Speaker 1: Narrator read by Pamela Krantz.
Speaker 2: Characters, Christmas Gifts read by Charlotte Duckett.
Speaker 3: Money read by Ruth Golding.
Speaker 4: Christmas Tree read by Manda Friday.
Speaker 5: Christmas Stocking read by Ginger Cucolo.
Speaker 6: Plum Pudding read by Rapunzlina sir.
Speaker 7: It read by Lyn Silva.
Speaker 8: An Old Man read by David Olsen.
Speaker 9: A Child read by Adililia.
Speaker 10: King's Son read by David Lawrence.
Speaker 1: Narrator read by Pamela Krantz. What makes Christmas Christmas a morality?
Play the scene At the sides and back the stage
is hung with curtains of a cold gray tone, lighter
toward the top. In the upper left corner, a bright
star is shining across the top. At the front hangs
a dark gray curtain stenciled in a geometric design with
dull gold paint. A dark line of drapery borders the
sides of the proscenium. A little to the right center
and more than half way back is a stone bench
with a pine tree at each end. The light is
diffused and dim to represent night in the distance. An
almost imperceptible regular drumming is heard during the solemn parts
of the play. This monotonous beat is always audible, determining
the tempo of the movement. There enters right Christmas gifts,
a coquettish elf like figure, and a gold tunic and
a stiff skirt stopping at the knees. On her head
is a gold cap like a cornucopia, and her stockings
and slippers our gold. She enters dancing. She is followed
by money Bag, who loiters sulkily behind, examining a little
musical pipe which she carries. Money Bag is dressed in
a loose brown bag, tied up about the neck with
a hempen rope. Otherwise he looks a little like a brownie.
Speaker 3: I are you so excited gifts?
Speaker 2: Why it's Christmas Eve, mister money bag.
Speaker 1: She curtsies mockingly.
Speaker 3: Christmas is no better for gifts than any other time
of year. What's the matter with birthdays?
Speaker 2: Poor old money bag?
Speaker 1: Kissing him and dancing off.
Speaker 3: It's such a great drain on you, Yes it is.
See how poor and thin I've grown a month ago.
My sides were all bulgy with my savings.
Speaker 2: But it's a season. I thrive.
Speaker 3: You thrive, my lady, at my expense.
Speaker 2: I want to dance. Money, dear, caressingly, play me a
nice little tune whenever you want anything.
Speaker 3: Then you're very nice to me with your money, DearS,
you always have to rely on me for whatever you want.
Speaker 2: Money makes the dance girl. Yes you're not a very
esthetic creature.
Speaker 1: Though, Money tosses his head angrily.
Speaker 2: Oh, but we all love you. You're ever so much
better than you look. Come play me a nice little
tune to dance to. Tra la la la la, tra
la la la la.
Speaker 1: Still pouting and shaking his head.
Speaker 3: I think my pipe is broken.
Speaker 1: He plays a few discords.
Speaker 2: Always broke when I ask you for anything, Come just
one little tune.
Speaker 1: Money begins to play and gifts starts for dance. Suddenly, abruptly,
in the middle of a strain, Money breaks off and
begins to examine his pipe with greater interest. Oh do play,
stamping her foot.
Speaker 2: It's so tantalizing money to have you give out this way.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's money this and money that, and you'll beckon
call all the while. I can't keep on forever? Can I?
With no pauses to catch my breath. It's hard work
to keep time all the time.
Speaker 2: There's a good old money bag kissing him a nice
old money bag. Of course, you have to pretend that
times are hard.
Speaker 1: Money grunts, and begins to play m After a few hours,
he again stops abruptly on a high note and falls
to examining his pipe.
Speaker 2: You always give out this way at the crucial moment,
dear money bag, just one more little strain.
Speaker 3: The strains too much for me.
Speaker 2: How stingy you are. And your music is pretty poor too.
Speaker 3: I noticed it's good enough for your dancing.
Speaker 2: I'd dance to a different tune if I could. Aily,
it's my artistic temperament anyway, which furnishes.
