by Joel D. Heck
In 1943, Dorothy L. Sayers’ script of twelve radio broadcasts was published by Harper & Brothers as The Man Born to Be King: A Play-Cycle on the Life of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. She had written these dramatic episodes for the radio at a time when there was no precedent for such writing. Many deemed these broadcasts sacrilegious and some even considered them wicked. Far better, it was thought, to quote the Bible than to interpret it, especially on stage. But Sayers was a masterful writer, and her plays, though seldom read any more, must have won over most of her listening audience. Indeed, they won over this writer.
As she writes in her Introduction, “There were to be twelve plays, separated by intervals of four weeks” (Dorothy L. Sayers, The Man Born to Be King: A Play-Cycle on the Life of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1943, 13). Her object was “to tell that story to the best of my ability, within the medium at my disposal—in short to make as good a work of art as I could” (Sayers, 4). She wrote one Nativity story, six stories from the period of Jesus’ ministry, and five Passion plays beginning with Palm Sunday. Some characters had to be invented, such as Elihu, who was the captain of the guard at the tomb of Jesus, but Baruch the Zealot was the only main character of importance that she invented. Judas could not be a worthless villain lest Sayers cast a slur upon either the intelligence or the character of Jesus for choosing him as a disciple.
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