ANGEL, SHE-ASS, PROPHET

RELIGION AND ORIGINS

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ANGEL, SHE-ASS, PROPHET: THE PLAY AND ITS SET-DESIGN

Shimon Levy

The beginning of the Balak portion, and certainly one of the dramatic peaks of the biblical story in Numbers 22, depicts the uniquely the-atrical encounter between an angel, an animal, and a human—three different modes of being—from a human (rather than a divine) perspec-tive, as the rhetoric in this scene seems keen to underline. The theatri-cal approach proposed here focuses on the dialogical text exchanged between the dramatis personae but also—and no less so—on the stage instructions that shape the non-verbal languages of the biblical text. Although primarily a religious book, many of the Bible’s authors none-theless appear well aware of the all-important performative function in religious contexts and rituals, which, it should be added, mark one of the most important similarities between theatre and religion.

The story makes it obvious that Balaam was a powerful and impor-tant regional magician, whose words could indeed change reality. The biblical playwright accepts Balaam’s reputation, and employs wit in order to undermine the foreign prophet’s ability to per-form magic: rather than curse the Israelites, God intervenes and—performatively—makes Balaam bless them instead. This scene also offers an exceptionally strong example of a unique initiation rite, a personal transcendence (in this case of Balaam) to a clearer and deeper state of consciousness. In the sophisticated public relations that the Old Testament provides for its main hero, this scene is a convincing description of the Hebrew God’s interests and omnipotence, as He who uses a super-human angel and a non- (or sub-)human creature to teach Balaam a humiliating lesson in religious modesty, even though he had not in fact been all that haughty to begin with.

The famous Balaam, as we learn from Balak’s appeal to him and from the gradually intensified respect he pays him, is soon stuck in a classic dilemma, torn between Balak’s request, “Come now therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people . . .” [22:6] and that of God. God comes to the prophet—a proof of Balaam’s importance—and asks him who these people, Balak’s dignitaries, are. God then explicitly for-bids him, saying, “Thou shalt not go with them; thou shalt not curse the people: for they are blessed.” The dramatic conflict is gradually


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heightened by the imploring of Balak’s men themselves, as well as by God’s repeated visits to Balaam.

Whether intending to boost his own fame or as an a priori acceptance of the Hebrew God’s command, Balaam turns Balak’s messengers down. Here the playwright uses an elegant literary device, designed to homeopathically trap Balaam with his own magic tools. Imploring Balaam to curse the Israelites is neatly balanced by the respect paid to the potential curser: “For I will promote thee unto very great honour, and I will do whatsoever thou sayest unto me: come therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people.” [22:17] From the Hebrew playwright’s perspective, this is a snide preamble to the following dramatic beat, since Balak’s rhetoric, delivered by his messengers, ironically underlines the gap between the desired curse and the supplicant’s plight. Balaam again refuses to curse, even for a houseful of silver and gold, because he “cannot go beyond the word of the Lord.” He does indeed obey the Lord at this stage, albeit not with any great modesty. He invites Balak’s men to “tarry ye also here this night that I may know what the Lord will say unto me more.” He may intend to raise his price higher still, while subtly boasting that God speaks to him directly.

At night, before Balaam leaves on his mission, God warns him again: “If the men come to call thee, rise up, and go with them; but yet the word which I shall say unto thee, that shalt thou do.” The readers and spectators are not informed about Balaam’s thoughts, feel-ings, wishes or religious qualms in the darkness of this night, and this beat is consequently as dramatic as it is (deliberately) obscure. Balaam seems to have made up his mind to go. God is angry even though he has effectively told Balaam to go. Perhaps His wrath is raised because Balak’s people have not returned to implore Balaam yet again, as they had done before. Perhaps it is Balaam’s own decision this time to rise and go to curse.

A theatre director is now invited to fill in this textual discrepancy concerning Balaam’s decision as to what exactly he intends to do in the morning. The aforementioned performative function is prevalent in God’s short monologue to Balaam: “If the men come to call thee, rise up, and go with them; but yet the word which I shall say unto thee, that shalt thou do.” Perhaps God knew of Balaam’s decision to curse the Israelites, and that the latter is naturally afraid to disclose his intention. Only later, as a result of the she-ass scene, will this particular information gap be bridged. Nevertheless, Balaam’s silence (and the playwright’s) at this point is exquisitely theatrical.