Speaker 3: All m oh tastey temperament? Indeed, when did that ever
furnish anything but trouble? I'd like to know?
Speaker 1: Enter left Christmas tree. He wears a short, flaring green
tunic trimmed with horizontal evergreen bands, green knickers, brown stockings,
and scarlet slippers. On his head is a peaked green cap.
From time to time, electric lights shine out on the
point of his cap and in the evergreen bands.
Speaker 4: Here here you two squabbling again. Why it's Christmas Eve,
the time for shouting and laughter? See how I shine?
Speaker 1: The bulbs glow and flicker out.
Speaker 2: He won't play for me?
Speaker 4: Oh yes he will, and like a right good fellow too.
Why one hour more and it will be Christmas, mister bagg,
See how I shine with the festive spirit.
Speaker 1: The lights glow a moment.
Speaker 4: Now, if ever is the time to play, Come gifts.
We'll have a little dance together.
Speaker 1: They caper about, but Money continues to salt. Then examine
his pipe.
Speaker 4: Come, come money, What would gifts be without you?
Speaker 1: She can expect no more of me gifts flinging arms
round his neck.
Speaker 2: Dear old money bag, you're too fickle, not in loving you.
Speaker 4: This is the season of jollity. See how I shine?
Speaker 3: The lights glow again, gass one short pace.
Speaker 1: Then he begins to play. Gifts and tree join hands.
Speaker 4: It's scandalous the way you treat him. You're so changeable.
Speaker 2: You seem to forget the Christmas gifts must be all
things to all men.
Speaker 1: They dance presently. The music stops again on a high note.
In the middle of.
Speaker 2: A strain, Money is given out again.
Speaker 1: A new tune starts up. Now early is stocking enters left.
He wears a blue and white doublet and a square
cap on his head. On the whole he resembles a
checked pantaloon more than anything else. Stocking dances gaily while
gifts and tree give him the floor.
Speaker 2: Poor Stocking. It's very seldom money spends any effort on him.
Speaker 4: You mean, it's very seldom money is ever spent on him.
Women are so reckless in what they say.
Speaker 1: Stocking stops breathless.
Speaker 2: How well you dance tonight, Stocking.
Speaker 5: On Christmas Eve? I always dance well. I'm dancing dreams
into the heads of all the children. The stockings are
hung by the chimney with care. You know, that's the
very core of the whole thing. What would Christmas be
without me? Why? I am Christmas.
Speaker 4: Rubbish, old fellow. You're all right, of course, In fact,
you play your part very nicely. But what would Christmas
be without a tree? See how I shine.
Speaker 1: The lamp's glow.
Speaker 5: Sooner a Christmas any time without a tree than without
a stocking. Why it's the whole joy of Christmas to
hang up your stocking, have dreams dancing on your head
all night, and dash down in the morning to pull
out gifts.
Speaker 2: There you are, It's gifts thereafter, What would an empty
stocking be? It's gifts gifts, gifts that makes them happy.
Speaker 1: Stocking is about to retort, but Tree pushes him aside.
Speaker 4: There there don't quarrel. We all admit that Christmas would
be a pretty slow thing without you stalking, and that
you'd be a pretty disappointing fellow without gifts. You're both
essential to Christmas.
Speaker 5: I guess, so Christmas Eve and no stalking. Why it's inconceivable.
Speaker 2: Whoever heard of a Christmas with no gifts? Why I
enter every lowest hovel, bringing joy wherever I go, and
spreading Christmas trere. I visit the richmond in his villa,
and the convict in his prison, and the soldier in
his trench. Everywhere I go, helping and sententiously, making all
men brothers. The whole world becomes one vast fraternity under
the charm of Christmas gifts. Wherever I look, I will
see Christmas smiling.
Speaker 4: See how I.
Speaker 11: Shine the lamps flesh.
Speaker 4: What is a home without me when Christmas dawns? Why
I am the very center and symbol of joy round me.
The family gather and look at me with smiling eyes.
