• “The Bible say”: August Wilson’s Scriptural Improvisation
• Patrick Maley (bio)

Very early in August Wilson’s career—in the opening scene direction to Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom—the playwright puts his work in dialogue with the Bible:

Chicago in 1927 is a rough city, a bruising city, a city of millionaires and derelicts, gangsters and roughhouse dandies, whores and Irish grandmothers who move through its streets fingering long black rosaries. Somewhere a man is wrestling with the taste of a woman in his cheek. Somewhere a dog is barking. Somewhere the moon has fallen through a window and broken into thirty pieces of silver.¹

The rosary beads evoke post-biblical Christianity, but the thirty pieces of silver point directly to the Bible. The reference is to Matthew 26:14–16, where Jerusalem’s chief priests secure Judas’s betrayal of Jesus for that price. In Matthew, the sum likely refers back to Exodus 21:32, which establishes remuneration for an injured slave: “If the ox gores a male or female slave, the owner shall pay to the slaveowner thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned.”² The chief priests therefore include an implicit insult in their price, essentially buying Jesus for the price of an injured slave. After Judas later returns the silver and hangs himself, the chief priests, finding it unlawful to deposit blood money in the treasury, use the bounty to buy land for burying dead foreigners (Matthew 27:7-10). The priests desire Judas’s betrayal but refuse to imbue Jesus with any significant value.

Wilson’s Chicago moon shatters into indiscriminate blood money: thirty pieces of silver lying below a non-descript window. Having descended through a window, the moon offers no light, becoming instead the potential means of the sort of betrayal, disrespect, regret, self-loathing, [End Page 435] and death found in Matthew that could happen in Chicago’s darkness. That is, if somebody should find the money and put it to the use that Wilson’s allusion suggests. Although Wilson’s past tense makes clear that the violent transformation of the natural world into blood money has already occurred, betrayal is uncertain. The money could remain unfound, be collected and put to a different use, or fund betrayal in precisely the fashion of the biblical antecedent. Wilson’s allusion thus enriches his play by reference to scripture, but signifies on biblical themes, wrenching the gospel story into the modern setting through a long human and aesthetic history that leaves scars. Matthew’s story resonates in Wilson’s world, but it is irreparably altered, rendered indeterminate and mysterious. By offering a rich web of allusions stretching to ancient Hebrew scripture, the Bible acts on Ma Rainey and the American Century Cycle, but what is to be done with and in response to that action is left to Wilson and his characters.

The consistent presence of biblical references in Wilson contributes to the development of a human-centered religiosity that runs throughout American Century Cycle. Religious elements such as biblical references, performative spiritual rites, blood memory of Africa, and blues metaphysics help Wilson’s characters work toward the goals of fostering community and finding joy to express in their songs. Within this swirl of amalgamated religious conditions, the Bible is a constant presence: 33 of the Cycle’s 77 characters reference it. But its role is just as amalgamated and unfixed as the force of religion.

The assortment of roles that the Bible plays and functions that it performs in the Cycle emphasize the agency and responsibility that Wilson’s humans and communities bear for their own spiritual journeys. The Bible is a resource with which they might fruitfully engage, but it is by no means an answer key. Instead, as Jacob wrestles God in Genesis 32:22–32, Wilson requires that his characters grapple with spiritual forces in an attempt to harmonize in such a way that supports individual and communal efforts to develop identity, dignity, resistance, and happiness. The work of the Bible in Wilson suggests that spirituality can contribute productively to journeys toward individual and communal becoming in the Cycle, but humans must labor to...

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  “圣经说”：奥古斯特·威尔逊的圣经即兴创作
•  帕特里克·马利 （生物）

在奥古斯特·威尔逊的职业生涯早期——在马·雷尼的《黑底》的开场导演中——这位剧作家将他的作品与圣经对话：

1927 年的芝加哥是一座粗犷的城市，一座伤痕累累的城市，一座充斥着百万富翁和流氓、黑帮和粗鲁花花公子、妓女和爱尔兰老奶奶的城市，他们手里拿着长长的黑色念珠在街上走来走去。在某个地方，一个男人正在与他脸颊上女人的味道作斗争。某处有狗在吠叫。月亮从窗户掉下来，碎成三十块银子。¹

念珠让人想起圣经之后的基督教，但三十块银子直接指向圣经。这里指的是马太福音 26：14-16，耶路撒冷的祭司长以这个代价确保了犹大对耶稣的出卖。在马太福音中，这笔款项可能是指出埃及记 21：32，其中规定了受伤奴隶的报酬：“如果牛咬了男奴或女奴，主人要付给奴隶主三十舍客勒银子，牛要被石头打死。² 因此，祭司长的价钱中含有隐含的侮辱，实质上是用受伤奴隶的价钱买下耶稣。犹大后来归还银子并上吊自杀后，祭司长认为将血钱存入库房是非法的，于是用赏金购买土地埋葬死去的外国人（马太福音 27：7-10）。祭司们渴望犹大的背叛，但拒绝赋予耶稣任何重要的价值。

威尔逊笔下的芝加哥月亮碎成不分青红皂白的血钱：三十块银子躺在一扇不起眼的窗户下。月亮从窗户降下，没有提供任何光线，反而成为马太福音中可能发生的那种背叛、不尊重、遗憾、自我厌恶[完第 435 页] 和死亡的潜在手段，这些都可能发生在芝加哥的黑暗中。也就是说，如果有人找到这笔钱并将其用于威尔逊的典故所暗示的用途。尽管威尔逊的过去时态清楚地表明，自然界已经暴力地转变为血钱，但背叛是不确定的。这些钱可能一直没有找到，被收集起来并用于不同的用途，或者以圣经先例的方式资助背叛。因此，威尔逊的典故通过引用圣经丰富了他的戏剧，但又以圣经为主题，通过留下伤痕的漫长人类和美学历史，将福音故事带入现代背景。马修的故事在威尔逊的世界里引起了共鸣，但它被不可挽回地改变了，变得不确定和神秘。通过提供延伸到古希伯来经文的丰富典故网络，圣经对马雷尼和美国世纪周期起作用，但如何处理和回应这一行动留给威尔逊和他的人物。

威尔逊始终如一地引用圣经有助于发展贯穿整个美国世纪周期的以人为本的宗教信仰。宗教元素，如圣经引用、表演性精神仪式、非洲的血腥记忆和蓝调形而上学，帮助威尔逊的角色朝着培养社区和在歌曲中找到快乐的目标努力。在这个融合的宗教条件的漩涡中，《圣经》是一个永恒的存在：《圣经》的 77 个人物中有 33 个提到了它。但它的作用与宗教的力量一样是融合和不固定的。

圣经在循环中扮演的各种角色和它所发挥的功能强调了威尔逊笔下的人类和社区在他们自己的属灵旅程中所承担的能动性和责任。圣经是他们可以富有成效地参与的资源，但它绝不是答案的关键。相反，正如雅各在创世记 32：22-32 中与上帝搏斗时，威尔逊要求他的人物与精神力量搏斗，试图以一种支持个人和社区努力发展身份、尊严、抵抗和幸福的方式进行协调。威尔逊的圣经工作表明，灵性可以有效地促进个人和社区在循环中的旅程，但人类必须努力......