"Thou wilt turn again to me...for of all fowles that may fly, thou art most meeke and hende."

I'm currently in rehearsals to play Mr Noah for an RNCM Outreach production of Benjamin Britten's wonderful opera Noye's Fludde, based on Genesis 6-9. It's brilliant music, and we're planning quite a fun staging, with lots of umbrellas (hurrah!), but my favourite thing about it is the very first scene, which has Noah hearing God's voice ordering him to build the ark. In this production, the stage is covered in cardboard boxes laid out in the shape of a huge cross; that shape is then taken apart, and the boxes in it are used to build the Ark. I love this, because it's become, in my mind, a unintentional visual metaphor. How brilliant that the Cross becomes the Ark, as both were used in the Bible as a means of salvation: Noah's Ark kept a family and all the world's animals safe from the Flood; the Cross, on which Jesus died, provided a way for each one of us to be saved from the punishment we deserve for the sinful way in which we live.

The other wonderful thing is that it's written in old English, so you get amazing lines like

And heare are beares, woulfes, sette,

Apes and monkeys, marmosette,

Weyscelles, squirelles, and ferrette...

Such fun!