I am the shrine of Christmas. Christmas is Christmas without
a single gift. If I stand shining by the hearth.
Speaker 3: Where would you all be without me? Who ever heard
of anyone's keeping Christmas without money? I may not make
as much show as some of you here, but money
is their biggest thing in life. What's a man without money?
Where can he live? What can he eat? What can
he do? Build? Canals and palaces and the great ships
that sail on the sea. I wage war and bring
back peace again. I wreck hospitals and bring men healing
and comfort. Without me, the whole world would fall into chaos,
and the race of men would perish Christmas without money?
Speaker 5: Indeed, here comes plum Pudding. He has attended countless Christmas festivals.
Speaker 4: Yes, but think of his reputation.
Speaker 5: I'll admit that he is in averse to a little
liquor and is often in his cups. But he is
a man of the world and has seen life. He
ought to know what makes Christmas Christmas. Let's lay the
whole matter squarely before him and abide by his decision.
Speaker 3: Yes, plum Pudding knows what's what? I agree, and.
Speaker 4: I and I enter left.
Speaker 1: Plum Pudding. He is a portly old gentleman, dressed in
black velvet with red stockings and a red sash.
Speaker 5: Good evening, mister pudding. We're having a little discussion here
about who's most essential to Christmas.
Speaker 4: Now I just tell them, please, what Christmas would be
without a tree?
Speaker 11: See how I shine the lamps glow?
Speaker 2: Hum, mister pudding, did you ever hear of a Christmas
without gifts?
Speaker 1: She takes his arm coquettishly and smiles up at him.
Speaker 6: Well, no, of course she didn't.
Speaker 3: Where would they all be, sir? Without me?
Speaker 4: Put them all straight?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 4: See how I shine.
Speaker 1: The lamp's glow.
Speaker 5: Did you ever hear of a child who forgot to
hang up his stalking on Christmas Eve?
Speaker 6: There's a good deal of wisdom in all these claims.
Christmas would indeed be a poor thing without stalking.
Speaker 11: See how I shine the lamp's glow.
Speaker 6: A tree is very important gifts, pulls his arm, and
no one would be willingly forgotten by gifts?
Speaker 1: He smiles at her.
Speaker 6: Without money?
Speaker 3: Yes, where would they all be without money?
Speaker 7: Eh?
Speaker 3: Where?
Speaker 6: Indeed?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 3: Well, well, well.
Speaker 6: Well what is it that makes Christmas Christmas?
Speaker 11: What?
Speaker 5: What?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 6: What is it possible? You don't know?
Speaker 1: I'll shake their heads gifts, smiling at him, What.
Speaker 6: Do you think think, I don't think I know.
Speaker 3: Oh, oh, oh oh, what.
Speaker 6: Is the road to a man's heart? Why his stomach?
Of course? Do you see plum pudding is what makes
Christmas Christmas? Didn't you all refer.
Speaker 1: To me plum putting turns and struts off right in
a superior manner.
Speaker 4: Always puts himself above everybody else.
Speaker 2: Too much ego, my dear.
Speaker 5: Tree, always overestimating his own importance.
Speaker 3: The way till a man's heart is through his puss.
Why I can tell.
Speaker 1: You A gay tinkling sound is heard, and a light,
yellow clad figure enters right. She is dancing and is
peaking imaginary flowers. Spirit.
Speaker 12: I am young into bright and the flowers, and my hair,
my high food, so cheery, my high bed, a brown fur.
Speaker 3: This is no one I know.
Speaker 1: No I spirit, still gathering imaginary flowers and weaving them
into wreaths.
Speaker 7: Morning glories and roof and hair bills growing with daisies.
Speaker 3: I don't see anything growing under.
Speaker 7: The Christmas star.
Speaker 3: She thinks that'd perish the salt.
Speaker 7: Oh sweet flowers for my garland, the rose, the lily,
and the stately dahlia tree stepping up to her.
Speaker 11: See how I shine lamps glow.
