Bringing Noah’s Ark into the modern age

For Ari Jacob, October 7 was this generation’s biblical flood. We are all Noah, scrambling our way through the waters, trying to find our breath again. It’s part of what led him to write the new Jewish Australian musical, After the Flood. The other part is his fascination with Noah.

“Here is a man described as righteous, given extraordinary clarity and an enormous responsibility. Yet his story ends with him drunk, naked and diminished. That feels painfully human,” Jacob told The AJN. “We can have moments when we understand exactly what we’re here to do, and then lose our way completely.”

After the Flood, starring Deborah Conway and Simon Starr, follows a contemporary Melbourne Jewish family as they are forced to confront their differences. Jacob said he set the musical in Melbourne because it is the world he knows and the one his audience can best relate to, particularly when it comes to family dynamics.

“At a Shabbat table, you can have several generations of Jewish history sitting alongside anargument about someone’s boyfriend or whether they’ll put on a kippah. Something apparentlysmall can carry an enormous weight,” he said.

Before writing the musical, Jacob conducted extensive research with a cross-section of the local community, from rabbis and mothers to converts, artists and teachers.

“I wanted those different experiences of faith, identity and responsibility to have a place in the work. A family felt like the most honest setting in which to let them collide,” he explained.

Jacob said the flood takes a different form for each character in the musical, as does the way each family member reacts, particularly depending on their generation.

The musical is supported by an original score performed by a 10-piece live band and an entirely Jewish-Australian cast and creative team. Jacob said this was non-negotiable.

“I wanted to create an environment where we could feel safe enough to make art honestly — to bring our questions, grief, humour and disagreements into the room without feeling we had to defend our right to be there,” Jacob said, explaining rehearsals have even taken place in a building that belongs to a Jewish youth movement.

“That room became a place where we could breathe, take creative risks and tell our storiestogether. At a time when being visibly Jewish, and making art from that experience, can feelunsafe, having that space has meant a great deal.”

Still, there were challenges. And Jacob is honest about them, particularly balancing the creative side with the production side.

“A new musical needs room to be discovered, but musicians need charts, actors need material, and the production needs decisions,” he said. “I’ve been balancing writing, composing and producing, and learning how a change in one place affects everyone else. The scale of the work has made that a steep learning curve.”

As for what he hopes audiences will be talking about on their way home from the show, Jacob said he hopes they’ll be talking about the characters and the differences between them.

“I’d love someone who initially dismissed Noah to feel the weight of his fear, or someone whorecognised that fear immediately to understand what it costs his children. I hope Naama’sexhaustion is seen, and that the children’s struggles feel as real as their father’s,” he said. “And I hope there’s laughter in that conversation too. There’s a lot of humour in this family. I’d also be very happy if a song stayed with them.”

After the Flood is on November 4. For tickets, visit events.humanitix.com/aftertheflood