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The dramatic space in the donkey scene is a road, a key-word repeated seven times in the 14 verses of the scene, gradually gaining, as is often the case in biblical rhetoric, not only quantitative significance but metaphoric value as well. Physically, a road is a space stretched between two locations, also indicating possible movement. The road here is sophisticatedly employed to express the tension between obey-ing God and accepting Balak’s request, between various magical acts and an explicit divine command, between the danger of a human curse and that which is soon to become a blessing by the Almighty. Balaam has so far been built up as an influential dramatic figure. Even his hesitations, hovering between Balak and God, may seemingly have ensued from his own free will. After the she-ass scene, however, the text clarifies that already from the beginning Balaam has been nothing but a tool in God’s hands.

The Angel, She-ass, Prophet scene opens with an exposition, recogniz-able since the Binding of Isaac story [Gen. 22:3] or from the later story of the concubine in Gibeah [ Judg. 19:3]: “And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass and went with the princes of Moab” [21]. The potentially ominous stage instruction of saddling of the ass relates to what Balaam, the princes of Moab, and the ass are doing—getting on their way—and the spectators are invited to imagine it on stage. Referring to Balaam’s action, the playwright inserts a report about an off-stage occurrence: “And God’s anger was kindled because he went,” which is immediately followed (because of God’s anger) by introducing a new character, thus advancing the plot: “and the angel of the Lord stood in the way for an adversary against him.” The play-wright notes, “Now he was riding upon his ass, and his two servants were with him,” drawing attention to Balaam’s physical posture fairly comfortably astride the ass while his socially inferior servants walk on foot. At the same time, the stage instruction emphasizes that the lowest on this dramatic totem-pole, the ass, is the only one to see the angel. Balaam, supposedly a practiced magician on his way to officiate as such, does not see the angel.

In a subtly ironic technique, implicitly comparing a prophet to an ass, the ass itself becomes an instrument by means of which to teach the prophet a lesson. However, as in all good theatre, the change of consciousness in this play, too, must come from within, albeit with an ass’s help: “And the ass saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and the ass turned aside out of the way, and went into the field.” The animal, as obvious in this context,


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tries to “turn aside” from a “bad way,” indeed from the very way the prophet wants to go. Only later does the playwright use the verb “ירט” [intercept]. The playwright does not say whether the princes of Moab or Balaam’s servants saw the angel. These characters are textually left offstage, perhaps as thus-far silent witnesses, whose later testimony may be important for ideological and theatrical reasons alike: they see how Balaam is cleverly humiliated. Indeed, this is their dramatic function, since the humiliated Balaam is not likely to tell anyone what had happened to him.

The scene now focuses on three characters: the angel sees Balaam and the ass, Balaam sees only the ass, “and the ass saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way.” Sight is central in theatre, and its spiritual aspects are deliberately denied the victim of this religious joke, played on the Seer who cannot see, while the audience plainly can. Instead of seeing, “Balaam smote the ass, to turn her into the way.” In this theatrical, violent, and arbitrary beat, resulting from not seeing the angel, the road motif and image become clear. In fact, it is Balaam who is side-tracked by God’s angel from proceeding on his “bad way” to curse the Israelites. He becomes the real ass in the scene.

“But the angel of the LORD stood in a path of the vineyards, a wall being on this side, and a wall on that side.” Theatrical space is harnessed to underline the inescapability of encountering the Lord’s messenger. Not only is the road forward blocked, but escape sideways from the true mission is equally frustrated. The (stage-)movement pat-tern is well juxtaposed with the theatrical space, and both enhance the sense of a blocked prophet. “And when the ass saw the angel of the Lord, she thrust herself unto the wall, and crushed Balaam’s foot against the wall.” The Hebrew twice emphasizes the verb לחץ, [“pres-sure” or “crush”], reflecting through stage space the internal tension via physical action, till tension explodes again in Balaam, who “smote her again.” In this minutely described and delicately designed pattern, indeed “stage instruction,” the angelic movement is slow and pre-cise while the human movement storms the animal with blows. Now “the angel of the Lord went further, and stood in a narrow place, where was no way to turn either to the right hand or to the left”. Upon the third, still further, narrowing of the space, even the biggest ass is supposed to grasp that something unusual is happening, and a well-seasoned prophet might suspect that a supernatural power is lurking there.



