The Trip to Bethlehem

Actors: 3-4
Reference: Luke 2
Notes: We love doing Christmas skits, but we’re always aware of walking a fine line between being irreverent toward everyone’s favorite story and being saccharine sweet and preachy. This skit could have become preachy, except that the “lecture” is delivered through the unlikely character of the donkey, who furthermore does a very intentional imitation of Linus in Charlie Brown’s Christmas. This had the desired effect – the skit went over even better than we’d hoped. A word about staging: our congregation is small and our meeting place has no raised stage area, making it quite logical for us to perform this skit in the round. We wove our way in and out of the audience, which again worked far better than anticipated: one guy patted the “donkey” on the head, and another fed him a cookie! If your performance area is large, however, a stage is probably preferred unless you have wireless mics.

Synopsis

[View Full Script]
Mary, Joseph, and Aunt Edna are on their way to Bethlehem for the census, and they’re not enjoying the trip. They’ve been on the road for 4 days. It’s hot, dusty, Mary is tired, Aunt Edna is hungry for a kosher hot dog, riding a donkey is very uncomfortable and they can’t afford a cart, and there’s certain to be nothing to do once they’re in Bethlehem. Joseph is just irritable about being on the road with two complaining women and snips back as often as possible. Finally, Mary loudly asks “Can’t anyone tell me why we’re going to Bethlehem?” The Donkey suddenly gets up and says “Sure, I can tell you Mary,” and puts on a Linus impersonation as he approaches center stage. “Lights, please.” He then quotes Micha 5 “But you, Bethlehem, though you are small are by no means least among the towns of Judah. For out of you will come a great ruler, and he will be the shepherd of his people.” To Mary he says “God is delivering a great gift through you” and then calmly gets back on all fours and walks off like nothing unusual happened. The other three stare after him in shock and disbelief. Finally Aunt Edna says “well, talking donkeys are Biblical!”




© 2000 The Thing of it Is Players / City's Edge Community Church. [Contact Us
No rights reserved - Print, Practice, and Perform!