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A Fifties-Style Job

© Emily Woodward

Archibald MacLeish's J.B. is a contemporary reworking of the Book of Job. Set in the 1950s, it casts two "broken-down actors" in the roles of God and the devil. They perform atop a side-show stage, which doubles as Heaven and Hell. In the Prologue, a theatrical framework is laid, as the actors don masks and slip into character. Soon, however, the parts overwhelm them. They function less as imitators than as vehicles of divine power. Central to their schemes is J.B., an everyman whose love for God is severely tested. J.B. is not an actor. His involvement in the "show" makes it all the more fantastic.

J.B. is fraught with allusions to works other than "Job". The actor who portrays God is named Mr. Zuss, an obvious reference to Greek mythology. The latter is described as "large, deep-voiced, dignified, imposing." This is an understatement for the Olympian King and the God of Jews and Christians! Macleish has found - as I suspect many authors do - that allusive references can be more descriptive than mere adjectives and metaphors.

The actor who plays Satan is not rooted in allusion. However, I believe that his name helps establish his character (and that of his alias). Nickles (that is, nickels) suggests a dependence on the material - i.e. things of this world: money, property, other people. When such things are taken away, Nickles, like Job, loses faith. Both men rail against their God. In the Prologue, it becomes apparent how much the two have in common(p. 9).

NICKLES: [on Job] On his dung heap, crying to God...Justice! No wonder wonder he laughs. It's ridiculous. God has killed his sons, his daughters, solen his camels...everything he has and left him sick and stricken. [later, on himself] I taste of the world! I've licked the stick that beat my brains out..

Nickles feels that man, as epitomized by Job, is a burden to God (p. 10).

The one thing God can't stomach is a man, That scratcher at the cracked creation! That eyeball squinting through into His Eye, Blind with the sight of Sight!

Unlike lesser animals, man does not blindly accept his condition, whatever it may be. He evaluates and casts blame, even when this means showing animosity towards God. In this way, man is akin to Satan. Both use their ability to see against a "sightless" (inattentive, unmerciful) God.

I was acutely disturbed by this man/Satan parallel, and by Nickles' subsequent willingness to play either part (before the role of Job was given to an "outsider"). Are we truly cast more in the devil's image? That seems to be part of the play's message. It presents an irony. Man, after all, is supposedly the victim of God's wrath, yet it is Satan who drives Him to such behavior. Nickles makes the transition nicely. After lamenting his own hardships in the Prologue, he schemes to show a fellow mortal (the next Job - J.B.) what God is really like (p. 47).

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