Scene I
The stage is set with a large gate written on the gate are the words: "Loreto Entally & St. Mary's School for Girls"
From behind the gate we hear faint shuffling of feet, muffled goodbyes, then a strong male voice saying: "Come be my Light!" and slowly, but without hesitance, the gate opens and one woman dressed in a white sari with blue borders steps out, alone, into the world.
+ Lights fade and spotlight shines only on the woman: Mother Teresa
Narator: Reading from Mother Teresa's journal tells us that the date is Dec. 19th, 1948 and that Mother has just returned from her stay with the Medical Mission Sisters in Patna, and is only stopping by the Loreto Convent to visit.
+Spotlight fades to OFF
Scene II
Lights fade to full and we see the Gate is removed and in it's place we see three doors, red, green, blue, and then a street scene unfolds.
Young woman, VERY obviously pregnant, and her husband in the middle of a crowd of Kolkata people busily going about everyday life. The couple is slowly going from door to door looking for a place that will welcome them. They are turned away by everyone. Everyone at door makes gestures of "What do I get if I let you in?'' and the couple show that they have no money in their bag again and again.
+Fruit seller calling unrecognizable phrases from upstage Right and shoe repairman sitting with broken sandles and a few tools on the cement slab upstage Left, 2 children chasing a rubber tire and starting from Down stage Left and returning the same way. Random people miling about haggling with fruit seller, shacking imaginary cow dung from shoe, woman yelling at a group of boys who run by and steal her bag...etc
Enter Mother Center stage Right. She is looking for something. Searching for a place to stay and money to feed her poor with. She knocks on the first door, she gestures towards a poor (wo)man who is coughing and aparently dying on the street. Man at door makes gesture of "What do I get if I help him/her?'' and Mother shows that she has nothing to pay him with. Man slams door.
+Light fades and we see all the street people are exiting the stage. Leaving, Mother and the pregnant couple till the end. Couple is preparing to leave and continue their search towards Exit stage Right.
Mother towards Exit stage Left. (They crossed in the crowd without reckognition or aknowledgement)
Narrator: Reads entry from Mothers journal dated Dec. 20th 1948 and that Mother spent all day looking for people who were willing to give her a place to stay so that she could better serve her beloved poor.
Scene III
+Lights fade up and we see that we are in a convent of sorts Cucifix on wall, and sisters in habits milling about. Some are snickering in a corner and pointing at Mother in her Sari, but others are around Mother and seem to be encouraging & welcoming her and asking her to help them with their work. One sister takes mother Upstage Right to what seems to be a small room set aside for just Mother. Mother takes out a journal sits down and pretends to write in it.
Narrator: Reads Journal entry from Dec. 24th relating how she had been staying with the Little Sisters of the poor for a few days now and how grateful she was to have such kind souls around her on Christmas eve.
Mother goes to a small blanket on the floor and kneeling down says her prayers and then lays down as if to sleep.
+Light fades turns blue and "dream smoke" rolls onto stage from stage Left.
Scene IV
Mother is gone and we see 10 sisters instead all dressed in MC fashion, building a creche and singing: "O come O come Emmanuel" with help from Choir above.
+Door bell rings from Off stage+
Enter Stage Left: The Pregnant Couple asking for a place to stay.
The MC sisters imediately start smilling and welcoming them in and showing them the nice little Creche that they have been prepairing for them. Then the sisters help pregnant Mary into the Creche with pushing and pulling.
+Light fades on MC sisters as they begin to kneel around the creche and await the birth of the baby. Then we see spotlights directed towards Down Stage Right
Enter Stage Right 2 Shepheards carrying stuffed sheep and looking sleepy, very sleepy. Shepheards sit down as if to sleep and suddenly we hear from above the begining notes of "Angels we Have Heard on High" Shepheards start to look around as if they are scared!
Enter Stage Right 3 Angels singing the Gloria refrain from above song. The Angels point towards the creche as their last notes of Gloria subside and a great burst of light is seen coming ftrom behind the kneeling sisters and within the Creche! Suddenly the Gloria ends and all the lights on stage are alight and "O Come Let us Adore Him" Booms from the above choir and the Angels and Sisters join in.
Sisters slowly move to the side and we see that the Christ child has been born and is in Mary's arms. 3 Wisemen enter bearing gifts and kneel before Creche, shepheards do likewise.
+Down comes the tree from above and slowly off come the leaves, so that all the branches of the MC's are visible. As each leaf comes off a person, dressed as a member of that branch would dress, appears on stage and kneels down to worship Christ, until All branches are revealed and everyone is there worshiping.
+ Song Finishes and light fades to off.
Scene V
Steet in Kolkata with the crowd as busy as it was in scene II, Only difference is that in this scene the Christ child who is in his little bed alone on ther cement slab, (He has NOT been moved from teh previous scene though everything else has changed around Him), while the people pass him by and ignore Him.
Enter Mother stage Right: She is searching again but this time as if she hears something she follows the sound to the baby and picks Him up, + Spotlight shines on Mother holding baby Christ and gazing with LOve at Him, then with a big smile she looks out to the audiance and says "I have found Him!"
