Christmas With Mama

Christmas with family.

A son is in prison, a daughter is living a troubled life, there seems to be disaster all around, but Mama is still in control of this dysfunctional family, and Mama is trusting that God will bring all things back to normal, so that all can spend . . Christmas With Mama, celebrated in the special African-American way!

A 4-act drama, easily staged, additional cast can be accommodated.

Cast: 23

Bible Reference: Luke 2

Set:

• Scene I - Mama's kitchen, neat but with lots of dirty dishes around.
• Scene II - Prison visitor's area, set out with chairs and tables for inmates visitation
• Scene III - Courtroom, tables & chairs for judge, lawyers. chairs for audience
• Scene IV - Mama's living room, decorated for Christmas

Lighting:   standard with spots

Sound:  wireless if available

Song: 

SFX: 
Costumes:

Props:  gavel, package

Special Instructions: as indicated in script

Time: 90

Scene I – Mama’s kitchen
Mama comes on stage, reacts with horror at the sight of dirty dishes piled up, general mess

Mama: Oh my word, what in . . . . (screams) Yolanda, you get out here on the double, what ever have you done to my kitchen? (yells off stage) Yolanda, you hear me, and yes, I know you do hear me! Now you get out here, right now, clean up this mess! (nothing happens) It’s one thing, you come back home, you and your three kids, live off me, not so much as paying a penny for food and board. Least you can do is clean up your own mess!

Mama starts straightening out the mess as she talks

Mama: Child, you are driving me crazy, here I am, going on fifty-five, me a widow, working two jobs to make ends meet, and you, you never can hold down a job more’n a week at the most! Yolanda, you’re not a child anymore, you’re, let me see, (thinks), twenty-six, and here you are still . . . . (stops, thinks, gets more frustrated), Yolanda, you are twenty-eight is what you are! (very angry) Twenty-eight! Old enough to be responsible if you ever will be! Twenty-eight, and two kids . . three with Baby Freddie. (yells off stage) Yolanda, did you feed Baby Freddie, check his diaper? (walks to offstage location, looks offstage) Yolanda, are you listening to me? Get out here right now!

Mia and Sara come on stage
Mia: Yolanda’s not here Mama.

Mama: What do you mean, Mia, she’s not here?

Mia: Yolanda left a note, said she was going to be with Reese for the day, said she’d call later.

Sara: Reese scares me, I don’t like him.

Mia: Scares me too Sara, but then, I don’t like any of Yolanda’s boy friends.
Mama: Listen you two, why do you insist on calling your momma “Yolanda”? Yolanda she’s your momma. Remember what you learned in Sunday School “honor your mother and your . . . . .”

Mia: I never did see my father, or Sara’s, or even Baby Freddie’s; how can we honor who we don’t even know?

Mama, angry: Don’t you two be talking like that! Why your daddy he was in the war, a brave man, a soldier, a hero! (stops, looks at children, smiles) And like I say, you call your momma “Mama”, you hear?

Mia, moves to Mama, puts her arm around Mama’s waist: Can’t do that Mama, Mama is you, never could there be another Mama, not ever, not anywhere.

Sara, hugs Mama: Love you Mama!

Mama, hugging kids, proud: You know that you two are the cutest rascals, and I love you to death! (frowns, shakes her finger at kids, trying to be firm) But you two hear what I tell you, show respect to your mother. If you can’t call her Mama you just call her Mother, understood?

Sara: Yolanda told us if we ever call her “Mother” again she will lambaste us, says it makes her feel old.

Mama, firmly: Fact is, your mother is almost thirty, and like it or not she has to act like an adult. Now then, you do as I tell you, call her Mother, she doesn’t like it, you just leave her to me! Now then what about Baby Freddie? He needs to be fed, likely hasn’t had a clean diaper in . . .

Mia: Me and Sara, we fed Baby Freddie, cleaned him all up.

Mama, overwhelmed: You two kids, you’re old beyond your years! I swear I don’t know where you get your maturity from!

Mia: Yolanda . . .err, Mother, says we are just like you.

Sara, big smile: Yah, and she says that if we don’t stop it it will drive her nuts.

Mama: We need to pray for your mother, she’s . . . she’s not where she should be. . . . . . But I just know God is at work there somewhere. (pauses, deep in thought, shakes her head as if to clear her mind) Listen, Mama’s got to get this mess cleaned up, I am going to visit your Uncle Freddie this afternoon.

Sara, shivers: That is soooo creepy, going into that jail!

Mia, icy: Well Uncle Freddie should be used to it, he practically lives in jail.

Mama: This time is different, I just know it somehow. I think there is something your Uncle Freddie isn’t telling, I think he is covering for someone.

Mia, icy: What is he in jail for this time? Robbery, assault, drunk and disorderly, what is it this time?

Mama: Your uncle is no saint but I do not believe he would use a gun.

Mia, icy: Maybe he just found an easier way to do crime?

Mama: Mia, you only see your uncle the way he is now, but he wasn’t always like this, he was a good boy. Then your Grampa died and, . . . . Freddie, he took it real hard, blamed God.

Mia: All I know is that all the kids in school talk about how my uncle and his friends beat up and robbed those old people. No matter how you say it, that’s just out and out cowardly!

knock on the door, and Rose and her children, Jimmy, Stanley and Maura come in