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The scene is Medo-Persian Empire. The king is Ahaseurus. And the disobedient queen who led to the unraveling of the story is Vashti.
But these are the only familiar names you might know when reading the play--that is if you have read the Bible book of Esther from which Queen Esther is adapted.
In the dramatic re-telling of the account, Esther, called Chamashwork, a beautiful black girl from Ethiopia, replaces Queen Vashti; Rada, Esther's Ethiopian cousin, reports a conspiracy that saves the king's life; Haman the king's prime minister, who plotted the mass death of blacks is hanged on a stake he made for Rada, who eventually becomes the new prime minister; and the Persian law is changed at Esther's intervention and the blacks are spared death.
No doubt, this storyline might provoke a debate. For example, the Jews might take umbrage at the re-writing of their history, for the biblical Esther and Mordecai were Jewish and it was the Jews that were decreed to die, not blacks.
Besides that, the author took liberties when he says in the play that Vashti called the king and his princes drunkards, and was exiled to the Philippines (the Bible didn't state so); and that the law of the Persians was changed (the Persian law is unchangeable).
Consider also the reason given by Haman to the king for plotting the death of the black race: "They are more poisonous than all the scorpions in Persia!" Was such an unflattering comparison ever made of the Jews in the Bible version?
But it is these little sparks and dramatic scenes that make the tense Bible drama an interesting read, a delightful stage play to watch, and will make it a potential hit movie if adapted to screen.
In the end, what the reader or audience takes away is not the controversy or the unhistoricity of the work, but the consolation that in a world replete with vice and hate, good can triumph over evil!
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, the Author of The Da Vinci Code
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