Once Upon A Time Scene 2
Once Upon A Time
Waves crash on the shores in the background as the lights & curtains come up on the stage. Off to the side (stage right) are the two toys – Toy Soldier and Ballerina. Behind each one stands another character. Behind the Toy Soldier stands Jesus. He is wearing casual attire with a bright gold sash hanging from his right shoulder. Behind the Ballerina stands God the Father in splendid array. He wears a lavish costume signifying royalty and honour. All figures are frozen as the lights come up and the music comes up to a audible level. As the music begins the Father and Jesus begin to “mold” their creations. They carefully eye their masterpieces and compare notes on the intricacies of their work. When they are satisfied that their work is perfect, the Father steps back and breaths on them with exaggerated motion matching the sound of a great gust of wind in the music. Jesus carefully fold the toys down into their boxes (the boxes are quite large with bright colours – typically Cherry Red for the Ballerina’s box and bright blue for the Toy Soldier). The Father blows once more on a second breath and two other characters begin to move that were further upstage but were hidden or out of the way. These two are representative of Adam and Eve. They are dressed in casual clothes that are coordinated to demonstrate that they are connected. As the breath of God lands on them, they rise gradually in a very graceful fashion. It is their first look at the world. They have looks of amazement on their faces. They do not see each other yet since they are on far sides of the stage from each other. Finally, after a few moments of attention to the world at large they notice each other and become curious. They slowly edge over to one another and touch ever so lightly on their finger tips. They run away from each other giggling and bubbly. They look back at each other in amazement and wonder and come closer again. They touch hands more this time and hold on to each other longer. They begin to twirl in a dance together and end with him dipping her stage left. They finally notice the big boxes in the corner and are fascinated with them. They act curious and excited as they wonder what they could be. They freeze while looking like they are about to open the gifts. The music fades…
As the music comes up the boy begins by opening his box first. Out pops the Toy Soldier in all his glory. He begins with a big salute and then mechanically backs his way out of the box and out into centre stage. The boy follows in total fascination of this toy and begins to match his movements. Now the attention falls on the girl as she opens her box. Out pops the Ballerina. She springs to life in a graceful array of dance and fluid motion. Of course, the little girl is totally enthralled with this gift. She too mimics the ballerina. The boy, who has been watching this, now turns back to pay attention to the toy soldier (he was standing at attention of to the side when the ballerina came to life). Now they both concentrate on their own toys… They play with them and imitate them. At cue mark 1:15 they switch toys and start playing with the opposite one. The boy clumsily tries to due some ballet and looks “goofy” and then he hooks arms with her – kinda hoe down style – and circles around. He gets dizzy and flies off in the direction of his toy soldier who catches him as he is falling. He mimes how dangerous the ballerina is etc. and goes on playing with the Toy Soldier. The girl has gone back to playing with the Ballerina at the same cue that the boy gets thrown back over the other side (cue mark 1:22). At mark 1:26 the demons arrive on the scene to quickly drop a little lie into the ears of the girl and boy. The girl and boy hardly notice this and keep on playing happily. At mark 1:32 the demons come back for a second attack whispering quickly some lie in the ear of the boy and girl. They exaggerate the motions of their heads and leave their hands open broadly so the audience gets the impression of gossip or secret telling. At mark 1:36 the demons come back only this time they stay for a long session. The boy and girl listen intently now. They had pretty much dismissed the last two as nothing worth listening to but now the gossip seems to be much juicier!! They listen and gasp and peek over at their toys in disbelief (at this point the toys are frozen – mark 1:36). At mark 1:50 the girl and boy look at each other in disbelief thinking that they misjudged their toys all together. They poke at their toys and begin to assault them with minor words of abuse. The toys are still frozen and do not respond. Mark 2:22 music fades and girl and boy freeze.
All break from freeze at the beginning of the track. The toys go on as usual but the girl and boy are not mimicking them. They are getting more and more violent with their contact with the toys. Finally, one of them pushes their toy to the ground. The toy cannot get back up and they both start to kick and punch their toys until they do not move any more. The boy looks triumphant. Thinking that he is a big man having just killed off his toy soldier. The ballerina looks confused and devastated that she did that. The boy comes over to the girl and tries to brag but ends up with an abrupt push-off by the girl and they both go to opposite corners of the stage (front) and sit down in a crouched position -pouting! They freeze.
The Father and Jesus, who have been watching through all the last scenes but are not very noticed by audience or characters, now step in survey the damage. Both look very sad and disappointed at the way that their beautiful creation turned out! They can even be seen with tears in their eyes. They separate to survey the damage – each takes one half of the stage to check on the characters on that section of the stage. They check for pulses and stroke the hair of the ballerina etc. The come together after the survey and discuss what can be done. The Father says (in actions) that the only way to correct this problem is for Jesus to come down as a toy and heal the hearts and souls of the girl and boy and correct the wrongs that have been done. Jesus questions this briefly but agrees. The Father removes the sash from Jesus and hugs him farewell. The Father leads Jesus over to the box and closes him in. The music fades. The Father returns to the background to observe.