The Nativity Play

Annette Cockburn of The Homestead (a multi-service agency for street children in Cape Town)  remembers last year’s Nativity Play at their skills training centre, "Learn to Live".

The Learn to Live end-of-year Concert is an event not to be missed. It is full of the richness and the chaos of the world we work in. It is longish, in three languages, and full of surprises. (One year the Angel Gabriel stabbed Joseph behind the curtain at the end.) This year the Nativity Play departed from the norm.

I think sometimes we forget, for all the talk of frankincense and myrrh, that Mary and Joseph were poor people. The scene opens with a group of Street Children playing dice, sharing a loaf of bread and a litre of Coke. The overhead projector casts a pool of light onto the stage, and a street girl comes into the light and hears the age-old message from a voice-over: “Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy” Joseph is not convinced. This is not my child. Don’t give me this rubbish about the son of God. Another pool of light, and Joseph is severely reprimanded by a stern angel in the wings. Briefly he apologises to Mary and they set off to find a place for the baby to be born.

Some groups of Street Children on the stage say: “There is no room here, not in our territory.” There is also an encounter with the police — very stereotypical — but it elicits waves of laughter and feelings of identification from the boys in the audience. The policeman tells the strollers and Mary and Joseph to push off (though rather more graphically). I glance at the three representatives from the SA Police Services, who for the first time ever have come to this concert. They are laughing their heads off!

Eventually Mary and Joseph end up under the bridge at the bottom of Napier Street and the people there agree to build them a shack. The scene moves to jugglers and acrobats in the street and we see a virtuoso display from the children. (I assume this is instead of the shepherds.) Some chairs are placed in a line and they become a taxi complete with the tout. They are picking up Wise Men from Khayelitsha. The Wise Men are well dressed and want to go to see the baby born under the bridge in Cape Town. They are bearing gifts.

The Street Worker runs onto the stage. “Come and see the baby,” he shouts, and everyone rushes off. In the next scene, the baby is there, one month old — and real. There is a token sheep in a grey blanket who says “bah, bah” on an ad hoc basis.

The Wise Men arrive and offer their gifts, elaborately wrapped in see-through cellophane: eight tins of baby food, a packet of nappies and a parcel containing some vests. My eyes fill with tears. I bet the real Mary would have preferred these gifts to all that frankincense and myrrh!

The rendition, stark, immediate and compelling, lacked no reverence, and was imbued with a sense of excitement and celebration that few traditional nativity plays achieve. Amazing stuff! Accolades to all concerned.