Modern Samaritan

Contemporary drama based on The Good Samaritan.

A church group go downtown to "minister to the unfortunates" but treat them as "subjects' and "its" not as human beings. Then someone takes the time to look at these people as God would, and it makes all the difference. A good look at the human people in skid row. The gentle humor of the piece equals the mindset of some of the gentle persons whom circumstances have brought to live, (or forced to live), in areas which those living in "normal places" have, thankfully, never experienced.

Cast:    13 (m or f)

Bible Reference: Luke 10:25 -37

Set:      bare

Lighting:   standard

Sound: wireless mics if available

Song:  none

SFX: none

Costumes:  standard

Props: Bibles, submarine sandwich, coat

Special Instructions:   none

Time:  35

Sample of script:

In the darkness, an offstage voice is heard.

OSV: I simply can't stand it any more. I’m at the end of my rope. It’s my lifestyle; it’s driving me insane! I’ve been living on the street for over five months now. Five months. I used to think five months was such a short time. But on the street it’s a lifetime. Most street people are dead within five months. If it’s not pneumonia from sleeping in an abandoned car, it’s having your throat slit for pocket change. Or all the disease around here.
Why does no one help me? I remember ads on TV, articles in the papers, about the outreach groups. Don’t they come around here? Where are they I wonder? Don’t they want to help me?
There’s a group, must be from a church, Bibles in their hands. Maybe they’ll help.

Lights up. A church group moves on stage, looking downstage into the audience.

ELLEN: Over here, ROBIN, JENNY. This looks like someone who needs help. Careful, TOM, keep your hands back at a safe distance, don’t get too close to it, all you know it might be dangerous.

Voice: “It?” I’m not an it, I’m a person! Can’t they see me at all?

ROBIN: Oh my! Just look at its skin — doesn’t look as if it has seen soap in ages!

JENNY: No excuse for it in this day and age. Least we can all do is keep ourselves clean, I always say!

TOM: What can we do to help? I’m new to this, I’m excited about what we can do to make a difference in this person’s life.

ELLEN: Do? We will pray, that’s what we will do. Remember, TOM, prayer changes people.

ROBIN: And so it does, ELLEN, amazingly so! Why, just remember that person in the projects we witnessed to — why they just... oh, that reminds me, we never did go back to the projects to follow up with those people.

JENNY: We left our prayer card, ROBIN. You know how it is... we must allow the subject to make the first move. If they don’t call us, it simply means that the project hasn’t yet hit bottom. The Lord will lead them to call us when the time is right.

Voice: Subject? Is that all I am, a subject? And what is bottom? How will I know when I have hit bottom? Is it when I can’t go on anymore, or is it like my friend Marcie, when she died of a drug overdose? Is that bottom?

TOM: Well, I am praying for them... but isn’t there something more we can do? What about new clothing?

ROBIN: All looked after, dear. The Goodwill store is just around the corner. Why, I cleaned out my own closets just last week, took several large boxes full of our old stuff down to the Salvation Army. My husband had a good laugh — said he never realized just how geeky we must have looked in those old clothes years ago.

TOM: But if you thought you looked geeky, I mean... is it right to expect that these people should wear them? I mean...

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