For the third time the text specifies, “And when the ass saw the angel of the Lord, she fell down under Balaam,” a particularly charged stage instruction that terminates the violent stage action of the ass yielding both to Balaam’s blows above her, and to the much more awesome sight of an angel with a drawn sword in his hand, above her and Balaam. She cannot bear the situation—physically, mentally (provided she has a soul, and this one certainly does), or spiritually. Moreover, while the ass is crushed but “knows,” Balaam is presented as “crushed” without “knowing.” His emotional rage and spiritual blindness intensify and are expressed by his now beating the ass with a stick, clearly in order to expose his bestiality versus the animal’s humanity, if not sanctity. The Hebrew וייחר אפו [“wrath”], previously ascribed to God, is here used to emphasize the difference between God and man. The rhetoric of the stage instructions, seemingly pertaining only to space and movement, beautifully combines the three levels of discourse: the physical, through beating, narrowing of the space and “pressure,” with the emotional, Balaam’s growing anger as well as the (so far silent) ass’s pain, and then the ironic observing gaze of the angel. Most importantly, it reflects the prophet’s spiritual blind-ness. The scene is composed of stage action alone, unless the director chooses to let Balaam curse the ass, as a rehearsal of what he intends to do to the Israelites.

The next beat in the scene terminates the by now exhausted non-verbal cruelty, and advances the plot with a verbal dialogue between ass and man. The text clearly implies that the ass has possessed “con-sciousness” throughout her life with Balaam, tacit as it may have been. God endows her now with a short but extremely effective power of speech, which, incidentally, proves the Lord’s unique offstage presence throughout time, space, and plot in this mock-initiatory drama.

And the LORD opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam:

What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?

And Balaam said unto the ass: Because thou hast mocked me: I would there were a sword in mine hand, for now would I kill thee.


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And the ass said unto Balaam: Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? Was I ever wont to do so unto thee?

And he said: Nay.

Except for the mythological serpent in Genesis, animals in the Old Testament do not talk—not even the fish who swallowed Jonah, the camel from whose back Rebecca fell, or one of the two bears that devoured the 42 children who had mocked Elisha’s bald head. The almost sentimental text of this she-ass offers a wonderful image, amus-ing in its apologetic tone, deliberately hiding the real reason why she has disobeyed her master. She could have just as easily said, “Hey, Sir, listen, right in front of us there’s an angel with a drawn sword!” In this context, such a response might have meant that the ass was telling her master something that she assumed he could see by himself. Instead, she emits a painfully emotional outburst, not spiritual at all, because she may be wondering about that which the audience too is wondering: How come Balaam does not see? Consequently, she loudly wonders why she is a battered she-ass. Her abusive master, Balaam, in one of the funniest scenes in the Bible, does not wonder at all about his ass’s newly obtained faculty of speech. This masterful omission of the Biblical playwright is no less ridiculous than the spoken lines, and creates a wild discrepancy between text, context and subtext. Balaam reacts to the ass’s words while still submerged in frustration, anger, violence and, perhaps by now, a dollop of fear too. He reacts as insulted: “Because thou hast mocked me” (of course she had! as some English translations suggest), or more precisely—“because you have abused—(or, literally “maltreated” התעללת)—me.”

This response demonstrates Balaam’s inferiority in this situation in comparison with the ass. She had maltreated him? Balaam’s next line, “I would there were a sword in mine hand, for now would I kill thee,” is charged not only with the sanctimonious wrath of a violent person, but also with the fact that he does not see the angel’s sword. Without the attempt to direct this scene at least in our imagination, one might not appreciate this peak of dramatic irony. Balaam does not yet under-stand that the ass has just saved his, Balaam’s, life from being taken by the angel’s sword, while he has almost killed her, his ass, with blows; and he still wishes for a sword. This becomes explicit in the next line. “Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was



thine unto this day? Was I ever wont to do so unto thee?” Here God, alternately the playwright—gives the ass a surprising line. She appeals to the intimacy of the relationship with her master.

This line expresses a unique, rather amazing usage, almost absurd in its naivety, of the she-ass self: How come you don’t know me? Obvi-ously, Balaam does not understand the simplest things, let alone the obligation to obey God. The ass implicitly complains about Balaam’s ignorance. On another level, this is an intelligent animal’s complaint about a dire lack of anagnorisis, a satirical exposure of the foreign magi-cian’s insensitivity. Not only does he not see the angel, but he can-not even fathom his ass’s behavior. This הכר-נא [“please recognize”] effect echoes what happened to Little Red Riding-Hood after being devoured by the wolf, what Oedipus experienced when he suddenly internalized what Tiresias, the blind seer, had led him step by painful step to learn about himself.

Balaam’s laconic “Nay” is a gem of theatrical understatement, depending, of course, not only on the actor’s skill, but mostly on the profound humor of this single word in this particular context. This “Nay” is the first step of its speaker’s “opening of the eyes” effect, like Adam and Eve after having partaken of the forbidden fruit.

