January 6 Play: ROUGH BEAST

# 6: ROUGH BEAST - by Ed Valentine
(A SHORT, DARK PLAY FOR 3 KINGS DAY)
© January 6, 2010 * ed@edvalentine.com

LIGHTS UP: A scene like a children’s Nativity pageant. The exterior of a rough wooden barn under a starry sky, with one crystalline star bigger and brighter than the others.

3 KINGS arrive from the East, bearing gifts. Perhaps “We Three Kings” plays softly underneath, or perhaps this whole thing is sung to an original score.

KING BALTHASAR (BALTHASAR)
This must be the place!

KING 2 (MELCHIOR)
This must be the place!

KING 3 (KASPAR)
This must be the place the stars have foretold.

BALTHASAR
I have brought Frankincense.

MELCHIOR
I, Myrrh.

KASPAR
I, Gold.

ALL 3
Open up! Open up! Open up!

(The barn opens up like a Christmas card to reveal the manger scene. THE VIRGIN and JOSEPH are around the manger, surrounded by lambs and cows. Perhaps they are played by children. There is something swaddled in the manger.)

ALL 3
We greet thee! We greet thee! We greet thee!

BALTHASAR
I, Balthasar.

MELCHIOR
I, Melchior.

KASPAR
And Kaspar, I.
We followed the signs we saw in the sky.

BALTHASAR
The sky has begotten a little stranger.

MELCHIOR
And tribute we bring here to lay at thy manger.

(Each kneels as he presents his gift, singing grandly:)

KASPAR
We bring Gold!

BALTHASAR
Frankincense!

MELCHIOR
And Myrrh!

ALL 3
AAH!

VIRGIN
Kind you are, ye Magi three.
Would you see the Lord’s baby?

ALL 3
We would! We would! We would!

VIRGIN
I am the handmaiden of the Lord.
Behold.

(Serenely, she lifts the cloth from the thing in the manger. Music snaps out. An acid green light shines forth from the crib onto the KINGS, casting their shadows onto the back wall.)

(At the sight of the thing in the manger, the KINGS stand, confused and stricken: BALTHASAR cannot look away, MELCHIOR peers at the manger through his fingers, KASPAR gets ill.) (*NOTE: perhaps give the impression that that something has gone terribly wrong in the pageant, and that the actors playing the KINGS are genuinely struck dumb by what they see.)

BALTHASAR
What is this?

(A slow sound: something dripping. Then A RENAISSANCE ANGEL WITH A HEAD OF A DOG appears in the sky.)

DOG FACED ANGEL (spoken:)
Noel.

(JOSEPH turns away, shaking his head. The ANGEL sways back and forth in the sky for a long time.)

END OF PLAY.