Buddha Speaks

This one-man show imagines the Buddha in his own words.

A A A Comments By Mark Dragotta Thursday, Jul 16 2009

“I'm not so interested in giving answers as I am in posing questions,” says writer/actor Evan Brenner about his one-man play The Buddha -- In His Own Words. “The Sutras were originally an oral tradition, and I'm interested in the process of making these scriptures oral again.” In this ninety-minute play following the life of Gautama Buddha from his birth to his death, Brenner humanizes the prince-turned-ascetic in a way that brings forth the man more than the myths surrounding him.

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"I tried imagining what he might have been like as a person," Brenner explains.

In the play, the audience watches as Prince Gautama flees his home and family and turns to an aesthetic life that includes standing continuously, sleeping with corpses and eating only moss and grass. Highlights include his dialogue with the Devil, his enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, his first (overly exuberant) failure as a teacher, his time living among fire-worshippers, and the rarely told story of his inability to prevent the murder of everyone in his home state.

See Buddha tonight at 8 p.m. at the Town Hall Arts Center, 2450 West Main Street in Littleton; tickets are $20. Log on to www.thebuddhaplay.com or call 303-794-2787.
Fridays-Sundays, 7:30 p.m.; Mon., Aug. 10, 7:30 p.m.; Sun., Aug. 16, 2 & 7:30 p.m. Starts: Aug. 8. Continues through Aug. 15, 2009

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