Daniel and the Democrats

Last Sunday evening when the parents were invited to join the young people at the tail end of their weekend retreat, one of the activities was impromptu skits. At school when this happens, everyone is part of a performing group, so even non-actor/actress types like me go along in the knowledge that everyone else is in the same boat. Not so at the retreat. Only three groups were selected and assigned a story to dramatize. Each group included one family, and a few other individuals. The Masts, the Shenks, and the Iwashiges were chosen and given 15 minutes to prepare. We also got a bag of props, that term being very loosely interpreted.

With our props, we (Hiromi, I, Shane and Dorcas, Joel, and Hilda--the girlfriend who is not an Iwashige) were to act out the story of Daniel in the Lion's Den. Our bag contained a silly-looking lion mask, a pack of Dutch Blitz cards, two bleached animal jaw bones with teeth still mostly attached, assorted clothing, a kaleidoscope, a sheaf of blank paper, and a rubber band gun.

Our 15 minutes gave us just enough time to review the story details a bit and decide on the different scenes and characters and what we would do with the props. We started out planning for Hiromi to be the king, and then abruptly changed course when we realized that he was the least familiar with the details of the story and the king speaking uncertainly and in a Japanese accent might derail the story before it got off the ground. So Hiromi took the lion role. Joel was Daniel, Shane was the king (after he got done being one of the evil people plotting against Daniel in an earlier scene.), and all the ladies were evil plotters. When our planning time was up, Hilda spoke for all of us when she said she hopes the ad libbing skills will really kick in, but they usually don't.

While we waited our turn at the back, the children who saw me standing there with the rubber band gun seemed to find it highly amusing. If everyone was this easy to impress, maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. We watched the Masts and friends doing the story of Baalam and the donkey, and I wished we had thought of having a narrator like they did. Too late. I was glad I wasn't the unlucky donkey though, who felt the sting of Baalam's whip repeatedly.

We marched up there as if we knew what we were doing and pulled a small table into the center of the stage, I laid my gun on it, and the four of us gathered around it to pretend at playing cards and plot our mischief while Joel and Hiromi waited in the wings. This entirely unrehearsed dialog took some surprising twists and turns as Shane kept interjecting some decidedly unbiblical terms like "Democrat" in his denunciation of the pious Daniel. The scene changed after we had decided what we were going to ask the king to do.

At the side of the stage, all of us ladies peered at the praying Daniel at the other side of the stage through our telescope (kaleidoscope). People loved it when when Hilda had her turn and exclaimed in a very excited voice "I see something!" With our incriminating testimony ready, we came before the king in the next scene, and he duly pronounced the awful sentence against Daniel.

The next scene was the lion's den. We set the stage by scattering about the clothing and the jawbones as evidence of the fate of previous victims, and then Hiromi came out of the closet at the side of the stage on all fours with the lion head mask projecting from his forehead. (The eye slits must have ended up somewhere above his hair line--obviously not a well-rehearsed placement.) He commenced growling as ferociously as a normally placid individual is capable of. Shane transitioned back into an evil man and we helped each other throw Joel to the lion. Joel sat there while Hiromi circled.

Then Shane (the king again) came and rescued Joel, who reported being fine but not having gotten much sleep. The king and Daniel made a hurried executive decision and then heaved each of us ladies in turn to the lion. We all obligingly "fell" into the den, and the story mercifully ended there.

What a relief to go back to our chairs while the next group circled Jericho until the trumpet blew (loud!--Harry's high school trumpet playing skills apparently stood him in good stead here.) and the walls fell, and the inhabitants were destroyed, except for Rahab and the people with her in the house.

At the sewing on Tuesday Edith told me that her children keep talking about how funny the lion was in our skit. They especially liked how the the "rowwwr" turned into a "wow" when Daniel appeared in front of him.

Hilda and I (probably Dorcas too although she wasn't there when we talked about it) will be happy to leave all the acting in the future to others. I'm sure some people find such impromptu experiences exhilarating, but I find them exhausting. I will say though that if I have to do it, it's probably easier to do it with members of my own family than other people. I'm at least used to hearing and responding to their expressions, and can almost anticipate what they might say--except for "Democrat." I never saw that one coming.