The Drama of the Kingdom

The Drama of the Kingdom is a poetic expression of a play created and outlined by 'Abdu'l-Bahรก.

THE DRAMA OF THE KINGDOM Dr. Gregory T. Lawton

The Drama of the Kingdom, Copyright 2013 Dr. Gregory T. Lawton All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written permission from Dr. Gregory T. Lawton.

Cover Photograph – Copied from www.bahaullah.org Illustration and Design – Dr. Gregory T. Lawton 1|Page

'Abdu'l-Bahá On December 5th, 1912, the day of his departure from New York and North America, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, gave his departure speech on board the steamship Celtic. On December 13th, 1912 the White Star Liner S.S. Celtic docked at Liverpool, Great Britain.

It was during 'Abdu'l-Bahá’s second visit to Great Britain that he attended his first theatre, Alice Buckton’s mystery play Eager Heart, and saw its performance at Church House, Westminster on December 22nd, 1912.

'Abdu'l-Bahá was very moved by this play and after its performance he visited with the actors and shared with them the events which accompany the appearance of a Manifestation of God. On January 17th, 1913 'Abdu'l-Bahá told Gabrielle Enthoven that, “I will give you a play. It shall be called the Drama of the Kingdom.” 'Abdu'l-Bahá later provided Mrs. Enthoven with an outline of the play that included some of the dialogue, but Mrs. Enthoven did not write the play. Instead she gave the outline to Mary (Blomfield) Basil Hall who wrote the play and had it published by Weardale Press Unlimited in 1933.

In the intervening years dating from the creation of this play there have been several theatrical presentations of the play. This book is a poetic expression whose influence was taken directly from the outline provided by 'Abdu'l-Bahá and cited in the appendix of H.M. Balyuzi’s Book entitled, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, The Centre of the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh published by George Ronald in 1971.

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Foreword While recently re-reading H.M. Balyuzi’s majestic book entitled, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, The Centre of the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh I ‘discovered’ the story of, and the outline for 'Abdu'l-Bahá’s play, The Drama of the Kingdom, and I was moved to write some lines of poetry around the central scenes and dialog as dictated by 'Abdu'l-Bahá in 1913.

I purposely did not read the play as it was later written and completed by Mary (Blomfield) Basil Hall nor have I ever seen an enactment of the play.

I have preferred instead to investigate the poetic opportunities created by 'Abdu'l-Bahá’s original outline without any influence from other writers or sources.

Since first writing the rough draft version of this poem I have heard from Baha’i friends that the play that was written and enacted was quite elaborate and extensive. In my poetic expression of 'Abdu'l-Bahá’s I wanted to embrace the concept of “fewness of words” and to allow the poem and the rhyme to speak for themselves.

Additionally, as I wrote the various lines of the poem I heard different voices speaking the lines out loud and so I used different meter and tempo for the different stanzas.

I hope that the reader enjoys this humble effort.

Dr. Gregory T. Lawton, 2013

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Dedication I dedicate this work to my dear daughter Jaime Manfra and to her sincere efforts as a herald of the Faith to champion the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh and to my new Bahá’i friend Randi Aniaz, who wanted more…

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“In that day shall the LORD of hosts be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of his people…”

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(“How amazing would it be if I was not amazed at Thee.�)

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About the author Dr. Gregory T. Lawton is an author of many books, most of them in the area of health science, but also in the genre of Asian martial arts, philosophy, poetry, and prose. Dr. Lawton is a passionate award winning artist and photographer who finds his artistic and creative inspiration in nature, and who frequently attributes the source of his images and writing to the 19th century Persian Prophet, Bahá’u’lláh, the founder of the Baha’i Faith, and the 13th century Persian poet and Sufi Mystic Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī.

Dr. Lawton has been a member of the Baha’i Faith since 1970 and embraces the Faith’s principles related to the promotion of world unity and peace.

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