Speaker 3: Oh no, no drawing back.
Speaker 7: You're no child of the wood and metal. So much
dress being sadders, my footstep, saloon, the stars in the
sky hoppy. When I see.
Speaker 5: She'll be asking us to have a cup of moonlight.
Speaker 3: Next she's mad.
Speaker 2: I'll speak to her. What's your name?
Speaker 7: I see quit a be training sweet from the torn
so it touches my heart, Little big.
Speaker 2: Lovebird, Well, where did you come from?
Speaker 7: I can't say the exact place. I have come from
the mountains of the shed Nevada, down through a great
sweep of its country. So I wandered along the banks
of the Ohio and touched the heels again, and passed
into the mist, over the waves, into the dermoil of
the nations.
Speaker 3: But where is your home?
Speaker 1: Singing is? She pleads her wreaths.
Speaker 7: When the sun shines south, the springs my cup, and
I hear from the trash that her nestling is flow.
Speaker 3: You see, she won't tell.
Speaker 7: I pass here and there ludge in the hearts of men,
and they reach them and set my magic on children.
Speaker 5: Aren't you cold out the night with that thin dress?
Speaker 7: The December winds are blowing down from the great ice
pue in the north. But I am not cold at all,
for my heart warms me.
Speaker 4: This is no time to be thinking about yourself. This
is Christmas night, don't you know that the time when
there's love and goodwill among men, and everyone is giving
himself enjoy and service for others. See how I shine.
Speaker 1: The lamps gleam. The spirit looks about her bewildered.
Speaker 3: Everybody is expected to give a little flowers.
Speaker 2: They're only in your minds enjoyed laughter.
Speaker 3: They don't cost anything, they're just in the heart, said the.
Speaker 1: People, holding out his cap to her.
Speaker 3: Everybody is expected to give a little.
Speaker 7: That's much too small to contain my gifts.
Speaker 1: The spirit disappears.
Speaker 2: Who ever saw the like such as Some folk.
Speaker 1: Have enter right, an old man with his little grandson.
They're very poor and wretched. The old man carries on
his back a sack which contains all his possessions, and
the little boy has a swag on the end of
a stick. They come in and rest themselves and their
burdens on the bench.
Speaker 8: I'm old, old by a hundred years and wearied out.
Yet it's near midnight, and we must be getting on
to some shelter.
Speaker 9: Half our musty good grandfather.
Speaker 8: It's a long way, child, that the poor must travel,
a long and weary way.
Speaker 1: Money slinking away, there beggars gift coming forward.
Speaker 2: It's Christmas Eve, my good man. On the hour of
midnight is nea I was coming to seek you. I'm gifts.
Speaker 8: Christmas is for the rich, bitterly, not for us poor folk,
driven forth on the road to celebrate with gifts.
Speaker 11: See how I shine the lamps gleam.
Speaker 4: On Christmas Eve? Even the poor man can bear home
of balsam from the hills and light a taper in
its branches to the blessed child to shine into the
eyes of his own children.
Speaker 8: Old man turning away, it's a roof tree that I'm
lacking this Christmas Eve, young man.
Speaker 5: But though the poor man has no home, he has
yet a fire where the Christmas stocking may hang tonight.
Speaker 8: The highway is my hearth.
Speaker 1: Friend, enter left the spirit and touches the old man
on the sleeve.
Speaker 7: Father, I to have come along road on Christmas night,
and I'm going alonger Still shall we not go one together.
Speaker 8: Ah company on the long dark road? That's something, now,
my friends.
Speaker 9: Where did you get those flowers?
Speaker 2: Mad?
Speaker 11: Mad?
Speaker 3: Mad?
Speaker 8: You see we're very poor, my grandson and I. We're
too poor to keep Christmas.
Speaker 9: I didn't see any flowers, grandfather, as we came along.
But now, why are they going everywhere?
Speaker 8: And what a fine smell they have?
Speaker 4: Can't you see how she's fooling you? Where are her flowers? Now?
