The spark for the show came from the Midrash; here are some of the texts:
Leviticus Rabbah 26:7 …What does it say of Abraham? And Abraham rose early in the morning… and took two of his young men with him (Gen. 22,3). Who were they? Ishmael and Eliezer.
This is just mentioned, as if everybody knew it, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s a bombshell. When Elie Weisel (in a lecture on the Akedah I was lucky enough to attend) mentioned this midrash, I jotted down in my notes: a play? That was almost fifteen years ago, now.
Genesis Rabba LV:4 Isaac and Ishmael were engaged in a controversy: the latter argued, ‘I am more beloved than thou, because I was circumcised at the age of thirteen’; while the other retorted, ‘I am more beloved than thou, because I was circumcised at eight days.’ Said Ishmael to him: ‘I am more beloved, because I could have protested, yet did not!’ At that moment Isaac exclaimed: ‘O that Gd would appear to me and bid me cut off one of my limbs! then I would not refuse.’ Said Gd: ’Even if I bid thee sacrifice thyself, thou will not refuse.’ (Another version: Said Ishmael to him: ‘I am more beloved than thou, because I was circumcised at the age of thirteen, but thou wast circumcised as a baby and couldst not refuse.’ Isaac retorted ‘All that thou didst lend to the Holy One, blessed be he, was three drops of blood. But lo, I am now thirty-seven years old, yet if Gd desired of me that I be slaughtered, I would not refuse.’ Said the Holy One blessed be He, ‘This is the moment!’ Straightway, Gd did prove Abraham.)
I didn’t use that exchange, but I did take the scene into account as I worried at my characters of Isaac and Ishmael. Also, this is one of the points where it mentions Isaac’s age. Also, it brings a sort of narrative to this question of what Ishmael is doing on the trip. We have the adult Ishmael and Isaac, once again in conflict, sparking the entire thing. This is also from one of the angles where Isaac, not Abraham, is the hero.
Genesis Rabba LVI:2 He then said to him [Isaac]: ‘Isaac, my son, seest thou what I see?’ ‘Yes,’ he relpied. Said he to his two servants: ‘See ye what I see?’ ‘No,’ they answered. ‘Since you do not see it, Abide ye here with the ass,’ he bade them, for ye are like the ass…
I did not include this idea, or anything like it, but I did have Abraham ask who sees what. I was more interested in playing with Isaac’s inability to see clearly, both as foreshadowing (a legitimate literary technique) and as metaphor.
Genesis Rabba LVI:4 Samael went to the Patriarch Abraham and upbraided him saying: ‘What means this, old man! Hast thou lost thy wits? thou goest to slay a son granted to thee at the age of a hundred!’ ‘Even this I do,’ replied he. ‘And if He sets thee an even greater test, canst thou stand it?’ said he, as it is written, If a thing be put to thee as a trial, wilt thou be wearied (Job 4:2)? ‘Even more than this,’ he replied. ‘To-morrow He will say to thee, “Thou are a murderer, and art guilty”’ ‘Still am I content,’ he rejoined. Seeing that he could achieve nought with him, he approached Isaac and said: ‘Son of an unhappy mother! He goes to slay thee.’ ‘I accept my fate,’ he replied.
I took Satan (or Samael, or The Visitor—he isn’t named in the dialogue, and I’m not sure exactly what I want to put in the playbill) as my fifth character, because… well, because it’s always cool to write for Satan. But also because I felt the four of them needed somebody to mix things up. I decided not to have Satan speak with Abraham, but with the other three characters. One early idea had Satan speak directly to the audience, as a sort of narrator, but that didn’t work at all.
Midrash Tanchuma: He came to the place to which God had told him to go, and he bound Isaac, his son: When Abraham came to slaughter Isaac, Isaac said to him: “Father, bind my hands and legs, for the soul is impudent and when I see the knife I may be frightened and the sacrifice will be no good because my trembling will cause you to make a blemish.”
I included this bit, although in vastly different dialogue. The story is called the Binding rather than the sacrifice, because although Isaac is not actually sacrificed, he is bound. But why is he bound? Surely, if he has agreed to the sacrifice, there wouldn’t be any need for the binding? In this midrash, it is explained, and another bit of the story is filled in, making these people a little more vulnerable and human.
Which is, after all, what I’m trying to do, myself.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.