By John Lyle Belden

In the classic comedy style of something simple going wildly out of control, “In the Beginning…” — a new play at Mud Creek Players — God creates the Heavens and the Earth, and immediately regrets it.

At first, the Almighty (Nicole Crabtree) tries to put the Big Bang back into its bottle, or at least mop up it all up with black holes, but alas, once matter and energy exist, they can’t be destroyed. She may as well see what’s happening on the little blue thing, where a bunch of living things are crawling, swimming, flying and running around everywhere. There, she tries to customize a creature that stands upright, with less fur and a big brain — another mistake.

In this silly possibility of how everything came to be, we meet God’s top angels — Michael (Kate Carpenter), Gabriel (Eric Dixon), Lucifer (Connor Phelan), as well as the Voice of God (Craig Kemp) — and Biblical characters including Adam (Kelly Keller), Eve (Tanya Keller), Noah (Fred Margison) and Moses (Alaina Moore). 

Unless you are really devoted to a literal interpretation of Scripture, you should find all this a lot of hilarious fun. If we are made in the Lord’s image, wouldn’t it make sense that — just like when we invent and accomplish things — our Heavenly Parent is also just making it up as they go along?

Crabtree plays that unprepared Mother/Father with the right touch of exasperation and growing love for the critters she brought into being, however unintended. Dixon and Carpenter keep things lively with his urge to “smite” and her love of writing up new Commandments. Phelan’s Lucifer, naturally, is the smartest angel in the room, suave and brash, but eventually resigned to having to deal with all the extra souls that turned sour. Kemp reassures us that, as we all suspected, the commanding voice of the Almighty has a British accent. The humans all have their humanish quirks, especially Eve, who apparently overdoses on the Tree of Knowledge. And young actors Hadley Skinner and Ben Odom get a charmingly amusing moment in featured roles.

The Mud Creek Barn goes high-tech with this premiere production, with visual effects by Stephen DiCarlo that perfectly help the story along. Jay Ganz directs.Crew member Collin Moore wrote the script, and it shows a fair amount of polish for a new play.

Truly, something wonderful has been created. Performances are Friday through Sunday (Feb. 7-9) and Feb. 14-15 at 9740 E. 86th St. (Castleton/Geist area), Indianapolis. Call 317-290-5343 or visit mudcreekplayers.org.