Perhaps now Balaam is slightly less stunned by the speaking abili-ties of his donkey than by the truth of what she says. With a delicate tactfulness that completes the unique irony of this beat, the opening of Balaam’s eyes is performed neither by the angel, nor by the ass—they are but tools in God’s hands—but by God himself, as befits this biblical drama. “Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and he bowed down his head, and fell flat on his face.” The intervention of the on-off-stage God employs a typical biblical rhetoric to characterize His status in biblical theatre.

And the angel of the LORDsaid unto him:

Wherefore hast thou smitten thine ass these three times? Behold, I went out to withstand thee, because thy way is perverse before me.And the ass saw me, and turned from me these three times: unless she had turned from me, surely now also I had slain thee, and saved her alive.


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And Balaam said: [ . . . ]: I have sinned; for I knew not that thou stoodest in the way against me: now therefore, if it displease thee, I will get me back again.

And the angel of the LORDsaid [ . . . ]:

Go with the men: but only the word that I shall speak unto thee, that thou shalt speak. So Balaam went with the princes of Balak.

When the angel, whom God has now made visible to Balaam, speaks, he relates to the prophet’s triple violent attacks on the ass, and thus to his inability to deduce what had “happened.” The angel’s declara-tion, “I went out to withstand thee, because thy way is perverse before me,” is interpreted by Rashi as Balaam’s intention to defy God’s will; and Ramban, following Unklos, explains in a similar way: you went to curse the Israelites “despite my [God’s] will.” The angel repeats the verb “to see” [לראות], indicating Balaam’s lack of both spiritual and physical sight until the moment that his eyes are opened. The angel goes on to explain, “[U]nless she had turned from me, surely now also I had slain thee, and saved her alive.” He helps Balaam to bridge the previous gap of unknowing and unseeing, puts him in his proper place even from the point of view of Balaam’s willingness to kill the animal that had saved his life, and says that he would rather kill Balaam and let the ass live—she, who is spiritually more advanced.

The scene ends with the angel’s instruction to Balaam to say to both Balak and the Israelites only what God will tell him to say. Only then do the princes of Moab reappear in the scene they must have witnessed from afar, to testify to Balaam’s snide humiliation by an ass and an angel—God’s tools. Balaam then sets off once more with the princes of Moab.

I turn now to analyzing ten out of the hundreds of both ancient and more modern pictorial depictions (paintings, prints, Bible illustra-tion etc.) of this unique biblical scene, while conceiving—following the “theatrical approach”—the discussed works as set designs for a poten-tial stage show. Consequently, their dramatic and theatrical potential will be underlined rather than art-historical details or analysis. The questions to be asked will thus pertain to the artists’ interpretations: What did they understand from the Old Testament scene and in what



way do the “theatrical” depictions emphasize particular details? More-over, how can a contemporary theatre director be guided by the given design in their own production of this play?

In the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicles’ illustration, we can already observe a visual motif of Balaam’s stick versus the angel’s sword. Ironically, Balaam has by now beaten his she-ass whereas the angel’s gesture, according to the Bible, is only a warning. This motif will reap-pear in many later depictions of the scene. The three characters here receive a relatively egalitarian treatment, due to size and composition, as well as to their positioning on the same plane. They meet near a city gate, probably Nuremberg, which is clearly never mentioned in the Old Testament as a city or a gate. The donkey’s expression is somewhat anthropomorphic. Like many artists then and since, theatre people included, this anonymous artist locates his plot in his own and, one may assume, his audience’s familiar surroundings. Thus he trans-poses the biblical scene to his own time and space. This transposition is supported by the clothing the characters wear: Balaam in grey, the angel in gold, and the ass is white—perhaps an allusion to the white color of the Messiah’s donkey. The fairly short road—theatrically speaking—does not allow Balaam to ponder long on his mission, nor

Nuremberg Chronicles Balaam and the Angel (illustration from the 1943).


