What I like about Kingdom of the Spider is that Nick
Zagone twists the classical devil and angel scenario. Instead, he has the devil
represented by a Black Widow spider and the angel is a Mormon girl. The spider
seemingly knows everything about the man including his son’s name which makes
the spider appear to be a powerful being. That illusion is crushed when Bob smashes
the spider with ease. It is a funny moment, not because it makes you laugh out
loud. It is more of a chuckle to yourself. He builds this character up by
giving it more and more information and shifting the power to the spider’s
favor. And in a literal sense of knowledge being power, the spider is crushed
by a pamphlet.
The choice of using a Black Widow is interesting
because it poses an immediate threat to him and his child. A Black Widow is the
most venomous spider in the world. That fact coupled with Bob’s son being named
Isaac gave me a “oh shit, he is going to sacrifice his son to this spider” reaction.
This play has a lot of religious overtones, but I think the author is actually trying
to tell the history of religion.
In the beginning,
Bob meets a Satan figure. Bob is constantly left in a state of confusion
because the spider doesn’t let him speak. This symbolizes the chaos of the
world without organized religion. Then the bible girl comes along and puts an
end to the confusion, much like how religion provided order for ancient civilizations.
Then the pamphlet is used to kill a living creature even though the girl says
God would not kill anything. Similar to how countless people have been killed
in the name of God by people who claim that is what God would have wanted. The
last part, I find the most interesting. The girl, after seeing the violence of
the spider dying and being interrogated by Bob, has a crisis of faith. She much
like a majority of the world today is turning away from religion. She is
focusing on what she wants, and that is a baby that will be born into a world
without religion.
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