Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People Part 1

Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People.

by Constance D'Arcy Mackay.

PREFACE

The one-act plays for young people contained in this volume can be produced separately, or may be used as links in the chain of episodes which go to make up outdoor or indoor pageants. There are full directions for simple costumes, dances, and music. Each play deals with the _youth_ of some American hero, so that the lad who plays George Was.h.i.+ngton or Benjamin Franklin will be in touch with the emotions of a patriot of his own years, instead of incongruously portraying an adult.

Much of the dialogue contains the actual words of Lincoln, Was.h.i.+ngton, and Franklin, so that in learning their lines the youthful players may grasp something of the hardihood and sagacity of Was.h.i.+ngton, the perseverance of Franklin, and the honesty and dauntlessness of Lincoln, and of those salient virtues that went to the up-building of America--a heritage from the time "when all the land was young."

The plays are suitable for schools, summer camps, boys' clubs, historic festivals, patriotic societies, and social settlements and playgrounds.

The outdoor plays are especially adapted for a "Safe and Sane Fourth."

All the plays have stood the test of production.

"The Pageant of Patriots"--the first children's patriotic pageant ever given in America--was produced in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, N. Y., under the auspices of Brooklyn's ten Social Settlements, May, 1911. The Hawthorne Pageant was first produced on Arbor Day, May, 1911, by the Wadleigh High School, New York City; Pocahontas was given as a separate play at Franklin Park, Boston, by Lincoln House, and some of the other plays have been given at various schools in New York City.

Thanks are due to _The Woman's Home Companion_, _The Delineator_, _The Designer_, _The Normal Instructor_, and _The Popular Educator_ for their kind permission to reprint these plays.

PATRIOTIC PLAYS AND PAGEANTS

PATRIOTIC PLAYS: THEIR USE AND VALUE

The primary value of the patriotic play lies in its appeal to the love of country, and its power to revitalize the past. The Youth of To-Day is put in touch with the Patriots of Yesterday. Historic personages become actual, vivid figures. The costumes, speech, manners, and ideas of bygone days take on new significance. The life of trail and wigwam, of colonial homestead and pioneer camp, is made tangible and realistic.

And the spirit of those days--the integrity, courage, and vigor of the Nation's heroes, their meager opportunities, their struggle against desperate odds, their slow yet triumphant upward climb--can be illumined by the acted word as in no other way. To read of the home life of America's beginnings is one thing; to portray it or see it portrayed is another. And of the two experiences the latter is the less likely to be forgotten. To the youthful partic.i.p.ants in a scene which centers about the campfire, the tavern table, or the Puritan hearthstone will come an intimate knowledge of the folk they represent: they will find the old sayings and maxims of the Nation-Builders as pungent and applicable to the life of to-day as when they were first spoken.

The patriotic play has manifold uses. It combines both pleasure and education. It is both stimulating and instructive. In its indoor form it may be the basis of a winter afternoon's or evening's entertainment, in its outdoor form it may take whole communities and schools into the freedom of the open. It should rouse patriotic ardor, and be of benefit ethically, esthetically, and physically. It should wake in its partic.i.p.ants a sense of rhythm, freedom, poise, and plastic grace. It should bear its part in developing clear enunciation and erectness of carriage. To those taking part it should bring the exercise of memory, patience, and inventiveness. It should kindle enthusiasm for the things of America's past. In what way can national hero-days and festivals be more fittingly commemorated than by giving a glimpse of the hero for whom the day is named? Thus the patriotic play is equally adaptable for Fourth of July, Was.h.i.+ngton's Birthday, Lincoln's Birthday, Columbus Day, and the hundreds of other days--not holidays--that lie in between.

If the patriotic play is produced in the right way it should contain the very essence of democracy--_efficient team-work, a striving together for the good of the whole_. It should lead to the ransacking of books and libraries; the planning of scene-setting, whether indoor or outdoor; the fas.h.i.+oning of simple and accurate costumes by the young people taking part; the collecting of suitable stage properties such as hearthbrooms, Indian pipes, and dishes of pewter. The greater the research, the keener the stimulus for imagination and ingenuity, two things that go to the making of every successful production.

Fortunately, the patriotic play is inherently simple, its appeal is along broad general lines, so that it requires no great amount of money or energy to adequately produce it. And, as history is made up not of one event, but of a series of events, so an historical pageant is a logical sequence of one-act patriotic plays or episodes. The one-act patriotic play shows one hero or one event; the pageant shows, through one-act plays used in chronological order, the development and upbuilding of America through the lives of her heroes.

In its pageant form, the patriotic play, with dances, songs, pantomime, and spoken speech, lends itself to schools, communities, and city use, in park, in armory, and on village green: in its one-act form it lends itself to both indoor and outdoor production by schools, patriotic societies, clubs and settlements, and, last, but not least, the home circle. And in the hope of a.s.sisting teachers and producers to fit appropriate plays to appropriate occasions notes on the subject have been added to the individual plays in the table of contents.

