Amritapuri Christmas Play- Part 3

Surprise! I’m able to write the third post about the Amritapuri Christmas play after all. Enjoy!

***

As I’ve mentioned before, this year’s Christmas musical was about the nativity story as told by a 9 year old child named Grace. Grace was living in a school for girls. She is the second child from the left in the first photo below. She is wearing a blue dress.

In many Indian plays, the actors don’t speak or sing, they lip sync. The musicians and people singing or speaking for the actors are out of sight. In this play, they were sitting on the left side of the stage.

The children were amazing. They had practiced their roles so thoroughly that you couldn’t tell they weren’t saying anything.

***

In Grace’s version of the nativity story, one of the wise men came from Africa. She named him Tsabo Babatunde. Tsabo was very, very old. When he received God’s direction to follow the star to Bethlehem, so that he could welcome another great soul to the world, he obeyed.

Tsabo was able to talk to animals, and they talked to him. One of the songs in the musical was Come Awake Africa.

[Note: You can enlarge the photos in this post by clicking on the photo galleries. To hear the songs, click on the audiofiles.]

***

Joseph and Mary sang and danced with their friends before they traveled to Bethlehem.

***

One of the  most intense scenes of the play occurred when it was time for Mary to give birth and no one would give them the couple a place to stay. I think you will get a sense of the intensity by listening to the song. I still get goose bumps when I hear it.

***

An angel was present during the nativity scene. As you look at the photos and listen to the music know that she was 30-40 feet above the floor!

***

One of the most touching scenes was near the end when Mary let Grace hold baby Jesus.

Throughout his journey, Tsabo had visions of what the adult Jesus would do in his life. Those visions were enacted. The photo below is from one of the last scenes in the play when Jesus was talking about love.

It was a wonderful musical. I hope you were able to get a sense of that from the photos and songs in this post.

To read the previous posts in this series click here.