Percy MacKaye

“ Over yonder, by the Christmas Tree—there is the Wilderness,
The Place of Outcasts:
Over there—is the Gate of a Palace: the Palace of Herod—
Herod, the mighty king in the Bible,
His place of Empire;
And there—and there—are two Paths, that lead to the Tree.
Now let us sing one more carol,
And take our places;
Then listen, and watch for a sign, while the Chorus sings:
And when all is over—each of us, all together,
Let us raise up our hearts and voices to one great Spirit
That will make of us all one people:
The Spirit whose glorious name is
Singing Together. ”

“ CASPAR
Nay, cheerly, Claus! Cheerly, goodwife and kiddies!
Now you have wandered to a lucky place.
Our Evergreen shall heal your hurt. Run, Elf,
And fetch him balsam gum to balm his wounds.
(Elf runs within.) [51]
CLAUS
No balsam gum can heal us our lost babe.
Ruth, wife, where lieth now his little body?
RUTH
Death holds him fast. Death holdeth him forever.
MELCHIOR
Herod is king. Ye should have awe of kings
And bow before them.
BELSHASAR
We are kings and wise,
And warn you what you owe to Herod.
CLAUS
Herod! ”

“ The dark is his cradle;
The beasts come about him;
The stars in their watches
Are covered with cloud. [16]
Home hath he none;
The desert receives him—
The place of outcasts
And lonely things.
No sound is heard there
Save shepherds singing;
The lords of earth
Avert their faces;
Dark—dark is his cradle.
Yet surely will dawn break with light of his new morrow:
Alleluia!
Yea, for the babe that sleepeth in a little manger
Is Light of the World: Alleluia!
(The Fairies and Beasts peer in the Manger with awed delight. Murmuring aloud, they speak to Joseph.)
ELF
May we not dance for him? ”

“ CASPAR
Thank you, Tree.
His star hath made merry our hearts
To dance in His light—aye, to sing
As we enter your place of His dreams.
Come, neighbors, now blithe be our carol!
(With his sceptre for baton, Caspar leads in dance and song Wolf, Bear, Lion, Elf and Gnome, the Beasts holding their cakes, the Fairies playing their instruments. Joining in their blithe dance of devotion, the old King clutches the great flap of his crown, to keep it from joggling off.)
Carol 6. Dance-Carol of the Evergreen.
ALL
(Sing, to the strongly stressed dance-rhythm)
O Evergreen, our Evergreen! ”

“ Óhoho! Aháha!
CASPAR
Heigh! What is here? Elf!—Gnome!
BELSHASAR
Keep back! They are imps of evil.
MELCHIOR
Stay! Do not speak with them. Hush!
(Caspar pays no heed, but greets the Fairies, who return his greeting with blithe bows.)
CASPAR
Now, neighbors, God rest you merry!
ELF
Welcome, Wise Man! [38]
GNOME
Welcome, Sir King!
MELCHIOR
(To Belshasar)
He speaks with them.
BELSHASAR
(To Melchior)
Come. He is lost!
(They draw away.)
GNOME
Where are you from—ye Kings?
CASPAR
From the East, returning home from Herod’s land.
ELF
What went you there for to do? ”

“ Not forgetting the old simple merriment of folk days gone by, how shall we say—and sing—to our tree something of that deep response which we feel to-day to the creative sadness of our time?
Our young men are going out to the war: our country is grappling the issue of a planet. Here is a dramatic conflict, not for us as spectators, but as participants. Here is a theme, not of the traditional theatre, but of a [xii] communal drama, the action of which is at once a battle and a prayer. How may we take part together in expressing such a theme, at this new Christmas time? ”

“ And there, as the focus-point of our festival and symbol of it—the tree of light: light of our own childhood and of the world’s.
I do not know whether this simple masque will prove worthy to help in creating such a festival for our new Christmas time—I can only wish and hope that it may. ”

“ In the pioneering attempt of this Masque, my own purpose is to dramatize community singing—for conditions of our own time, especially in America, during this new, formative period which the world war has begun.
In other lands and ages of folk art, community song has been dramatized, as it can only be dramatized vitally, by artists moved by the spirit of religion; and relics of such forms still [75] survive amongst us in rituals of the churches. But these rituals necessarily have attained their growth—nobly classic at their best, at their worst—dully disintegrated. ”

“ By my crown its keeping!
’Twas a sword that dangled o’er
Where the babe lay sleeping. [36]
BELSHASAR
Nay, a bell—a passing-bell:
Lonely was its ringing.
CASPAR
Ahaha! I heard full well
‘Merry Christmas!’ singing.
CASPAR, BELSHASAR AND MELCHIOR
(Sing together)
Lord, how may we wise men tell
How to clothe our starkness?
Song and sword and passing-bell
Lure us through the darkness.
Send us sign of hidden things—
Thou who naught despisest!
Lo, of us three crownèd kings,
Which, O Lord, is wisest?
VOICES OF ELF AND GNOME
(Echo in song, within)
“Which, O Lord, is wisest?” ”

“ ARTHUR FARWELL
Composer of the Music
[viii]
[ix]
To
Those Friendly Thousands
of Men, Women and Children
in American Towns and Cities, Who Have
Shared With the Author in His Masques
a Common Devotion to the Happy Cause
of a Communal Art
This Masque is Dedicated
in Christmas Fellowship
[xi]
[x]
PREFACE
Always an evergreen tree points up at a star.
Always a star looks somewhere down on the cradle of a child.
Always, once in the year, a child laughs up at evergreen boughs.
Tree, star and child are triune in the poetry of nature—a constellation of man that never sets. ”

