The Diaries of Adam and Eve is solidly acted

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      Adapted by David Birney from Mark Twain’s book. Directed by C. W. Marshall. An Ensemble Theatre Company production. At the Jericho Arts Centre on Sunday, July 21. Continues in rep until August 8

      How charming is well-aged sexism? Not very. 

      Mark Twain wrote the source material, which was published as a book in 1904. Then, in the 1980s, David Birney adapted it for the stage. The result is a homespun account, in diary form, of the adventures of the prototypical man and woman of Christian mythology. In Twain’s view, the sexes have distinct and immutable characters: “I am the first wife,” Eve says, “and, in the last, I shall be repeated.”

      According to the script, Eve’s femaleness means that she won’t shut up. She jabbers endlessly and makes emotional demands of Adam, who just wants to be left alone. On the plus side, she gets along well with children, unlike her husband, who is so clueless about babies that, when Cain is born, he spends a long, boring chunk of the script trying to figure out what kind of animal his son is: “Its short front legs and long hind ones indicate that it is of the kangaroo family.” The aesthetically sensitive Eve adores sunsets, while Adam, insensible to beauty, is a born breadwinner, concerned with the state of his crops.

      Twain gets off the occasional good line: after Cain slays Abel, Adam says, “The death of a child is like the burning down of a house. It will take us years to know all that we have lost in the fire.” Mostly, though, The Diaries of Adam and Eve repeats the same old limiting ideas about sex roles.

      Despite this creaky material, actors Tariq Leslie and Alicia Novak do solid work. Novak captures Eve’s innocent ebullience, which saves her from being cloying—not an easy save by any means—and Leslie makes a credibly serious, somewhat befuddled Adam.

      The other two shows that the fledgling Ensemble Theatre Company are presenting in rep are far more interesting. Check out Women Beware Women or, the best of the bunch, The Farnsworth Invention.

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