Awake Not Love Before Its Time: Musical Drama Based on the Song of Solomon

An original work designed to present the events behind the Biblical book The Song of Solomon. The casting, presentation, and musical accompaniment can be as elaborate or simple as the facilities, cast, and presenters want it to be. Choral and drama groups will find it challenging for presentation for different types of audiences in a variety of settings. The story arises from King Solomon's trip to a small village in which he owns a vineyard. Some family in the local village takes care of the vineyard for a share of the proceeds agreed between them and the king. From such a dull beginning the story gains one's attention when the local family asks Queen Mother Bathsheba to intercede with the king to marry their daughter in exchange for the annual rent on the vineyard. Bathsheba agrees and gets Solomon to accept the offer. With this approach the story unfolds naturally and fully from the contents of The Song of Solomon.

This book stands in the Biblical canon as Solomon's tribute to how God views and values human love and its basic family relationships including passion and sex. Certain key verses indicate that the historical background of the book lies in a small village of Israel named Baal-hamon. "Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon; he entrusted the vineyard to keepers; each one was to bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver. My vineyard, my very own, is for myself. You, O Solomon, may have the thousand, and the keepers of the fruit two hundred!" (Song of Solomon 8:11-12 NRVS) The question must be answered: Why should a mundane commercial arrangement be the basis for such beautiful poetry with deeply moving references to the love between a man and a woman? From that point of view The Song of Solomon deserves and requires a new interpretation. One that deals with the lives of local citizens of a small town in Israel as their King comes to claim one more bride. Yet Solomon settles for the usual rent in silver rather than human flesh. Rev. Cyrus B. Fletcher presented this interpretation during an adult Bible study class in the spring of 2001 at the First Baptist Church of Baytown, Texas. After several months of encouragement he convinced his daughter, J. Elaine Black, to collaborate with him on a dramatic musical based on such an interpretation.

All age groups from grandparents to early teenagers will immediately catch the beauty and the message of the songs, the dialogue, and the story. J. Elaine Black is a music teacher, a choir leader, a director of dozens of musical productions of music camps and schools. She writes songs for weddings and church services. Rev. Fletcher is a retired minister and mission pastor who holds a Master of Divinity from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. People speak of his reputation as a pulpiteer being exceeded by his skill as a Bible teacher. He has taught seminary extension classes, college level Biblical survey courses, and numerous Bible and doctrinal studies in the churches which he has served or where he holds membership.

In this era many hold human love as cheap and even tawdry. Many question the sanctity of marriage and sexual purity especially for youth. Awake Not Love Before Its Time can present a vital and needed view of Biblical teachings on such an important subject.