Speaker 8: But can a fine lady like you be seen on
the road with poor folks like us.
Speaker 7: Jing skins with him in his manger, Then.
Speaker 8: Let us be getting along, For the road is dark
and difficult.
Speaker 7: Bright with moonlight, and the hedges are thick with daces
and hairbells, and the meadows are dotted with buttercups. We
shall pass orchards too, with plums and peaches, and big
and little apples, and hanging gripes on the trellis incredulously.
Speaker 8: This reminds me of the day is when I too
was young.
Speaker 7: And unwearied, and before us faith will run like a
welder in the mountains, Oh ray, ridden wealth, hard a
flowers on my bro hand, bear ridden bees to flame
in my home.
Speaker 1: The old man and the child go out, left with
a confident air, accompanied by the spirit. As they go,
they do not heed the others.
Speaker 2: She carries a high head now and despises us as
if you were a betses.
Speaker 3: There they go, a couple of poor doft shadows, begging
along the road, a reproach to good paper, who are
enjoying Christmas.
Speaker 1: A cloud of incense rises behind the spirit and the
old man and child.
Speaker 5: Don't you see a mist rising there?
Speaker 4: Odd and smell a holy fire?
Speaker 2: And together they've passed into the mist.
Speaker 3: And who is she anyway? And what was her business
here on Christmas night?
Speaker 4: She's only a poor mad thing with her flowers and
her orchards and her moonlight. It's an ill time to
be meeting creatures like that the holy Christmas eve.
Speaker 2: The old man's coat was very poor, indeed he needed
a new one.
Speaker 4: His hood was all tattered.
Speaker 5: And his stockings were only rags.
Speaker 2: But he refuses our assistance. That's the way of the poor.
They'd rather freeze before our eyes than eases by taking help.
Speaker 5: He listened to her quick enough to empty promises and
vain hopes. Heild out with all her talk about flowers.
Speaker 1: Yes see how I He jumps aside, startled and cries.
Speaker 4: Out, she has taken away my shoes.
Speaker 1: The others look on in amazement.
Speaker 2: A pox on her for taking away the good old
ways of celebrating Christmas.
Speaker 1: Suddenly, the King's son appears, left on the highway. He
is dressed in a short purple tunic and wears a
golden circlet on his brow. Money immediately runs forward to
salute him.
Speaker 4: Money always follows, and the footsteps of the great.
Speaker 1: All stand in the way of the King's son saluting him.
He looks peevish and is evidently annoyed at the interruption.
Speaker 10: What do you want of me?
Speaker 2: It was to you, sire, that we were about to proceed.
It was to you, first of all in the wide realm,
that we would bring our Christmas greetings.
Speaker 10: And who were you? Pray?
Speaker 2: I am Christmas gifts with my faithful attendant, money bag,
and we have saved for you the rarest and vest.
Speaker 10: I don't want any more gifts already the palace is
filled up with them, Birthday gifts, Christian gifts, Christmas gifts, gifts,
gifts till my eyes are tired of look, Sire, you
are right. I am the only true symbol of Christmas.
I the Christmas stocking. You hang me up in the
chimney corner, and all night long dreams and fancies dance
over your head. I'm much too old for such nonsense.
Why I haven't hung up my socking for ever so long?
Speaker 4: Sire, I am the Christmas tree. See how I shine?
Speaker 1: He hesitates to try, but the lights gleam out again.
Speaker 4: I am the shrine of Christmas. On Christmas morning, the
family gather round me.
Speaker 10: I'm tired of Christmas trees. I have them every year,
and they're always the same. All these things are nothing
to me, For in my heart there is a great heaviness.
What is it that makes Christmas Christmas? I have set
out tonight on the great highway of the realm to
see whether I shall find Christmas there. I have left
my father's house, where I walk between walls of beat
and bronze, lighted with silver lamps, and where my father
sits on a high throne with a crown on his
head and a mastiff at his feet. In the courtyard,
festive preparations are going forth, and there is a great
coming in of kings and princes. But Christmas joy has
deserted our palace. I remember the time when my heart
was high on Christmas night, but now everything is sodden
and dull.
