About the Play:

The Gospel according to Clarence Thomas is a full-length drama by Ashis Gupta. Crafted as a long poem, a libretto for stage presentations, The Gospel according to Clarence Thomas is a political satire on the sad era of George Bush, Dick Cheney, John Bolton and other characters, and of course Clarence Thomas.

The Gospel according to Clarence Thomas: A Libretto is an imaginary drama in verse in which US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas pleads with President George Bush, Jr., to be allowed to chronicle the glorious presidency of Mr. Bush after his second inauguration. Of course, he is allowed to do so. Clarence Thomas, the pious altar boy, seemed the right person for this "heavenly" task of penning a Gospel. The US Supreme Court is a comfortable place, but not necessarily a redemptive place that Thomas craves. Thus emerges a gentle satire which is also a social commentary, replete with a large cast which includes Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, the Ghost of Saddam Hussain, and others. The 'Chorus of the Homeless' occupies a central role in the poem, performing a function much like the Chorus in Greek Tragedies of yore, providing a reasonably objective commentary. In a sense, the central story is a tragedy too – George Bush is a tragic figure. And, towards the end, he is conceived as a tragic hero, a Samson-like figure who pulls down the temple over his head to crush the Philistines. (Samson, by the way, was history's first 'suicide-bomber').

The Gospel according to Clarence Thomas is less about Clarence Thomas than it is about the devastating reign of the Bush administration. The central idea of the book is: 'War is an Evil product of Evil/Hypocritical Minds'. As a footnote, the presidency of Joseph Biden seems a proper moment to revisit the initiation of Clarence Thomas to the US Supreme Court in 1991. Mr Biden chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time and denied any corroborating witnesses to Prof. Anita Hill who had accused Thomas of Sexual misconduct, thereby assuring Thomas' nomination. One might say that this act of Senator Biden's set the precedent for the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, after Kavanaugh had also been accused of sexual misconduct.

Cast: 5 female, 11 male (plus a chorus)

About the Playwright:

Ashis Gupta is a Canadian novelist, poet, publisher and academic. He completed a Ph.D. in English literature at Harvard University in the mid 1970s. He and his wife Swapna moved to Calgary in 1978. He went on to teach management studies in Calgary, retiring from the Haskayne School of Business in 2003. He co-founded the independent publishing house Bayeux Arts with Swapna Gupta in 1994.