On the trail of the prodigal son

• Published in: Queen's quarterly 2009-03, Vol.116 (1), p.38
• Main Author: Leroux, Georges
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bible; Blindness; Criticism and interpretation; Dramatists; Ethics; Eye movements; Father-son relations; Fathers and sons; Hands; Mouawad, Wajdi; Mouwad, Wajdi; Painters; Painters (Artists); Playwrights; Portrayals; Rembrandt; Rembrandt Van Rijn (1606-1669); Roughness; Spirituality; Theater criticism; Truth; Visual artists; Works
• ISSN: 0033-6041

The tie that binds this play to Rembrandt's painting and to the biblical parable is thus far from superficial. The road that led [Wajdi Mouawad] to Saint Petersburg led him also to the painting in which he discovered the father. Indeed, who is this compassionate father, bent over his miserable and ragged son, welcoming him after a long absence? Doesn't the parable (Luke 15:11-32) invite us to recognize, in this patriarch clad in a bishop's cloak, the symbolic Father, both theological and archetypal, from whom each of us is orphaned from birth and who casts us into exile in the world of distress and violence? Is it not we who are beaten down and ravaged, thirsting for tenderness and mercy, always in quest of an impossible forgiveness as we drown in the infinite quest for ourselves? In the shaven-headed son, still wearing the shameful dagger at his belt, does not each of us find the image of his own exile and aspire to lay before his father the sandals worn down by the road's roughness? Onto the kneeling son's torn tunic, the father lays hands of welcome and affection. The enigma of the hands' dissimilarity has always intrigued scholars, one is so much lighter and more feminine than the other; but no matter, is he not at once both father and mother? And what to say ofthat face, where we discern both the resignation of expectation and the calm of one who has always known everything from the beginning? One eye looks to the side, warily; the other is nearly invisible, covered by the eyelid. Is this father blind, like old Tobit welcoming his son Tobias and knowing him by his hands (Tobias 1 1 and 12), and why is his withdrawn gaze absent from the parable? In contrast with Tobias, though, the prodigal son cannot cure his father's blindness. In this theological meditation, the father's welcome is thought of against the backdrop of a puzzle, and where Wajdi Mouawad sets himself up as an only son, [Henri Nouwen] reintroduces the conflict between the two sons: indeed the parable poses the problem of rewarding the just, and each of us, faced with the parable, must express a preference. Why does the father show such affection and compassion toward the son who chose the path of debauchery, and such sternness toward his brother, who clung to the observance of rules and respect for tradition? The vulnerability of the repentant son certainly evokes sympathy, and we can understand that he should be welcomed by the father, but do we not spontaneously align ourselves with the