Miniseries offers new twist on an old tale
The Red Tent takes female perspective on biblical story of Jacob, Rachel and Leah
They loll on coloured cushions, heads thrown back while they laugh at nothing. Their hair is artfully tousled as a saucy beige garment slides up to reveal a slender leg. These are the women of The Red Tent, and they seem more like The Real Housewives of Mesopotamia than the chattel of the Old Testament.
Leah, Rachel, Bilhah and Zilpah are women first, and wives of Israelite patriarch Jacob Second. So posits the miniseries The Red Tent, based on Anita Diamant’s 1997 novel. In four hours, it turns the biblical story of Jacob, Rachel and Leah — essentially Two Girls, a Guy and a Drinking Well — into the sprawling tale of Dinah, the daughter of Leah and Jacob who was mentioned only briefly in the text.
“For thousands of years, I’ve been lost to the world. My name means nothing to you,” Dinah ( Rebecca Ferguson) intones in the opening. “My memory is dust. Only the names of my father and brothers are remembered, their tales celebrated in your holy texts while mine is but a footnote — sad, violent.”
Starring Minnie Driver, Morena Baccarin and a cast with vaguely British accents, The Red Tent adds feminist sentiment to the popularity of sheep-andsandals fare such as Mark Burnett’s 2013 miniseries The Bible, this past spring’s film Noah and the upcoming big- screen feature Exodus: Gods and Kings.
Even The Red Tent’s title celebrates the extra X chromosome: It refers to the place where menstruating or birthing women in Jacob’s camp must take refuge by law, though Diamant has acknowledged there’s no evidence of such a sacred shelter.
But with The Red Tent’s frames bathed in fetching golds and browns and light and shadows, does it really matter? Fact blends into fiction as freely as the winds ruffle Jacob’s hair in a very Sundance Kid sort of way.
The Bible says Laban tricked Jacob into consummating a marriage with his daughter Leah even though Jacob had his eyes set on Rachel. But here it’s Rachel ( Baccarin) — suffering cold feet — who sends Leah ( Driver) secretly to Jacob ( Will Payne). Laban, meanwhile, is drawn as a drunken wife- beater.
What’s more, the lingering jealousy between Leah and Rachel that led to a game of fertility one- upmanship is summed up with just one line: “It took Leah and Rachel years to learn how to share a husband. Each one longed for what the other could give him.”
It seems the sexual revolution has swept into the camp a couple thousand years early, a potent mix of dust and lust.
But the star of The Red Tent remains Dinah. Strong- minded and sure- footed, she revels in her family’s sisterhood but refuses its Sister Wives setup. Instead, by the end of the first half, she falls in love and weds a prince without her father’s blessing. Throw in a kooky sidekick and an Idina Menzel song, and you’d think you were watching Disney.
Still, the estrogen- charged twist is a refreshing one that lifts the veil on little- explored Bible characters, with all the earnestness the ubiquitous string- andpiano soundtrack can muster.