The encounter and the transformation!

Lc 19, 1-10

Author: Cecília Pellegrini

Scenario: A panel with the drawing of a boat with animals. Place two stools covered with brown fabric in front of the panel. Hidden underneath the brown fabric is a heart.

Before starting the presentation, invite some kids from the audience to participate and give them animal paper masks. Seat the children.

Characters: Carol, monkey, bunny, alligator and some children as extras.

[A monkey with a bag and a bunny walks in and stare, half scared]

[Carol walks in with an animal stuffed toy in her hand. She says that her boat is packed with all kinds of animals. She puts the toy on the scene and caresses the little animals drawn on the boat.

CAROL: “My dear ones please settle down to make the trip easy... All of you have been invited to go and live in a land that is a true paradise: with plants, rivers and food for all. Where we are heading to, we’ll live in peace, with great abundance.” [She looks at the monkey and the bunny]. “Come on you monkey, come on, bunny, here's a nice place.” [the two of them are seated, each one on a stool].

CAROL: - “Now I am going to another place of the boat to see if the other animals are well. Goodbye!” [She leaves the scene].

MONKEY and BUNNY: - “Bye Carol.”

The alligator enters by the central aisle complaining, all imposing, full of jewels in his body and money coming out of his pockets]: - “Wow, what a strong smell of a lot of animals together!” [He walks and looks at all the seated spectators. When he comes near the children with masks, he hastily says, "Get out, get out, I want to go through!” [He roughly starts taking things from them]. "Give me that little bottle of water your little tapir. Moreover, you give me that apple your snout plug pig.”

[When he sees the monkey and the bunny sitting, he begins to shake them]: - “Hey, get out of here because this place is mine...”

MONKEY: - “Take it easy, what a rude thing!”

Bunny: - “We and all these animals [show everyone in the audience] we first came here on Carol's boat. Isn’t it, my little friends?”

ALLIGATOR: “With that, who came first? I am the rich alligator Alliwealthy, the most important dweller of the Dry Lagoon. Want to know what my mouth, what my sharp teeth can do to a helpless bunny and to a weak monkey like you?” [The two animals are very frightened, and Alligator, with his huge tail, whips them both.]

ALLIGATOR: "Get out, get out, that's my place!” [The monkey picks up his little bag and goes out, when the alligator catches it for him]

ALLIGATOR: - “Hey, give me your things here...”

MONKEY: - “But that is all I have and I am sharing it with the Bunny.” She says: - “Yes, Mr. Alligator, I had nothing to bring and the Monkey is sharing everything with me.”

ALLIGATOR [laughing]: - “I do not care. That's the payoff because I let you live. Get out of here!” [The monkey and the bunny get very sad and go to the side].

ALLIGATOR [sits on the stool and tastes the apple and speaks happily]: - “There is nothing like being the one in charge of the others insignificant ones, those who obey.”

[Carol enters with a basket full of fruit and speaks]: - “Time to eat my dear ones!”

[The monkey and the bunny and a few other children who have received masks of animals will get up and run to Carol and shout, with their arms raised]: - “Carol, Carol...”

[The alligator, who cannot see Carol, gets up on the stool, raises his heart and looks at the audience, demonstrating that Carol enchants him.]

CAROL [gives fruit to the animals and to children with paper masks and they return to their places and then goes to Monkey and to Bunny] “Take one here for you sheep and for you donkey and giraffe;” [cite the animals according to their masks] “Monkey, Bunny here it is, eat!”

[Alligator gets more and more enchanted, he melts when Carol says his name]: - “Hi, my dear friend Alliwealthy, come down here, take this apple for you.” [He goes down quickly and very kindly kisses Carol's hand]

MONKEY [speaking indignantly to the Rabbit]: - “Is Carol being kind to the alligator?” Bunny: “Yes, she said: Dear friend Alliwealthy, she even knows his name!”

Alligator: “Carol, I've been very selfish, fighting with everyone," he said, "wanting everything just for me, but seeing you, something inside me has changed. I feel like being good, correcting the wrong things I've done.” “Take your things here, monkey [hand over the bag], come back to sleep here” [he picks the bunny and the monkey and put them on the bench again]. “You can keep my things” [starts to take the jewelry and the money from his pocket and hands them to the animals on the scene]. “I promise that I will treat all living things well.”

MONKEY AND BUNNY [happy]: - “Yes!”

CAROL [hugging the alligator]: - “Today you have found the path of happiness and of peace. You were lost and found yourself because you recognized that you were acting wrong and are trying to improve.”

ALLIGATOR: - “Your kindness has changed me. [Take the basket out of Carol's hand] Come on Carol, I want to help you take care of all the animals on your boat...”

CAROL: - “Then let's go, dear alligator, many need us! Bye!” [They wave goodbye and leave the scene]