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Authors: Selma Lagerl?f Josephine L. Palmer Annie L. Thorp

Editor: Gertrude Buck

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

Text in Small Caps was converted to ALL CAPS.

Punctuation and text was retained as in the original except for a change on page 17, "and exit upstairs" to "and exits upstairs".

The Lighting of the Christmas Tree

In the Vassar Series of Plays Edited by Gertrude Buck

Adapted by Josephine L. Palmer and Annie L. Thorp, by permission of Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Co., from "The Christmas Guest," by Selma Lagerlof.

Samuel French: Publisher

LONDON

Samuel French, Ltd.

"THE LIGHTING OF THE CHRISTMAS TREE" is fully protected by copyright, and all rights are reserved.

Permission to act, to read publicly, or to make any use of this play must be obtained from Samuel French, 28-30 West 38th Street, New York City.

It may be presented by amateurs upon payment of a royalty of five dollars for each performance, payable to Samuel French one week before the date when the play is given.

Professional rates quoted on application.

THE VASSAR SERIES OF PLAYS

Every play in this series has been written by a member of the Play-Writing Class at Vassar College. But each play as printed is the product of a group-activity. Not merely an individual seated at a desk, but a community working together in a theater, is responsible for it in its final form.

In recent years there has been an increasing demand for well-written, dramatically effective one-act plays, suitable for production by semi-professional companies or by amateur organizations of serious purpose and some degree of training. To aid in supplying this demand is the purpose of the Vassar Series of Plays. Other plays written by members of the Play-Writing Class at Vassar College may be secured in typewritten form by application to The Workshop Bureau of Plays, Vassar College.

All the plays in this series are protected by copyright. A royalty of five dollars for each production must be paid to Samuel French, 28-30 West 38th Street, New York City, at least one week before the date of the performance.

LIGHTING OF THE CHRISTMAS TREE

PRODUCING THE PLAY

The lines of this play are exceptionally simple in their phrasing and yet so full of meaning that no word or syllable should be lost by the audience. An intelligent, sympathetic rendering of each speech is especially important, but clear-cut enunciation and a beautiful quality of voice are also very desirable, particularly for Olga, Liljekrona and the two children.

Olga is obviously the very heart of this play. She makes a charming picture with the little boys over the Christmas tree, the candle-lighting in the windows, and the story of the Christ-Child's wanderings. Her tender love for her home and her instinctive fear of any influence which may tend to lower its ideals or to draw Liljekrona away from it, must be so clearly brought out in the acting that the audience will understand and even partially sympathize with her anxiety to be rid of the drunken vagrant, Ruster.

This anxiety is sharpened by the approach of the Christmas season, which she feels should be celebrated as a beautiful home festival, just by themselves. But even as Olga carries her point and Ruster is about to leave the house, she is assailed by remorse for the selfish impulse to protect her home at the unfortunate old man's expense. This should be clearly indicated in the tone and manner with which she asks Liljekrona to give Ruster something extra for Christmas and to lend him his fur coat.

The departure of Ruster ends the first stage of the play's action, in which Olga has attempted to secure happiness for herself and her household by the refusal of her hospitality to some one in sore need of it. Ruster had seemed to her a discordant element when present, but his absence seems to bring ten-fold more unhappiness. All the Christmas preparations go wrong. Sigurd's cookie-dough figure of the Christ-Child "doesn't look like anything," the E string of Liljekrona's fiddle has snapped and he has no new one, Torstein has gone to drive Ruster and they cannot dance without him, the sheaves for the sparrows have been forgotten, and finally Liljekrona withdraws to his own room to play the stormy music which Olga understands as a portent of his return to the old life of wandering.

In this section of the play, Liljekrona controls the action and should dominate the scene. Olga attempts, in vain, to infuse joy into the Christmas observances. Liljekrona's bitterly self-reproachful speech about the lonely and the hungry people,--"When they pass so close as to touch our sleeve,--we do not see them, we do not stop them, but let them plod their path alone,"--shows that he will no longer deceive himself as to the heartlessness of their own action. And when he says--"Your candles are too late. The door is closed. The voice is gone,"--Olga sees that on the eve of Christmas and in the name of its fitting observance, she has betrayed its very spirit of hospitality and kindness.