THE PAGEANT OF PATRIOTS (Outdoor)

THE PAGEANT OF PATRIOTS

EPISODES

1. PROLOGUE BY THE SPIRIT OF PATRIOTISM 2. PRINCESS POCAHONTAS 3. PILGRIM INTERLUDE 4. FERRY FARM EPISODE 5. GEORGE WAs.h.i.+NGTON'S FORTUNE 6. DANIEL BOONE: PATRIOT 7. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN EPISODE Scene 1. Benjamin Franklin and the Crystal Gazer (1720) The Dream Begins Scene 2. Benjamin Franklin at the Court of France (1781) The Dream Ends 8. ABRAHAM LINCOLN EPISODE 9. FINAL TABLEAU 10. MARCH OF PLAYERS

PROLOGUE _Spoken by The Spirit of Patriotism_

People of --------, ye who come to see Enacted here some hours of Pageantry, Lend us your patience for each simple truth, And see portrayed for you the Nation's Youth.

Spirit of Patriotism I. Behold How at my word time's curtain is uprolled, And all the past years live, unvanquished As are the laurels of the mighty dead.

I am the spirit of the hearth and home!

For me are flags unfurled and bugles blown.

For me have countless thousands fought and died; For me the name of "Liberty" is cried!

I am the leader where the battle swings, I bring the memory of all high things.

And so to-day I come to bid you look At scenes deep-written in the Nation's book.

The youth of all the heroes you shall see-- What lads they were, what men they grew to be.

How honor, thrift, and courage made them rise By steps that you can learn if you be wise.

First, Pocahontas in a woodland green; Then life among the Pilgrim folk is seen-- Thrifty Priscilla, Maid o' Plymouth Town, In Puritanic cap and somber gown!

For the next scene comes life in Southern climes-- The Ferry Farm of past Colonial times.

Then Was.h.i.+ngton encamped before a blaze O' f.a.gots, swiftly learning woodland ways.

Then Boone with Rigdon in the wilderness Dauntlessly facing times of strife and stress.

Crossing the Common in the morning sun Young Benjamin Franklin comes: about him hung Symbols of trade and hope--kite, candles, book.

The crystal gazer enters, bids him look At all the guerdon that the years will bring.

The Vision next: Trianon in the Spring, And Franklin honored by the Queen of France With courtly minuet and festal dance.

Lastly, a cabin clearing in the West, Where on a holiday with mirth and zest Lincoln's companions take their simple cheer.

These are the scenes to be enacted here, Shown to you straightway in a simple guise.

Youthful the scenes that we shall here devise On which the beads of history are strung.

Remember that our players, too, are young.

All critic-knowledge, then, behind you leave, And in the spirit of the day receive What we would give, and let there come to you The Joy of Youth, with purpose high and true.

COSTUME

THE SPIRIT OF PATRIOTISM. The Spirit of Patriotism should wear a long white robe, with flowing Grecian lines, made either of white cheesecloth, or white cashmere. It should fall from a rounded neck.

Hair worn flowing, and chapleted with a circlet of gold stars. White stockings and sandals. Carries a staff from which floats the Stars and Stripes.

PRINCESS POCAHONTAS

CHARACTERS

PRINCESS POCAHONTAS CHIEF POWHATAN CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH Eight Young Indian Braves Eight Young Indian Maidens Two Indian Women Two old and withered Squaws Six or seven little Indian children Other followers of Powhatan

TIME: _Mid-afternoon on a mild day in 1609._ PLACE: _Virginia._ SCENE: _An open glade showing a small Indian encampment._

[Transcriber's note: All stage directions appear in italics in the original]

At the opening of the scene the glade is deserted, the men of the tribe being engaged in a skirmish with the white men, while the women and children have gone foraging. There are two teepees, one at right, and one at left, their doors closed. By the side of teepee at left a pile of f.a.gots, and a wooden block.

Further front, facing audience, a great war-drum, gaily painted. A skin-covered drum-stick. At right, towards front, the smoldering remains of a fire. The whole appearance of the camp shows that it is not permanent--a mere pausing-place.

The s.p.a.ce between the teepees is absolutely un.o.bstructed, but there are trees and bushes at the back and sides.

By degrees the Indians who have been foraging begin to return. One of the Indian women enters carrying f.a.gots. One of the older squaws rekindles the fire. Next come the children, with merry shouts, carrying their little bows and arrows. The Indian maidens enter gaily, carrying reeds for weaving. They move silently, swiftly, gracefully. Two of their number begin to grind maize between stones. Two others plait baskets. An old medicine-man, with a bag of herbs, comes from the background, and seats himself near the drum, at left, taking an Indian flute from his deerskin belt, and fingering it lovingly. An Indian woman, arriving later than the others, unstraps from her back a small papoose, and hangs it to the limb of a tree. The Indian children stand towards the front of the greensward, shoot in a line their feathered arrows, run and pick up the arrows, and acclaim in pantomime the one who shot the best. Then they go towards background, doing a childish imitation of a war-dance. The mother of the papoose, having finished her duties in setting one of the teepees to rights, now takes down the papoose from the tree where it swings, and seating herself in the center of the greensward, croons an Indian lullaby. The Indian maidens group themselves about her, seated in a semicircle on the ground, swaying rhythmically. At the back of the stage one of the little Indian boys sees an Indian maiden approaching, clad in white doeskin. Cries aloud delightedly: _"Pocahontas!"_

The Indian maidens and the squaws rise and fall back before the entrance of Pocahontas with gestures of salutation and respect.