The Oldest Boy: A Play in Three Ceremonies

by Sarah Ruhl

In this moving exploration of parenthood, an American mother and a Tibetan father have a three-year-old son believed to be the reincarnation of a Buddhist lama. When a Tibetan lama and a monk come to their home unexpectedly, asking to take their child away for a life of spiritual training in India, the parents must make a life-altering choice that will test their strength, their marriage, and their hearts.

The Oldest Boy is a richly emotional journey filled with music, dance, puppetry, ritual, and laughter -- Sarah Ruhl at her imaginative best. A meditation on attachment and unconditional love, the play asks us to believe in a world in which sometimes the youngest children are also the oldest and wisest teachers.

Genres: Plays, Drama

84 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2016

About the author

Sarah Ruhl (born 1974) is an American playwright. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for a distinguished American playwright in mid-career.

Originally, she intended to be a poet. However, after she studied under Paula Vogel at Brown University (A.B., 1997; M.F.A., 2001), she was persuaded to switch to playwriting. Her first play was The Dog Play, written in 1995 for one of Vogel's classes. Her roots in poetry can be seen in the way she uses language in her plays. She also did graduate work at Pembroke College, Oxford.

In September 2006, she received a MacArthur Fellowship. The announcement of that award stated: "Sarah Ruhl, 32, playwright, New York City. Playwright creating vivid and adventurous theatrical works that poignantly juxtapose the mundane aspects of daily life with mythic themes of love and war."

Reviews

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 This is probably the 5th or 6th Ruhl play I've read - and sadly, I have not REALLY liked any of them - so I might as well just give up on her and conclude we are not meant to be. This one is not as annoying as some of her other ones, although it DOES contain one cringe-worthy scene of direct address to the audience (one of her favorite devices) AND a puppet. The plot, such as it is, seems a direct steal from the movie 'Little Buddha' and really has nothing new or exciting to add to the conversation on reincarnation or Tibetan statehood.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another day, another Sarah Ruhl play to love. No one can match her for dreaminess although the conversation around giving up your child got a bit repetitive here.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sarah Ruhl might be one of the most consistently excellent playwrights working in American theatre today. Her ability to hew to traditional style and dramatic elements while embracing modernism leaves me in awe.

The Oldest Boy continues in that vein with a story that combines puppetry and drama. I want to see this play staged.

An American woman married to a Tibetan man has her embrace of Buddhism challenged when monks arrive on a doorstep and announce that her toddler is the reincarnation of a Buddhist lama. To that end, they want to take her son for a life of spiritual training in India.

The play focuses on the questions that parents – regardless of religion or background – face on a daily basis: What is the best choice for my child? What is the best thing I can do as a parent for this person I love more than life itself? The Oldest Boy answers the question but doesn’t, and the use of a quasi-cultural clash to explore this issue makes it memorable (even without the puppets). Highly recommended.

[Lori Koppelman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first play I've read by Sarah Ruhl. I was struck by both its simplicity and depth. Will read more and hope to see it live on stage.

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

What happens when you are a mother attempting to meditate with a baby monitor on just in case your three-year-old son should awaken and need you, and then there is an unexpected knock on your door. Hoping you won’t wake the child; you open the door to greet a Tibetan Buddhist lama and a monk. After some confusion, you awkwardly offer hospitality, and they tell you that they think your child maybe the reincarnation of a lama, from their monastery, and if so, they’d like to take him back there to educate him properly in India, as soon as possible, please.

So opens Ruhl’s play about an American born mother and her Tibetan husband confronted with a heart wrenching decision which puts considerable stress on their marriage. Maternal instinct and a fiercely possessive love must wrestle with the religion of an oppressed refugee community on another continent. Both parents are Buddhist, the father by birth, and the wife by inclination, although she has not made a final commitment. She thinks about God asking Abraham for the sacrifice of his eldest son. She is not happy.

The play “in three ceremonies,” as it is currently being presented at the Main Street Theater on its stage in Rice Village in Houston, Texas, is marvelous with traditional Tibetan costumes, music, dance, and the use of a puppet for the boy, the puppeteer speaking for him as a child and as the reincarnated lama.

