Revival, play held at First Christian Church in Brownstown

This Sunday evening at 6 p.m., Brownstown First Christian Church will present the play “Star Queen” on the final night of its fall revival.
“Star Queen” is based on the story of Queen Esther. It celebrates a victory over an evil tyrant through the cunning ingenuity of this young Jewish queen of Persia. It also focuses on the beginnings of the Jewish Feast of Purim.
Tommy Oaks and his son, John Thomas Oaks, bring this story to life in a campy, colorful, high-energy two-man production.
John Thomas originally wrote the piece to be performed by a full cast, but out of necessity he scaled the production back so that it could be performed by casts of three or two members. John Thomas usually performs the two-man version of the play with his father. Both men have been in Brownstown conducting a revival service at Brownstown First Christian Church.
“He’s a preacher and storyteller,” John Thomas said, noting that his father provided the inspiration for “Star Queen.”
“I guess it was growing up listening to him preach that got me to do this,” he said. “He would always try to bring out the humor in the way he told Bible stories, and he would always say about the book of Esther, ‘This should be a musical.’ So one day I finally sat down and took a shot at writing it. My father worked with me on the book of the show, and I did the music and lyrics and dialogue.”
While the show follows the Biblical story closely, John Thomas said he took some theatrical license in the way that the characters are portrayed.
“It’s something of a campy approach,” he said. “We do a lot of different accents. The king in the story is a lush, who’s throwing parties all the time, and we get a lot of humor out of his condition. The villain is blown up into a completely cartoonish character. And we’ve updated some segments of the story. The king does this kind of Vegas lounge number, for example.”
The show includes about 20 musical numbers composed by John Thomas that span a wide range of musical styles – pop, country, lounge-lizard style ballads, Latin-fueled tunes and songs that require full-out Broadway belting.
Even though it is humorous and modernized considerably, John Thomas doesn’t feel that his take on the book of Esther is going to ruffle religious feathers.
“When we finished the script, we took it to a rabbi and asked his opinion of it, since Esther is about the establishing of the Jewish Feast of Purim,” he said. “He said he had no problems with the script. And we’ve performed this show at colleges, in churches and synagogues, and never had any kind of backlash.”
“Maybe it’s because the story is so familiar to people,” he said. “They know the bad guys are going to get theirs in the end, so audiences can just sit back and enjoy the trip.”
The public is invited to attend the revival on Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m., and Sunday at 9:30 a.m. “Star Queen” will be presented at 6 p.m. Sunday.
The church is located at the Corner of First and Poplar streets in Brownstown. A free-will love offering will be received. For more information, call the church at 427-3687.