"Awry in a Manger: It Takes a Miracle to Stage This Play."
Let's see if this link works. It should. When you e-mail things from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the link lasts for seven days. This story is from today, Tuesday December 18. 2007.
Warning: do not read with coffee mug in hand; you will laugh and your keyboard could suffer.
It's almost up there with Going Jesus' Cavalcades of Bad Nativities (Part I, 2004 and Part II, 2007). But the hungry camel and frisky goats in the WSJ story are more cheery. At least they're alive and not plastic.
For this link, thanks to my WSJ-interesting-stories provider, to whom I refer affectionately as "The Best Of The Exes."
3 comments:
Love it! Hasn't anyone learned the theatrical truth that you cannot upstage children or animals? But you don't need them to make a perfect fool of yourself.
Years ago, I was assigned to photograph a "Living Stations of the Cross" at an Assemblies of God church in Wayne, N.J. You drove your car around the parking lot and took in each Station. Perfect for mall shoppers. In any case, the guy enlisted to play Jesus wasn't exactly what you see in the artistic representations. He didn't look anorexic but he didn't look like Bluto, either: just an ordinary guy, which actually may have been closer to reality. The Jesus figure was on a cross. His hands were tied, he was standing on a small wooden platform with his feet tied to the center post. Not a nail or lash-mark in sight: Wayne was not one of those places where people actually reenact the Crucifixion. But the pastor, helping me out, stood there, pointed at the Jesus-guy, and shouted "If thou beest the Christ, come down!" I wish my picture were as good as the subject:-).
Nativity Plays are much like NASCAR, you really only go to watch for the crashes.
Apparently at this year's Portland Singing Christmas Tree, the woman who was a flying angel got into her flourishes a bit much, and when she got dipped a bit too low she drop-kicked one of the Wise Guys' hats clear into the cheap seats.
I love it!
One of my former churches had the annual living nativity. On the first year I was there, one of the sheep died. After that we used goats, who ate everything in sight, including the bathrobe costumes of the young shepherds (goatherds?) standing near-by. And yes, donkeys are the most stubborn animals on the face of the earth!
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