“ That the ideal in the spirit of music must sooner or later, in this country, be reconciled to and wedded with the ideal of the spirit of democracy, is an idea which has met with general acceptance only in the last three years, although it has been ardently championed by a few individuals for nearly two decades. ”

“ The last and greatest of these changes is that one which has withdrawn attention from the composer as an abstract phenomenon, and from fruitless theories of American music, and has centered it upon the immediate service which music can render to the people of our nation. In the long run, the nation cannot go one way and its music another. ”

“ As Prelude to the production of “The Evergreen Tree,” the following kind of Song Overture and informal Ceremony are suggested for such large-scale types of the Masque’s production as are witnessed and performed by all classes, races, ages and creeds of the community.
After night-fall, on a winter’s evening, let us imagine men, women and children of a town or city gathered together out of doors in a public square or park, or indoors within some level-floored structure, to assemble by the community Christmas Tree, and to join in general singing under a leader. ”

“ The costumes of the Followers recall those of the three kings, but are more simply made: the Followers of Belshasar wear blue capes over black gowns, white hoods and tall, blue hats; the Followers of Caspar wear coats of orange banded with white over green gowns sashed with red, and orange hats; the Followers of Melchior have black gowns and blue capes with black-and-white designs like those on Melchior’s costume.
Sorrow Song Death Poverty
Sorrow, Poverty and Death are in black and white. Song wears white with bands of blue, and a wreath of white flowers in her hair. ”

“ The carol, for instance, and the ballad—old forms of folk art—survive with us only in their archaic appeal. We in America cannot hope or wisely desire to revive them for what they once were—spontaneous expressions of continuous communal life in villages and peasant heaths, for that life has gone from us, not to return. ”

“ The part of TREE, in any production, may be acted either by a young woman or by a young man (in small-scale productions preferably by a young woman) . ELF and GNOME are preferably acted by children: a girl and a boy, or—if desirable—by two boys. In Chorus A, and in the first Semi-Chorus of the Outcasts, choir boys may, if need be, take the places of women. ”

“ II.—COMMUNITY MUSIC AND THE COMPOSER
By Arthur Farwell
The birth of our national self-consciousness in music, from the creative standpoint, occurred less than twenty years ago. Not until the last two decades did the prodigious musical studies of our young people at home and abroad produce composers in sufficient quantity to make American music, its character and potentialities, a national question. ”

“ The Followers have costumes cut exactly like those of their leaders, but of gray instead of white. The Followers of Song carry long silver trumpets.
Ruth Claus The Children Chorus B
Ruth wears a white jacket over a red bodice and a gray skirt over a black-and-white striped under-skirt. Claus has high boots, a red jerkin edged with white fur and a red cap also edged with white fur. There should be no green trimming on his jerkin. His costume and Ruth’s should be extremely ragged and the two children should be roughly wrapped in rags. ”

“ Taking its rise in the compelling necessity of this principle, the “community music” movement has swept the country in the last few years, plunging it anew into violent discussion, annihilating personal theories and products of the musical hot-house, demanding the wholesome and the true—and giving the people expression.
In this movement the composer of the music for “The Evergreen Tree” has been immersed. In the communal dramatic work and ideas of Percy MacKaye, he has recognized a similar development in the art of the theatre. ”

“ Now new forces of an age religiously urgent for democracy demand a re-creation of the forms of folk art, plastic to the living currents of the new time. These currents, though continuous from the past, widen now between strange banks and other horizons ”

“ THE EVERGREEN TREE FIRST ACTION
(“Who Keepeth Watch?”) STAGE A: THE PLACE OF OUTCASTS
It is night.
In a dark place of the wilderness, a tree is growing.
Before it is an open space on a knoll, from which—left and right—a path leads down away into the desert.
At one side, in shadow, sit ELF and GNOME.
At centre, in starlight, stands TREE, half emerged from dim boughs.
First Chorus: A,1. Chorus of the Wilderness
CHORUS
Who keepeth watch in the lone wilderness
For the coming of a sign? ”

“ For productions given on a larger scale, however, since a receptive and devotional state of feeling is greatly to be desired for its proper rendering and its impression upon those who witness and take part, it is strongly recommended that some kind of brief, general Song Overture of the people be held just before the Masque begins. ”

“ First of the Four is a Female Figure, SONG, who leads the Procession, looking upward; last, is a Male Figure, POVERTY, bowed in stature. The other two Male Figures walk at the head [45] and foot of the stretcher, the first being SORROW, staring before him, the second one—DEATH, who bears a muffled babe in his arms, lulling it, with a calm smile.
Outcasts
On the stretcher a Poor Man lies wounded—a PEDLAR, with his pack for a head-rest. ”

“ THE COMMUNITY CHORUS is in two divisions, as follows:
CHORUS A, in White: Men and Women: located near Stage A.
CHORUS B, in Red: Men: located near Stage B.
TIME AND PLACE TIME
The Time is laid on a night shortly after the birth of Christ.
PLACE
The Masque takes place in Four Regions, indicated by Two Stages, and Two Aisles, the Audience being located between the two stages.
Stage A represents the Place of Outcasts: a knoll, with path, in the Wilderness, before the Evergreen Tree.
Stage B (located opposite Stage A) represents the Place of Empire: the Gateway and Steps to the Palace of Herod. ”

“ Even so brief a period as this has, however, sufficed to witness a succession of distinct phases in our national musical attitude and achievement, phases so strongly contrasted as to represent radical changes of artistic tendency and almost complete reversals in belief and direction of effort. ”

“ In producing this Masque, different communities will doubtless wish to observe different ways of assembling to prepare and begin its production.
Some, especially those given on a small scale, may need and desire no prelusive form of ceremony, in action, speech or song. ”