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does it give him extra time for religious qualms or considerations of greed. According to this painter, God’s wrath comes fast. The rock beneath the sword threatens Balaam even before he becomes aware of the angel’s weapon. The illustrator does not deal with the part of the road from which the angel had approached the meeting point, and to which Balaam intends to proceed. Accordingly, the play in this version is likely to end here. Against the background of the soft colors of the whitish sky, greenish hills and beige-brown road (apparently added only later to the illustration), the angel’s red is a threatening red, com-plementing the highly dramatic gesture of his drawn sword. Other body gestures are displayed by the ass’s right hoof and the angel’s left leg. The most interesting posture—and in contemporary eyes perhaps humorous too—is the ass’s direct gaze to the audience. Contempo-rary directors could well base their stage interpretation on this look, an ass pleading for the audience’s mercy, in the lack of such mercy from her master. In fact, the ass’s frontal gaze can be presented not merely as looking towards the spectators, but also as counting on their actual assistance in her plight. Equally theatrical is the raised stick in Balaam’s hand, while he himself is about to be stabbed or slashed by the angel. The illustrator, like some of his later colleagues, fully under-stood that in both pictures and on theatre stages an “almost-blow” is no less effective than that which has already landed.

The show in this set design will be simple but not simplistic, prob-ably a popular-community play, perhaps a little naïve. Regarding the expression and mise-en-scène of the characters, one is not quite sure at this point who will have the upper hand. The sweet young angel, for one, does not look extremely dangerous. But the ass here is dangerous, or at least plays at being such to the audience.

Two Dutch painters, Hans Bol (1534–1593, Balaam’s Ass) and Bar-tholomeus Breenbergh (Coastal Landscape with Balaam and the Ass, 1636), offer directors and audiences a different play in their sets. Both concen-trate on the scenery far more than on the characters, which are almost lost against a town, field and forest in Bol’s version, and a town and coast in Breenbergh’s. In both settings, angel, ass and Balaam are small, which theatrically (and historically) means that the Balaam-Angel-Ass theme is primarily a pretext to paint landscapes. The background fig-ures in Bol’s painting are townspeople, probably not the Moabites of the original. In Breenbergh’s picture they appear on the bridge and Balaam’s servants are closer behind him. Bol’s pinkish-gentle angel is not on the road but beside it, thus preventing the director who follows



Balaam’s Ass Hans Bol, 1543–1593, (detail).

Bartholomeus Breenbergh, Coastal Landscape with Balaam and the Ass (1936).


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this design from adhering to the original, highly dramatic, blocking of Balaam’s way. In Breenbergh’s version too, the angel stops Balaam sideways, perhaps in order to let the audience see at least the lit part of his otherwise effaced face. Breenbergh introduces an ominous rock above the angel, while Bol features a tree behind the prophet, perhaps to seclude him. The slick naturalism of both paintings suggests that a meeting between an ass, a prophet, and an angel does not arouse particular attention, even among those good folk around who can see the scene, since they clearly ignore it.

A closer look reveals the ass’s dramatic collapse. While Balaam is looking ahead, the ass is looking at the angel, who is looking at Balaam. Breenbergh’s exchanges of looks are roughly similar, but he adds the waving of the stick and the drawing of the sword, and his white angel against a dark background stands out better than Bol’s angel. Breen-bergh was probably familiar with Bol’s picture. Contemporary direc-tors may take the latter point further, and present a scene in which the entire encounter takes place in Balaam’s imagination only. These two shows are therefore secular, virtually ignoring the main issue, and provide a lovely setting rather than an interesting play.

Pieter Pietersz Lastman (Balaam, Angel, Ass 1622) focuses on the characters. He paints the angel in profile and relates, like some of the

Pieter Pietersz, Lastman (b. 1583, Amsterdam, d. 1633, Amsterdam).



earlier painters, to the sword and stick gestures. However, the angel’s gesture is depicted as “back-hand,” a somewhat less aggressive blow, whereas Balaam’s is forehand. Perhaps the stronger being needs less force. The ass is looking upwards, Balaam, forwards, and the angel, a little more masculine than regular angels of the period, is looking at both man and beast. The beginning of the Moabite caravan is seen coming out of the woods, between Balaam and the angel, while the two servants, dark witnesses, are closer. An ominous rock expresses some of the perils of the road and the still hovering divine admoni-tion to the prophet. In Lastman’s set design the encounter is more emphasized than the road. Balaam’s facial expression reveals alarm, perhaps reflected also in the red of his robe, counterbalanced by the calm white of the angel. Since the expressions here are not extreme, the colors serve to reinforce the potential emotional charge. The tor-tured she-ass, also quite alarmed, is looking at the angel. As in some other paintings of his, here too Lastman choreographs his characters’ expressions. This painting does not depict the incident of Balaam’s crushed leg.

The show according to Lastman underlines in particular the differ-ence between the main and the secondary figures. The angel appears almost amused, and Balaam, too, does not seem overly concerned. A director might be well advised to emphasize the humor of the situa-tion, perhaps more of a parody in style than satirical.

