Text on black background with a thorn motif in the corner: Scene 2: Samuel talks with Ezekiel. Living with conflict theatre series. Faith in Grey Places

Living with conflict: A duologue between Samuel and Ezekiel

For lent 2022, I’m writing six duologues between Samuel and other people in the Bible, all on the theme of living with conflict.

The prophet Samuel, now deceased, converses with a series of guests in paradise, reflecting on their past experiences and what it was to live with conflict. In this, the second scene, he meets Ezekiel, the would-be priest who was exiled to Babylon, where he saw some pretty indescribable visions of God and wrote them down in a book of prophecy.

Samuel asks Ezekiel whether he’d rather be a prophet or a priest. Ezekiel answers that he’d be a mathematician.


If you’re less familiar with the book of Ezekiel, the Bible Project have made a series of videos summarising the books of the Bible; there are two for Ezekiel (it’s quite a long book) and they’re useful if you want a quick overview. Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here.

The script of this duologue is light-hearted, but the subject matter of Ezekiel is pretty heavy and Ezekiel 16 is one of the most graphic chapters of the whole Bible! However, reading the book as a teenager enlivened my faith in a way that I’ll never forget. If you want a deeper dive into the complexities of Ezekiel 16 as a ‘difficult passage’, I wrote this post for CBE International: Pejorative Language and Translation Bias in Ezekiel 16.

Otherwise, if you’re up for some light comedy, read on.


An excerpt from the script is below. 

Length: 2,350 words
Actors: 2 adult males
Genre: Comedy drama
Advisory notice: Brief mentions warfare and exile, but only in broad terms.
Fun fact: Chris K. Caldwell has an amazing website that allows you to look up the first trillion prime numbers. Also if you enter a number, it will tell you how many prime numbers exist that are equal to or less than that number. Check it out: the Primes website is here.


SAMUEL:            
So, you understand the kind of question I’m asking?

EZEKIEL:            
Yes. Well… I do and I don’t. Emotional intelligence isn’t exactly one of my strengths. 

SAMUEL:            
Really? That surprises me. 

EZEKIEL:            
Have you read my book?

SAMUEL:            
Yes.

EZEKIEL:            
All of it?

SAMUEL:            
Yes. 

EZEKIEL:            
Including the end?

SAMUEL:            
(LESS CERTAIN) Yes. (BEAT) Though I only read that bit once. 

EZEKIEL:            
(LAUGHS) 

SAMUEL:            
Are you about to tell me that was your favourite part? 

EZEKIEL:            
(CHUCKLES) No! I might be weird, but I am human. (BEAT) I’m just saying, if you read between the lines you’ll see that emotion is largely absent from my written work. 

PAUSE.

SAMUEL:            
But the images you used were so emotive! I always thought you were an artist in disguise. 

EZEKIEL:            
(CHUCKLES) No, God’s the artist, I just… described what I saw. Usually quite badly. 


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