The Gift

Waves crash on the shores in the background as the lights & curtains come up on the stage. Off to the side (stage right) are the two toys - Toy Soldier and Ballerina. Behind each one stands another character. Behind the Toy Soldier stands Jesus. He is wearing casual attire with a bright gold sash hanging from his right shoulder. Behind the Ballerina stands God the Father in splendid array. He wears a lavish costume signifying royalty and honour. All figures are frozen as the lights come up and the music comes up to a audible level. As the music begins the Father and Jesus begin to "mold" their creations. They carefully eye their masterpieces and compare notes on the intricacies of their work. When they are satisfied that their work is perfect, the Father steps back and breaths on them with exaggerated motion matching the sound of a great gust of wind in the music. Jesus carefully fold the toys down into their boxes (the boxes are quite large with bright colours - typically Cherry Red for the Ballerina’s box and bright blue for the Toy Soldier). The Father blows once more on a second breath and two other characters begin to move that were further upstage but were hidden or out of the way. These two are representative of Adam and Eve. They are dressed in casual clothes that are coordinated to demonstrate that they are connected. As the breath of God lands on them, they rise gradually in a very graceful fashion. It is their first look at the world. They have looks of amazement on their faces. They do not see each other yet since they are on far sides of the stage from each other. Finally, after a few moments of attention to the world at large they notice each other and become curious. They slowly edge over to one another and touch ever so lightly on their finger tips. They run away from each other giggling and bubbly. They look back at each other in amazement and wonder and come closer again. They touch hands more this time and hold on to each other longer. They begin to twirl in a dance together and end with him dipping her stage left. They finally notice the big boxes in the corner and are fascinated with them. They act curious and excited as they wonder what they could be. They freeze while looking like they are about to open the gifts. The music fades...

As the music comes up the boy begins by opening his box first. Out pops the Toy Soldier in all his glory. He begins with a big salute and then mechanically backs his way out of the box and out into centre stage. The boy follows in total fascination of this toy and begins to match his movements. Now the attention falls on the girl as she opens her box. Out pops the Ballerina. She springs to life in a graceful array of dance and fluid motion. Of course, the little girl is totally enthralled with this gift. She too mimics the ballerina. The boy, who has been watching this, now turns back to pay attention to the toy soldier (he was standing at attention of to the side when the ballerina came to life). Now they both concentrate on their own toys... They play with them and imitate them. At cue mark 1:15 they switch toys and start playing with the opposite one. The boy clumsily tries to due some ballet and looks "goofy" and then he hooks arms with her - kinda hoe down style - and circles around. He gets dizzy and flies off in the direction of his toy soldier who catches him as he is falling. He mimes how dangerous the ballerina is etc. and goes on playing with the Toy Soldier. The girl has gone back to playing with the Ballerina at the same cue that the boy gets thrown back over the other side. Then the demons arrive on the scene to quickly drop a little lie into the ears of the girl and boy. The girl and boy hardly notice this and keep on playing happily. At mark 1:32 the demons come back for a second attack whispering quickly some lie in the ear of the boy and girl. They exaggerate the motions of their heads and leave their hands open broadly so the audience gets the impression of gossip or secret telling. At mark 1:36 the demons come back only this time they stay for a long session. The boy and girl listen intently now. They had pretty much dismissed the last two as nothing worth listening to but now the gossip seems to be much juicier!! They listen and gasp and peek over at their toys in disbelief (at this point the toys are frozen). Then the girl and boy look at each other in disbelief thinking that they misjudged their toys all together. They poke at their toys and begin to assault them with minor words of abuse. The toys are still frozen and do not respond.

All break from freeze at the beginning of the track. The toys go on as usual but the girl and boy are not mimicking them. They are getting more and more violent with their contact with the toys. Finally, one of them pushes their toy to the ground. The toy cannot get back up and they both start to kick and punch their toys until they do not move any more. The boy looks triumphant. Thinking that he is a big man having just killed off his toy soldier. The ballerina looks confused and devastated that she did that. The boy comes over to the girl and tries to brag but ends up with an abrupt push-off by the girl and they both go to opposite corners of the stage (front) and sit down in a crouched position -pouting! They freeze.

The Father and Jesus, who have been watching through all the last scenes but are not very noticed by audience or characters, now step in survey the damage. Both look very sad and disappointed at the way that their beautiful creation turned out! They can even be seen with tears in their eyes. They separate to survey the damage - each takes one half of the stage to check on the characters on that section of the stage. They check for pulses and stroke the hair of the ballerina etc. The come together after the survey and discuss what can be done. The Father says (in actions) that the only way to correct this problem is for Jesus to come down as a toy and heal the hearts and souls of the girl and boy and correct the wrongs that have been done. Jesus questions this briefly but agrees. The Father removes the sash from Jesus and hugs him farewell. The Father leads Jesus over to the box and closes him in. The music fades. The Father returns to the background to observe.

