What does "Timshel" mean?

 

"...Thou Mayest..."

 

                In East of Eden by John Steinbeck, the character Lee, a wise and inquisitive Chinese scholar, spends years studying various translations of the Bible verses in which God speaks to Cain about conquering sin.

            He learns that God’s words are sometimes translated as a promise that “thou shalt” conquer sin, which some interpret as predestination: Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be.   In other translations it is “Thou Must”—which many take as the order “Do Thou”, and throw their weight into obedience.  

            But  Lee’s study of the Hebrew text reveals that timshel, the original word of the original writer, is best translated as “thou mayest", a word that gives mankind the choice to conquer sin, to choose his course and take control of his destiny.

 

Instead of throwing oneself into the lap of deity and saying “I couldn’t help it; the way was set,”

the choice cuts the feet from under weakness, laziness and cowardliness.

 

           Timshel Theatre is a place where we recognize and celebrate the freedom to choose our own course, to do the art we love and believe in: important, thought-provoking theatre in an intimate setting, with which we can touch and move one another, learn from one another’s humanness, make a difference by opening minds and hearts.

 

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What is the Timshel Theatre Company?

 

The Timshel Theatre Company is a limited liability corporation jointly owned by Debra Bowers and Ed Thomas.  We seek to present interesting, perhaps unusual, always thought-provoking plays; by actors who are in it for the challenge; for audiences who are interested in the risks and rewards of live, intimate theatre; in simple venues with no barriers between the words and the actors and the audience.  In Montrose and anywhere in Western Colorado.

In Montrose and anywhere in Western Colorado.

 

Our debut performance of Three Viewings took place in July 2008 at the Kagan & Baron Gallery of Fine Art on Main Street in Montrose, Colorado.  We were pleased and proud to be a part of the gallery's vision to offer not only fine art but performing arts as well in a beautiful downtown Montrose location.  

 

  

The Gallery transforms into a cabaret!  Later: Rachel Deans Krute onstage in Three Viewings at the

Kagan and Baron Gallery of Fine Art.

 

Following this, we moved to the Holiday Inn Express,

1391 S. Townsend Ave., Montrose Colorado.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What type of theatrical material would Timshel produce?

 

The following are examples of future Timshel productions, subject to availability, public interest and resources:

 

Walk in the Woods, by Lee Blessing.  An important, brilliantly executed and strikingly original play which brings perception and humor to its examination of the superpower negotiations on nuclear disarmament. In a pleasant woods on the outskirts of Geneva, two negotiators--a humorous but cynical veteran, and a stuffy but idealistic newcomer--struggle with the differences in their two systems of government which will continue to thwart their talks as long as the real power rests in the hands of those burdened by the bitterness of the past. 

 

In the Wreckage, by Matthew Wilson.  Three short modern pieces on love and estrangement, including the title piece about a mysterious onlooker coaching the victim of a car crash through the aftershock.  Tearing free from the machinery may kill him; staying put will mean facing the truth.

 

A Body of Water, by Lee Blessing.  Moss and Avis, an attractive, middle-aged couple, wake up one morning in an isolated summer house high above a picturesque body of water. The weather’s fine; the view’s magnificent. There’s only one problem—neither of them can remember who they are. When a young woman named Wren arrives, information starts to flood in. But will it help? Her explanations seem only to make Moss and Avis’ world—as well as ours—more terrifying. 

 

Oleanna, by David Mamet. A college student drops by her professor's office in an effort to gain his help to do  better in class; the two discuss the nature of understanding and judgement in society, as well as their own natures and places in society.  It seems as if a bond has been made. When next they meet, we find that a report has been filed to the tenure committee. Carol has joined a "group" and has decided that John sexually harassed her during their first meeting. Subsequent attempts to dissect the original conversation lead to even worse problems, until all hope of understanding is gone.

 

Match, by Stephen Belber.  Mike and Lisa Davis arrive at the apartment of Tobi Powell, who lives alone in Inwood, on the northern tip of Manhattan. They are there to interview him about his life as a dancer and choreographer, but it is soon evident that their agenda is as multilayered as the life story that Tobi begins to tell them. What happens next will either ruin or inspire them—and definitely change their lives forever.

 

When The World Was Green, by Joseph Chaikin and Sam Shepard.  The play has only two characters, an old man who was once a superb chef and a young reporter who comes to interview him in the prison where he as been locked up for many years after poisoning a man he mistook for his cousin. Their eight conversations are interspersed with a sequence of monologues in which both characters recall incidents from their childhood. These link together to form a tender narrative of regret and loss through which they transcend their memories and reach mutual forgiveness and love.

 

A Picasso, by Jeffrey Hatcher. 

Seascape, by Edward Albee