Speaker 1: Enter left, Spirit dancing.
Speaker 7: No gem and no gold. Can my speit breass, no
mish and no net stay the wing of my flight?
Speaker 10: Who is she?
Speaker 1: He goes toward her spirit, gathering flowers and singing.
Speaker 7: The summer lifts a when the harvests thrive, the lark
song is heard, and the shadows are long.
Speaker 10: There is a princess in the court who has come
up from the south and sits pining for me by
the window. But I'll have none of her. And now
when I put out my arms to you, you do
not come.
Speaker 7: All men, have a deep durst for joy.
Speaker 10: Come to my father's house, and we will dance together
in the gardens, you and I playmates.
Speaker 7: Oh no, no, in palaces there are sad hearts. Where then,
with the duties of Christmas, I must be happy and free.
Speaker 10: But I will make it different. You may come and
go as you will, and you may have a great
toll gendarme to keep away anyone who annoys you. And
you can console yourself by giving to the poor who
are always near the golden gate.
Speaker 1: Spirit dancing away and singing, I.
Speaker 7: Fine, and I sigh for no caif and no gold.
The glow window west is treasure.
Speaker 1: To me the spirit disappears.
Speaker 4: It does a heap of good to talk to her.
She won't even listen to the king's son.
Speaker 8: Enter left, the old man and the boy alas joy
caught up my sleeve and disappeared.
Speaker 10: It is the only thing which will not dwell in palaces.
Speaker 8: She was taken away from us as everything else is.
Speaker 4: Taken, because there was nothing there.
Speaker 1: To the old man, she and.
Speaker 4: Her flowers were an empty show to delude poor daft
folks like you.
Speaker 8: With her, the way was not dark while she ran
beside us, we walked in moonlight. Then she ran ahead.
She would wait for us, she said, at the cross
roads further on, and she vanished like dew. But when
she was gone, our sorrow returned and the weariness of
the way, and we could not see ahead.
Speaker 10: The poor too.
Speaker 8: She held in her hands joy like a great light.
I saw it shining there, and it vanished again.
Speaker 3: My light.
Speaker 4: She stole it from me for a little while.
Speaker 2: What did I tell you? Empty promises? He thought she
would wait for his coming at the crossroads.
Speaker 4: Her blossoms bloomed only a moment, old father. Then she
deserted you, leaving you on the road alone.
Speaker 10: And she left me too.
Speaker 2: Our promises were much more substantial. But you turned from
them to her flowers. Did you touch them, then? Did
you take them in your hands?
Speaker 8: What I see is mine. She offered fair sight to
her eyes, and gentle thoughts to our hearts, such as
belonged to the poor, and to the children, and to poets.
The king and the rich hold their possessions in their hands,
But who can play the tyrant with the eye and
the thought of a poor man?
Speaker 10: Hark again, she is filling the air with her sweet sounds.
Speaker 1: All stop and listen. Spirit sings in the distance and
does not seem My.
Speaker 7: Voice spets the voice of the forest and glove. But
the sun never shines, and sunda gold of flurry.
Speaker 10: It is strange. Her figure is not here, yet the
sound comes to us like the film of a dream.
Speaker 8: The form too is here if you see it.
Speaker 1: Spirit still in the distance.
Speaker 7: My life is a joy that no mystery cloud, with
no pain. Then no takes I keep and the cat.
Speaker 10: This night, my longing has been fulfilled, and the poor
have been happy.
Speaker 2: This is no place for us.
Speaker 1: Gifts, money, tree and stockings slink away left as the
spirit continues to sing, still in the distance, my.
Speaker 7: Fancy, my ballace, my joy, my chroll, My dreams are
my real and my gardlets my crown.
Speaker 10: Though she speeds over the earth tonight her spirit has
found its resting place, for she dwells in our hearts.
Speaker 1: The drum beats heavily, twelve times curtain and of what
makes Christmas Christmas