Embarking on a musical search of the soul
Marty and Wendy Quinn
Marty and Wendy Quinn fell in love and married in 1982. The Baha'i couple then fell in love with a work by Baha’u’llah -- The Seven Valleys -- and the idea of turning it into a musical.
“Our version of Baha’u’llah’s ‘mystical masterpiece’ is in the tradition of shows like ‘Godspell,’ which uses the book of St. Matthew as its basis,” says Mr. Quinn, who toured with a production of that musical in the early ‘70s. Mr. Quinn pursued a career in music and is the creator of the Design Rhythmics Sonification Research Lab. Ms. Quinn, a clinical psychologist, is a trained dancer.
The Seven Valleys production is more pared down, but just as ambitious: The Quinns are the only actors, Mr. Quinn wrote the score and plays drums, and Ms. Quinn dances. Oh, and they designed the scenery.
Mr. Quinn plays Majnun and Ms Quinn is Layli -- well-known figures in classic Middle Eastern literature who represent the passionate longing of a lover for his beloved. The two are on spiritual quests that bring them together. Their journey takes them through the valleys of search, love, knowledge, unity, contentment, wonderment, and true poverty and absolute nothingness.
They eventually find God.
In the Valley of Search, Baha’u’llah used Majnun and Layli to represent the mystical longing of the human soul for God.
The Quinns, who live in Lee, N.H., say they’ve always loved the beauty of The Seven Valleys and aren’t intimidated by its mystical nature, which they admit makes comprehension difficult. They hand out an explanation of the work to enrich the audience’s experience.
The couple say they had been thinking about musicalizing the work since 1992 and performed the first production in 1997. They have given approximately 35 performances of The Seven Valleys since and currently have one planned for September 2008 in Ontario.
There have been dramatic productions of The Seven Valleys, but, to the Quinns’ knowledge, theirs is the first musical.
“For the public,” Ms. Quinn says, “it’s an introduction to a beautiful book.”
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Reprinted with permission from the Bahá'ís of the United States (see U.S. Baha'i News http://www.bahai.us/newsroom)