J.B.

directed by Joe Jung

 

This Pulitzer Prize-winning verse play by acclaimed poet and playwright Archibald MacLeish reveals one man’s search for hope in a world full of suffering and injustice. In an empty circus tent, two circus vendors, Mr. Zuss and Mr. Nickles, take on the roles of God and Satan in an effort to play out their version of the Book of Job. Hardly do they don their masks when the story of Job emerges, not from the Bible, but from the landscape of the American present. The play-within-a-play begins as the vendors conjure J.B. to the stage and subsequently watch the millionaire fall from wealth and power as his children and property are destroyed, leaving him to wander the streets in search of answers.