Narrator reads: a few small things that Mother has said about finding Him in all the poor and destitute, the abandoned and hepless...
The End
This is the play that we wrote yesterday. Well, we talked it to life anyways, I suppose that this is really the first time it has been written. This is the play that the Volunteers will give to the Sisters on Christmas Eve this year. I will be one of the Gloria Angels and directing the Choir above. I pray that it will go well! Tell me what you all think!
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3 comments:
hey havilah,
merry christmas. i am gonna be misssing you over the holiday season. i sent you a gift of support if you know what i mean.
love marybrigid
ha haha hahhhhhaaaa! Yeah! A bra is coming!
Dear Ooty,
~Here are three funny experiences I had when I was in India, which I was never exactly capable of interpreting:
1. I found a box of crayons and some paper, and I proceeded to draw out pictures of the Eight Beatitudes in action. I put them in the wall of the chapel. They were nice little pictures, but I was told it was too much decoration.
2. I made Mother Theresa's sisters a very useful and practical device to hang up pots and pans, whereas they had been keeping clean pots and pans on the floor. Mother told me it was too fancy, too worldly for her sisters, and to take it down. (Later, the board of health in Chicago insisted upon something similar, but she was long gone by then.)
3. It just so happened that Brother Andrew, the head of the Brothers, was in Kolkata, either on his way from Vietnam back to Australia, or vice versa, I don't remember, and I put on a show and sang all the songs and did all the acts and dances from "Fiddler on the Roof" for the brothers. This, I was told, was too much entertainment. I actually wondered if Brother Andrew didn't mistake that I wanted to be a rich man myself.
~From these three experiences, I conjectured the brothers and sisters are to be kept somewhat like mushrooms; in the dark, and given water and rot to live on, as this keeps them happiest for the duration of their lives serving the poor.
~Now, as evidence of this, I visited the brother house just across the bridge, I think it was in Dum Dum, or Howrah, and I read them scriptures about Pentacost and told them about the Holy Spirit and what had happened to myself and my mom and dad and several of my brothers and sisters and about a 150 of my parents' friends, being about 50 years old, etc. Plus, I related the same experiences with the Holy Spirit which were operative in a youth group I was in, which later turned into WellSpring Cult. The brothers got all excited, we prayed and asked God to fill us with the Holy Spirit. It was a most beautiful, spiritual experience, the Holy Spirit seemingly filled all of us. Some began to prophesy, others to speak in tongues, and everybody felt as if they could get bitten by poisonous snakes, walk on water, that sort of thing.
~This affected the lives of three of the brothers that I can recount so exceedingly that Father Thomas, who had been visiting the Howrah house, and who was in charge of running the Norpoor Home for abandoned boys, later came up with this entire idea of starting something called "Familia". I would hope that you would find out how he's doing? Brother Sebastian might know his whereabouts and how he is doing. Another young man, named Felix Raj, a visiting Jesuit come-and-see, invited me to a Jesuit university where I gave the professors and students the same spiel about the Holy Spirit. The professors were skeptical, but remained with the class, and no one could find anything wrong with asking the Holy Spirit to fill them. The same experience transpired, and the professors had it, too. Felix then, encountered great difficulties with the Jesuits.
~Vitus Henry. Here's his story: On one of these two occasions, a young man named Vitus Henry was present. The Spirit took him so strongly that he started out as a missionary of Jesus preaching about the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Within a year or two, he had established over a dozen Christian churches. My mother and father and the folks at Living Waters, who are rather wealthy people, having raised all their children, sent vast sums of money to Brother Thomas and his Familia project, and Brother Vitus Henry, in his missionary work. I remained in close contact with these three by mail for years. I wonder how they're doing?
~Anyway, the upshot of it is; I could never quite figure out how they had been so peaceful and happy serving the poorest of the poor, desiring to be MC's, and then each went off on different sorts of crusades, when I myself, once filled with the Holy Spirit, desired nothing but to serve the poorest of the poor and longed to become a brother. I swear, I could've been happy doing that the rest of my life. In effect, I ended up marrying your mother because it was the closest thing I could do that I knew anything about, and it turned out I was following Brother Thomas and his Familia program. So, given the opportunity, see if you can find out about these guys. One always wants to know what long-lasting influence and effect one may have left behind him. But, at this stage of the game, I am capable of seeing that as far as Mother Theresa went, I was pretty much a disruptive influence, but the question is, was it me that was the disruptive influence, or the Holy Spirit? I'm not really able to answer that question.
Love,
Pop
[typed by Juby]
P.S. I suppose the Missionaries of Charity have learned to roll with the punches of disruptive influences. Mother's work seems to be a genuine article and, as far as I'm concerned, one of the most genuine forms of Jesus Christ still alive on the planet. That's why I wanted you to experience it. But do look up Brother Sebastian! And inquire... I'm thinking, by now, Brother Thomas and his Familia group have raised over thirty orphans to adulthood. and what do you suppose Brother Vitus Henry is doing? And Felix Raj?
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