Heiligabend Update

We’re a step further towards the Heiligabend (Christmas Eve) preparation. We don’t have a lot of time: two five-minute sections in two services on Christmas Eve, but the idea that has developed is really exciting. The focus is in the Shepherds and the Wise men, looking at how the marginalized and honoured in Society were both told about Jesus’ birth.

We’re taking a story of two brothers meeting for Christmas. One is unemployed and the other a stockbroker or similar. They are watching television and the conversation degenerates into the usual arguments, why one isn’t working, why the other is, etc. The programme is a religious one and the stockbroker wants to change channel. The other is interested in what is happening and refuses. Eventually the stockbroker looses patience. He’s fed up of wasting time with his brother, especially as he’s turning into a religious nut. The Tokyo exchange is opening (It does open on Christmas Eve) and he can do some work before the day is out. He storms off. After a moments pause the unemployed one decides to go to church, which is going to be a tough line if it isn’t going to be corny.

In the evening, the story is repeated but the roles are reversed. The unemployed brother becomes a Stockbroker, and the stockbroker is unemployed: the script is almost identical. but the characters have changed status. At the end they still face the same decisions about findint out more about Jesus, and they still react the same way.

Because of this, it makes it clear that this isn’t aimed at a particular group in Society, but it is looking at a universal tendency to ignore God. It also shows that God came for the Stockbroker, just as much as the unemployed brother.

I also realised that I only have one script to write, with variations, which in turn means that the two actors (Who will have finished the Waldweihnacht a bare two weeks before) only have one substantial block of text to learn which they will repeat twice. A useful trick if it works...