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The Seduction of Almighty God is set during the dissolution of the monasteries, a critical moment in the history of the English priesthood. The loss of faith and cynical corruption that characterised the priests of this period is unexpectedly challenged by the arrival of a young man with an unsullied and passionate belief in God. Taken in by a pitying abbot, the boy Loftus gradually acquires a huge moral ascendancy over the few priests left in the Abbey of Calcetto through the intensity and purity of his faith. With mounting alarm they discover that he possesses the power of life and death over others. This power enables Loftus to rid the abbey of government agents who pester it but gradually it corrupts him. Worshiped as a deity and struggling with the dangerous authority he now possesses, Loftus is brutally raped by priests with a score to settle. This experience becomes a key element in his theology, leading him deeper into contradiction and ultimately his martyrdom. Barker's boy priest is a portrait of an adolescent empowered by his own absolute belief in what he thinks he knows but pained to find it undermined and debased by cynical compromisers for whom faith is a convenient cloak for a more selfish personal agenda. Powerful poetic language, provocative ideas and rich, dark humour build a thought-provoking allegory for one of the key issues of our times. Howard Barker invents a world of shocking and universal metaphor in a place that might be anywhere struggling with the rise of extreme belief and the dangerous distorted power it unleashes. This play contains strong language and scenes of an explicit nature. Suitable for 15+

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Author: Howard Barker