The sound of the music from Liljekrona's room, full of the old, wild passion for the open road, brings to Olga realization of the price she must pay for this mistake, "if God does not work a miracle in the night." Her intense suffering at this point marks the crucial moment in the play and must be conveyed by action and facial expression as well as by a poignant rendering of the lines. The moment must be held perceptibly, after she sinks into her chair, until the sound of sleighbells, at first far off and gradually approaching, breaks the spell.

The bells usher in the third stage of the action, which is markedly different in feeling-tone from the other two. Instead of the fear and the cloaked unkindness of the first scene and the growing self-reproach of the second, we have the exaltation of complete surrender to generous impulse. Olga's joy in the "miracle" which she so little deserved or expected must shine from her face and from every word and action, as soon as she realizes that Ruster has indeed returned and she has a chance to repair the wrong she has done. Her inspiration to ask Ruster to look after the children while she is out of the room should be so acted as to show that there is something behind her simple request. She will prove her gratitude for this chance to atone, by trusting her dearest treasures to the man she had feared to have remain in the house with them.

The scene of the children with Ruster gives the actor an opportunity to show the battered, dissipated old man, afraid of the innocent eyes of the children, but gradually put at his ease by their complete unconsciousness and their real interest in the one thing he knows,--flute-playing. Ruster's complete collapse when the children's absorption in reading allows him to realize his own desolate situation, and Olga's offer to make him their tutor, need only be played with entire simplicity and sincerity by both actors, to bring tears to the eyes of many people in the audience.

Olga's explanation to Liljekrona of her plans for Ruster and why she is taking this great risk, bring her once more into a position of leadership. This is emphasized by the action, as first Liljekrona, then the children and finally Ruster, kiss Olga's hand, while her curtain speech to Ruster gives the needed touch of humility and graciousness to her exaltation.

The curtain should be raised quickly after it has been lowered, so as to make the tableau of the lighting of the tree seem, as it is, an essential part of the play.

GERTRUDE BUCK.

CHARACTERS

LITTLE RUSTER: a flute-player. LILJEKRONA: a violinist, host of Lofdala. OLGA: his wife. OSWALD } SIGURD } his little sons. HALLA: the cook. TORSTEIN: the man-servant.

First produced by the Vassar Dramatic Workshop, December 16, 1916.

THE LIGHTING OF THE CHRISTMAS TREE

OSWALD. See, Mother, it's snowing.

SIGURD. Look, Mother--it's snowing.

OSWALD. Don't make such big flakes, Sigurd.

SIGURD. But I'm making it snow hard.

OSWALD. Oh, look, that fell on a candle.

OLGA. We need some more snow over here. Come down and make it snow on these branches.

OSWALD. But, Mother, we need some most on this side--like this.

SIGURD. Where is Father?

OLGA. He has gone out with Torstein in the sledge to gather green boughs to make the house look like Christmas.

SIGURD. It'll soon be Christmas, Mother. When can we light the candles?

OLGA. When Father comes home. Have we used up all the snow, Oswald?

OSWALD. Yes, I will get somrt has hungered for her smile, When life has pressed me with a weight of cares, Yet I have thought, wherever I have been, Some gentle power was leading me from sin To virtue's sweeter, nobler way the while. It was the power, dear mother, of thy prayers.

One morning when, like Cana's Lord, the sun Had changed the waiting water into wine, Sped o'er the rosy tide a seraph bright, Within a craft of pearl and crystal light, And still she sped until our ways were one, And I was hers, for aye, and she was mine.

Once, when my tears were falling on the wake Which far and near my wayward path betrayed, Shone there upon me in that fateful hour, A Holy Being, clothed in light and power. And with Him came th' eternal morning's break. How sweet His words, 'Tis I, be not afraid.

Thus to the soul of man there come alone Three sacred ones upon the Sea of Life; All others are as distant sails that fly Far from the ken, and so forever by: And he is blest whose faithful heart hath known And loved the name of Savior, Mother, Wife.

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