“Fundamentalist Christian traditions want the Bible to be this exacting thing that offers clear answers to the meaning of life. But it doesn’t.”

Responder: Rodney Brazil, Performer
Name of Company: Next Stage
Name of Show: Meaningless

1. Why should people see your show?

This show gives audiences a chance to experience a story that’s been misunderstood, misused, and misinterpreted for thousands of years. Even scholars who’ve studied Ecclesiastes have disagreements about its meaning or why it’s even in the Bible. I don’t fully understand it! And yet, Ecclesiastes is everywhere around us, a tiny sliver of the bestselling book of all time. The script for Meaningless is, essentially, a word-for-word performance of Ecclesiastes from a modern translation. No commentary, no proselytizing–just a big old monologue that’s interesting, funny, and strange.

2. What about festivals intrigues you? Any why the Atlanta Fringe?

Festivals are a big opportunity for little shows. Quirky, unfamiliar shows are a hard sell, but being a part of a festival gives you some structure to help reach a wider audience. I really wanted to do this show in the South, where people with wide-ranging views about religion and the Bible live side-by-side. And I absolutely love visiting Atlanta. Such a distinctive vibe.

3. What inspired you to create this?

I’ve always been into spiritual and wisdom texts. I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian tradition but somehow, as a kid, convinced my parents to let me read the Book of Mormon and Dianetics just out of curiosity. Then in college, I got into Eastern sacred texts. I genuinely love the Tao Te Ching. And I’m sure my husband is utterly sick of me quoting The Four Agreements. Even though I left my parents’ church a long time ago (due to irreconcilable differences), I’ve always respected the wisdom contained in the Bible. Re-reading the book of Ecclesiastes itself inspired me to try and bring it onstage. Spiritually, I’m pretty freelance these days, but developing this show and adapting Ecclesiastes has been a big reminder that many of the struggles people have today were what people were struggling with during the Bronze Age, too.

4. This year ain’t normal and there’s no sense pretending it is. How has Covid affected what you’re doing for this festival?

Covid made me take a break, and stop trying to be a part of shows that I didn’t care about. It also gave me time to listen to a bunch of podcasts and read random old books because I had extra time on my hands. And the time to memorize the whole book of Ecclesiastes, which was much harder than I had anticipated.

5. What have you learned from working on your show so far?

I’ve learned that so many things in the world are irreconcilable. Fundamentalist Christian traditions want the Bible to be this exacting thing that offers clear answers to the meaning of life. But it doesn’t. In fact, Ecclesiastes literally teaches that life is meaningless, in this translation anyway.

6. There’s a mysterious stranger in the back row of your show, wearing a big ol’ N95 mask and a baseball cap and there’s something weirdly familiar about them, and then they come up afterwards to tell you they loved your show. In your WILDEST DREAMS, who is this mysterious stranger? (Bonus points if your mysterious stranger is an Atlanta celeb.)

Oklahoma’s own, Reba McEntire

7. Fringes are the place to really push the boundaries so we gotta ask: are you inviting your family to this show are “Hey, maybe sit this one out you guys…”

My family is invited, but I’ll tell you, I don’t think my Mom really knows what she’s getting into. This staging is more Beckett than Branson.

8. We’ve asked this question every year for the past ten years or so but it hits different this year: Will your show change the world?

It already has. Ecclesiastes has likely inspired millions of people for hundreds of years. Famously it’s inspired Hemingway, John Grisham, Pete Seger. There are dozens of allusions to Ecclesiastes in Moby Dick (another old book I had time to read during quarantine).

9. Zoom meetings: dress up head to toe or Donald Duck it?

Donald Duck it. I actually did a tech rehearsal via Zoom for the Theatre Crude Fringe Festival in Oklahoma City last year. The rest of the cast was onstage, masked-up, having a tech rehearsal while I was in Denver, Donald Ducking it on Zoom with a glass o

[Ed note – this is where Rodney’s answer ended, presumably because of the the glass o’ whatever he was drinking without pants on.]

10. We’re making an excellent Fringey Feelings playlist. Describe your show in two or three songs we can add to keep the jams flowing.

Turn! Turn! Turn! (obviously)

Waiting on a Friend by the Rolling Stones

[Editor’s note: we are obsessed with this song and have never seen this video and now will be writing our own full-length solo show about everything that happens in it.] 

Hymn to the Sun Medley by Anthony Roth Costanzo and Justin Vivian Bond

Sounds incredible, right? Gonna need to nab those tickets, right? Click here to reserve your seats today!