The Book of Cain
Playwright Bill Cain has explored Shakespeare and the Gunpowder Plot in his hit play Equivocation and Iraq War atrocities in 9 Circles, both at Marin Theatre Company last year (and Circles is also playing now at San Jose’s Renegade Theatre Experiment), but his world premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre is more nakedly personal. How to Write a New Book for the Bible is a beautifully touching account of his mother Mary dying of cancer, in a strong staging by Kent Nicholson with an entirely nonlocal cast. Cain’s narrative device for the play is as if he, the author, is just making it up as he goes along, with his family members occasionally chiding him from inside the story that he’s not telling it right. “Just don’t make me foolish, Billy,” Mary tells the playwright. “It wouldn’t be fair.”