The script reviewed here has the bonus of the playwright’s thoughts in creating the play and its importance for the Tibetan community in exile in India and elsewhere around the world since the country itself was invaded and conquered by China in 1959. The other bonus for me as a member of the audience at a recent performance: I now have an English translation of the lines spoken in Tibetan.

[Leon VanDyke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderfully imaginative, as are many of Sarah Ruhl's works. Difficult to transcend the staging requirements in reading, and especially difficult to imagine the consequences of the puppet work required. Yet, and yet, her basic premise is so powerful and engaging that anyone with half an ounce of empathy will love reading the play as a statement of being either a parent or child, teacher or student. As many of us are both, many will find this a great expression of that moment in life when we become both. Read it if you've a chance to do so.

[Megan Uy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this play—the meditation on motherhood and attachment, the parallels and the tensions between Tibetan Buddhism and Catholicism. I only wish I’d seen it performed. Reading a play is really not the same: i felt constrained by the limits of my own imagination.

But it was fun to see my brother-in-law’s name in the introduction for originating the role of the father in San Francisco.

[Andy Collopy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reads as a four star play but I can’t help giving it five stars as the Lincoln Center production was one of my all-time favorite theatre-going experiences. A truly theatrical play, the puppetry, ceremony, and pure theatricality of the piece is needed for the full effect.

[Darcy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm never gonna shut up about how my dumb ass dropped out of grad school a week before Sarah Ruhl was scheduled to give my class a workshop 😭😭

[Rebecca Valley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sarah Ruhl is a marvel. Anyone who can write a play about motherhood that makes me cry deserves every star.

[Stephanie Kane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw this play ten years ago at Lincoln Center and had been meaning to read it ever since and it holds up as one of my favorite plays of all time. I love Sarah Ruhl and children who are puppets.

[Maggie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wholesome little story.

[Kristin Koski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful story with beautiful characters. I hope to someday work with people who want to tell this story with me. (Needs strong puppeteers and Tibetans)

[Lukas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a continuing thing this school year: to read all the Sarah Ruhl I can get my hands on. This play actually has a straight, grounded narrative unlike her others, but somehow beautifully poetic in that classic Ruhl way. I wonder if Ruhl pulled inspiration from her mentor Vogel...It's a cute play.

[Michael McClain · Rating 4 out of 5]

What would you do if you were told your child was a reincarnated lama and needed to go to India to complete his spiritual training? Such a conundrum faces the (American) mother in the play, THE OLDEST BOY. And while her ultimate decision seems like an obvious one, it's still touching to see her wrestle with her feelings and faith in a complex way while discovering a whole new world outside of her small family group. The bonds between a mother and her child and between a teacher and a student are explored in one of Sarah Ruhl's most accessible works. I can only imagine how beautiful the three ceremonies must look onstage.

[Dara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw this play at Lincoln Center, and it was absolutely shattering. I've been waiting for it to be published for over a year so I could revisit it, and it does not disappoint. Sarah Ruhl's plays are consistently stunning.

[gwen g · Rating 5 out of 5]

This play is EVERYTHING. One of the best things I've read this year... spare, heartbreaking, beautiful. Sarah Ruhl is incredible.

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This play was easy to read and imagine onstage. There are many possibilities for staging made clear by the playwright. Although the content seemed far from my own circumstances, I felt able to relate to these characters who are questioning the universe.

[Brenda · Rating 2 out of 5]

I normally don’t read plays, so The Oldest Boy: A Play in Three Ceremonies by Sarah Ruhl was a step outside of my comfort zone. It tells the story of a three-year-old boy born to an American mother and a Tibetan father. The son is thought to be the reincarnation of a Buddhist lama. There is a lot of background built into the dialogue for those unfamiliar with Tibetan traditions or Buddhism, but I still found that I needed more background. There is also a lot of emotions throughout the play that I think will be moving to see onstage, but I had a hard time using dialogue and inference alone to feel these emotions and I think I would have had an easier time reading a novel. Overall, it was a fun experience to read a play and I can appreciate its beauty, though I’m not sure I can fully immerse myself in it.