Rembrandt, Lastman’s student, who surely knew his master’s Balaam painting, ignored the potentially humorous aspects and painted his own version in 1626, a much more serious depiction of the situa-tion. Rather than an imprecise illustration of the biblical scene, Rem-brandt’s interest lies not only in the body postures of his protagonists, but he also paints their souls on their faces. His Balaam is an elderly, Baroque-Oriental, richly clad gentleman. His angel is white too, and the angel’s expression is that of a gentle but resolute nature, counter-balanced by Balaam’s bitter and violent countenance. The witnesses here, much closer to the main action than in Lastman’s depiction, seem highly interested, perhaps slightly amazed, against the back-ground of the angel’s fluttering robe, almost blending into the rock behind. Rembrandt retains the complementary gestures of the sword and stick. His she-ass is almost a copy of Lastman’s, but Rembrandt’s animal seems, perhaps, to be suffering more. Because of the facial expressions, a director has a wonderful emotional beginning here for


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Rembrandt, 1626.



his mise-en-scène, as if Rembrandt had prepared the right ambience for the play.

The special theatrical interest in Jaeger’s scene (Gustav Jaeger, Balaam and the Angel 1836) lies in its potential Christian interpretation. This Balaam is painted in direct relation to Numbers 22:31, “Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand . . .” Balaam’s posture clearly reflects penitence, not only in the original context of the story, but also in front of the double cross, created by the hilt of the sword and the sword and the angel’s left arm. This angel looks gentle, possibly reflecting a Christ-like attitude of forgiveness—repent and save your soul. Perhaps Balaam, a much younger version than that by Rembrandt, is apologizing to his she-ass. Jaeger may have been well acquainted with his Dutch predecessors’ paintings—the background here is reminiscent not only of Rembrandt and Lastman, but of Bol and Breenbergh too, including the trees. The director for Jaeger’s set is therefore invited to present a religious interpretation.

Gustav Jaeger, Balaam and the Angel.


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In his woodcut for Die Bibel in Bildern, 1860, Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld prevents the audience from seeing the angel’s face, and instead provides them with an “angelic” viewpoint. This set-design emphasizes Balaam’s humiliation, due also to his servants’ proximity. The composition clearly portrays one well-lit angel versus a group of fearful people, perhaps even in a numinous petrification. The she-ass is less prominent here, whereas the sword is clearly aggressive. The moral of this black-and-white scene is harsh, unforgiving. The “implied” audience is likely to receive the angel almost as Balaam does, with fear and foreboding.

Gustave Dore, 1865, created a night-scene, placing a relatively huge angel towering above, and his particularly theatrical, almost melodra-matic show relies on wonderful lighting effects. In Dore’s scene the angel can easily be seen as taking his revenge on Balaam, who had been violent to his animal. There is no humor whatsoever. In fact, seen from behind, both Balaam and the she-ass are, like the actual audience, looking at the angel together. Being expressive to the point

Figure 7



Gustav Dore, 1865.


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Figure 9



of kitsch, the Dore scene could easily be turned into a melodramatic farce.

In our final scene, this interesting water color by Tissot (Balaam and the Ass, watercolor 1896–1902) is relatively faithful to the original story, at least as far as the “path” is portrayed as blocked. Tissot’s Balaam is seen with his back to the angel, until he realizes the angel’s presence and turns to face him. This strangely-attired angel creates a tense ges-ture between his sword and Balaam’s already fallen stick. The angel, perhaps somewhat annoyed, does not look particularly holy (though Tissot himself had undergone a profound religious experience).

In conclusion, the theatrical perspective, focusing on space, move-ment, and sophisticated discrepancies between text and subtext in this physical-mental-spiritual plot, explores the uniqueness of the scene in a much broader drama. In this particular drama, Balaam, after the she-ass scene, blesses the Children of Israel instead of cursing them. He is God-bound, a prophetic puppet manipulated by divine rhetoric, not a disinterested one. The Angel, Ass, and Prophet scene is an ironic masterpiece of intelligent, theatrical religious propaganda. Most of the painters had, most probably, a number of reasons not to have seen this all important aspect. However, with their help, a theatre director may still go his or her way in interpreting the play: Balaam, compelled by a temporary, ad-hoc spiritual vision, disappears from the biblical scene and can now return to “his place.” In a no less subtle and understated touch of irony, Balak too “goes on his way.”



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ANGEL, SHE-ASS, PROPHET

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