An Underground Play by Adrian van Kaam
Written & Performed in December 1944
Excerpted from the book The Life Journey of a Joyful Man of God: The Autobiographical
Memoirs of Adrian van Kaam, available from Epiphany Association. The curtain opens; the stage is dimly lit. Mary and Joseph stand still and tired on a long
road. Behind the scene, someone reads aloud with a quiet, restrained, yet expressive
voice the nativity narrative, Luke 2:1 – 20, after which Mary and Joseph trudge on
wearily.
JOSEPH
Alas, your weak body is shivering again. . . . How exhausting it is for you to do nothing but walk
along foggy polders in the chilly evening. . . . Only the moon shining in the heavens still gives
her white light. . . . How fatiguing this sodden ground . . . especially now, since the child is going
to arrive soon.
MARY
Joseph, I am thinking a lot about that distant night in Bethlehem because this night resembles it
so touchingly, like no other in many years. This, too, is a region occupied by soldiers, just as that
was a small, poor country closely guarded by the Romans.
It was impossible back then to find a roof to cover us, since a flood of people traveled
through all the villages because of the census. And now we are still unable to find a safe place
since so many are leaving these villages again because of fire or hunger or threats to their
freedom.
JOSEPH
And now I’m almost beginning to despair again of being able to shelter you for the great
moment.
MARY
Oh Joseph, can’t we even find a hayloft for our Child?
JOSEPH
I’m sorry I can’t shelter you from such pain, with that divine burden under your tender heart. . . .
You are like a fine and pure tabernacle. . . . And, alas . . . the raw night frost will nip at you
callously. . . . You are still so slight and girlishly delicate.
MARY
Don’t worry about me, Joseph. I don’t care about my own sorrow or distress. Let us think of him
instead, this small, dear bringer of peace to the poor world, who again will neither be received
anywhere nor thankfully and joyously met. . . . Still, how willingly tonight would I tuck his
trembling, handsome little body into the whiteness of sheets and the warmth of wool. . . . It is
such a terrible thought for a mother to do without soft bedding and clothing for her shivering
newborn child. What is therefore heard to say when she knows that this little Boy is God
himself?
JOSEPH
To be permitted to be his foster father and not to be able to care for him sufficiently is the
sharpest blow I could endure.
He lifts up his head and hands, grasping his traveling staff.
“God, you were absurdly good to this simple carpenter from a forgotten village. . . .”
He lets his head and hands fall again and speaks.
“How would the farmers be able to suspect that this bungling person who patches their stalls and barns would soon . . . (he looks at his work-roughened hands) be allowed to feed and handle God himself, the Lord of the universe, with his rough, weather-beaten fingers. . . . That this shouldn’t be allowed to happen to me, an ordinary villager. . . . You have chosen the wrong person because, see, I can’t even find a safe shelter for you.”
MARY
God willed and ordered it to be thus. To him be thanks and honor, even if his everlasting good
will prepare hardship and the bitterness of poverty for us and his own Son.
You have spoken truly, Joseph. He has been absurdly good to us. . . . It is your joy, Lord,
to make the small and trifling incomprehensibly great. . . . I, who travel the roads as a poor
woman, one of the many in this ravaged land who are hungry and ask for food, who are tired
and beg for shelter, who want to escape the cutting, freezing wind in order to warm themselves
by a fire.
“Oh God, how is it possible that I am permitted to be the mother of him who created all
fires and shelters and food, who can plunge all of this into nothingness with a single press of his
finger?”
JOSEPH
“Oh God, I thank you for the royal greatness granted to this woman, most neglected of all.”
Joseph withdraws a bit from Mary and remains standing inconspicuously to one side of
the stage, as if seeking shelter. Mary stands in the center of the stage, retired within
herself. In silent ecstasy, she concentrates on the Holy One within her; her entire being,
all her movements, are directed inward; her arms are peacefully crossed over her bosom,
her head a bit inclined.
MARY
“My God, I am dizzy; I know and feel that you live and move in me . . .”
Emerging for a moment from this ecstasy and slightly turning her head in Joseph’s
direction, she then sinks back once again into her all-absorbing contemplation.
MARY
Joseph, the moment cannot be far off. . . . The Eternal himself is sacredly and miraculously
present once again.
Suddenly raising herself in jubilation from her silent ecstasy, and with a wide and
beautiful movement of her head, she stretches her arms toward the heavens.
“Worship and praise him still, moons in the heavens, bright stars. . . .”
With a gentle, all-encompassing gesture, she spreads her arms around her surroundings,
around all that her rapturous gaze beholds.
“Glorify him, then, silent, wide polders; worship him, gleaming ditches and gray puddles,
windmills of this land.”
She is intensely reverent, bowing with a soft inclination of her head.
“Kneel down before your Creator, lowing cattle of the stalls. The One who gave you movement
is here.”
With a slow crossing of her arms over her bosom, she sinks once again into the same
heartfelt retiring posture as before.
“Oh God, your mother feels overwhelmed by dizzying love because of your miraculous rustling
life under her heart!”
Click below to read the full Christmas play.
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