Scene begins with marching style music. The girl and boy immediately jump to attention when the music begins and start to rigidly pace back and forth across the front centre stage. They look frustrated, angry, and irritated. They march with bored determination. They bump into each other on the second or third time across and slap each other hard. The next time through they slap each other even harder. After this harder slapping, they notice that one of the gift boxes is closed and is in a different position. They look at each other and then dash for the box. It becomes a frenzy as to who gets to open the box and who will own what’s inside. They almost wreck the box with the violence of their fighting over it and finally as if by accident the box flips open and out steps Jesus. They look in bewilderment at him and scratch their heads. They were not expecting this at all. Jesus, smiling, takes both their hands and leads them to centre stage. He begins to teach them that he came to tell them about goodness and mercy and love. He demonstrates that he loves the world and them with exaggerated motions of embrace. He then tells them that he loves them. The girl and boy gradually catch on to what he is saying and finally hug him one at a time. Jesus then takes both their hands and tries to put them together. They resist and will not come near each other. The boy feigns that she smells and the girl mimes his attitude. Jesus does not give up and tries again to pull them together. They resist at first and then finally give in and hug each other - not very convincing but more of a giving in kindof gesture. At mark 1:32, again the demons come on the scene and whisper bad things about each other to the girl and boy. This happens two or three times and with each time they listen more and more until they are full out fighting again. Jesus tries to intervene but gets pushed around. They end with each yelling at the other and going off into a corner to stand sulking. Fade out music. All freeze.

This scene opens with Jesus making a gentle appeal to the girl and boy. He walks over to the girl first and puts his hand on her shoulder to comfort her and try and talk with her. She abruptly flicks his had off the shoulder and this leaves Jesus’ right hand in the air like the one side of the cross. He keeps the right hand up in the air and approaches the boy on stage left and does the same thing to him with his left hand. The boy reacts just as strongly. He flicks off Jesus’ attempt to reconcile the two. This pushes Jesus back to the centre stage area. The girl and boy now begin to fight again blaming each other for the way life turned out. They unknowingly push Jesus back three times (sound significant?) each time getting more and more violent with their approach to Jesus. They strip him of his robe and sash and fight over who gets the robe. The girl wins this fight and they both retreat off to the very edge of the stage at both sides. On the third time they push him, they push him so hard he gets thrust right against a cross which the demons had subtly been erecting during the fighting and were manipulating the whole scene. The chief demon stood on the box where the cross was being erected during the fight with his hands very ominously cast over the scene like he was controlling the situation. Now the demons grasp Jesus’ hands and feet with pointed fingers and exaggerated motions of victorious valor. They have defeated the good guys!

The toys come to life on the point of death of Jesus on the cross (mark 1:59). They see Jesus and begin to mourn the loss. The Soldier kneels and weeps in a mechanical way and the ballerina just flops on the ground and wails with exaggerated motions in the shoulders. They stop long enough to carry Jesus down from the cross and bury him with a white cloth over his body. Music Fades. The toys kneel down and freeze at either end of him off to the side of the stage.

When the music comes up the Father steps into the scene to survey all the damage. He pats the Soldier on the head and touches the Boy. He goes to the girl and puts his hand on the shoulder of the Ballerina. His eyes show a sad yet determined gaze. There is a fiery look there of righteous anger! He steps up onto the cross box (the head demon was standing there but cringes as he sees the Father approaching). All the demons have been shaking most noticeably as soon as the Father stepped into the situation at the beginning of this scene. Now, they barely are able to hang around... they are hanging over the body of Jesus in a "haggard" kinda way. The music intensifies and at mark 00:36 the Father swipes at the closest demon with his arm in a broad stroke matching the duration and timing of the music. This demon flies head over heals off the stage running in complete terror. At mark 00:45 the second demon gets blown away in similar fashion. At mark 00:53 the head demon is taken care of. The Father now braces himself for the resurrection of Jesus. At mark 1:02 the music cue gives the Father place to use both hands to motion a lifting of something heavy. As he does this, Jesus raises slowly from under the burial cloth and stands up. At mark 1:10 the music hits a place where his hands come up in total victory and jubilation!! The Father comes down and hugs the son and they rejoice at being together again. The Father gives the son the golden sash.

Now, the toys run to Jesus and hug him and are quite happy to see him alive. As the music changes modes, Jesus calls out to the girl to come to him and she comes - reluctant but willingly. She puts the robe down that she had taken from him back in Scene IV and turns to leave him thinking that this is what he was calling her for. But he draws her in to him and hugs her long. He then turns to the boy and does the same call. The boy looks at the belt that he had taken from Jesus and considers his choice. The scene fades and music finishes with him half reaching out to Jesus. Jesus and the Father both extend their hands as far as they can go in reaching out to him but leave the final decision up to him. All freeze. Fade to black.