man Adam and His Chillun, Bradford implied that the African Americans’ situation would stay the same; Connelly, on the other hand, boldly predicted a future of political activism for black people.

Even though The Green Pastures is Connelly’s only religious folk drama, de Lawd’s determination to resurrect the old virtues in the first part of the play brings to mind the characters of several of Connelly’s previous plays. Like the African Americans of The Green Pastures, the characters of these early plays are underdogs who long for a better life. In The Deep Tangled Wildwood (pr. 1923; with George S. Kaufman), a New York playwright returns to his hometown in order to escape the fads of New York. By the end of The Wisdom Tooth (pr., pb. 1926), a timid clerk finds the courage to attack the superficial practices of his pragmatic coworkers. In The Wild Man of Borneo (pr. 1927; with Herman J. Mankiewicz), a con man who opposes conventional habits tries to rescue several people from the boring routines of their lives.

However, The Green Pastures represents a radical departure from Connelly’s previous work in that part 2 takes up where most of his other plays end. While the characters of The Wisdom Tooth, for example, are on the verge of making a new beginning at the end of the play, humankind’s attempt to rebuild the world destroyed by the flood in part 1 is the focus of the second half of The Green Pastures.

Despite charges that the theology behind The Green Pastures is too simple or that the characters reinforce unpleasant stereotypes, one must admit that The Green Pastures is an integral part of the cultural history of the 1930’s. The awarding of the Pulitzer Prize to the play in 1930 reflects an awakening social consciousness in the United States, an awareness that was to permeate many of the great plays, films, and paintings of the 1930’s. In fact, The Green Pastures is the most powerful expression of Connelly’s lifelong preoccupation with the social outcast.

Sources for Further Study

Abramson, Doris E. Negro Playwrights in the American Theatre, 1925-1959. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969.

Connelly, Marc. “This Play’s the Thing: The Green Pastures.” Theatre Magazine, May, 1930, 32-33, 66-70.

Ford, Aaron. “How Genuine Is The Green Pastures?” Phylon, Spring, 1960, 67-70.

Johnson, James Weldon. Black Manhattan. 1930. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1991.

Kelly, Marion. “Backstage: Marc Connelly Back with Prize Play.” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 24, 1951, pp. 21, 24.

Mitchell, Loftin. Black Drama: The Story of the American Negro in the Theater. New York: Hawthorne Books, 1967.

Nolan, Paul T. Marc Connelly. New York: Twayne, 1969.