Beautiful Feet : A Dramatic Rendering of Isaiah

The prophet Isaiah terms the feet of him who brings from the mountain tidings of peace, of good will and joy, beautiful. In the drama BEAUTIFUL FEET, the feet alluded to are those of Jake Montague. Jake was born in the mountains of western North Carolina but, as BEAUTIFUL FEET opens, he is a graduate student in English at fictional Oakmont State University in the piedmont of North Carolina. To help him finance his education, Jake teaches as a graduate assistant. While leading a seminar in creative writing, Jake expresses views critical of certain icons of contemporary American poetry and, as well, of the proliferation of MFA programs in creative writing and the kind of poets and poetry these programs tend to produce. This intellectual and spiritual independence results in his being reprimanded by Dr. Carlton Smuthers, the Chair of the Department. Dr. Smuthers disapproves of Jake's unorthodox views, and he has no empathy for Jake's apparent belief in a spiritual, transcendent reality. The transcendent realm of the spirit of which Jake speaks and which seems to both Carlton and his wife Yvette simply an irrational and sentimental abstraction assumes substance in their lives when tragedy strikes and Jake alone is able to offer them consolation and understanding. He can do this because he has been a close friend of Chad Smuthers, their son, since Chad's high school days and has also been friendly with their daughter Amy. Amy is a student in Jake's creative writing seminar, and she develops a romantic attachment to Jake. Their comfortable, secure life is shattered when Carlton and Yvette learn that Amy has been rushed unconscious to the hospital, having over-dosed on cocaine, and Chad is discovered murdered after having been beaten and sexually mutilated. As Chad's close friend for years, Jake is almost a member of the family, so he is present as the bad news strikes. Furthermore, because both Chad and Amy have been able to confide in Jake as neither felt it possible to talk to his or her parents, Jake is able to understand why Carlton and Yvette have been shocked and devastated by their son's death and Amy's nearly fatal drug over dose. Chad was gay. When he acknowledged this to Jake, at the same time telling Jake that he loved him and wanted a sexual relationship, Jake had had to explain that he wasn't gay himself. Jake also had told Chad that he believed any love that is true is ultimately spiritual in nature. This included the friendship he feels for Chad. Chad, like his parents, scoffed at such a notion and told Jake that, despite Jake's urging him to be cautious, he would seek elsewhere what he was convinced he needed. Jake also has to disappoint Amy when she confesses to him her feelings for him. As he had with Chad, Jake assures Amy that he is her friend as well as her instructor. Influenced in part by her older brother's heavy use of marijuana, Amy sees drugs as a way of coping with the stresses of her life and decides to experiment with coc...