In times of manic materialism and constant consumerism, celebrating a meaningful Christmas has become a challenge. Is it really about seasonal decorations, food, presents and TV? About watching the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, again? These things make for cosy and enjoyable moments, mostly. But isn’t there more to Christmas than that? A Christmas play for children by Marguerite Lobeck can help.
In the Christian tradition, schools and church communities put on a Christmas play for children to celebrate this central story of their faith.
And it is often seen that, familiar with the storyline, the audience is moved by something other than the script, enchanted by the unexpected transformation which their child’s part effects in its character.
Reverence: A Need of the Soul
The charm of such productions is the directness with which young actors enter into their part. They live it fully, and their sincerity usually makes up for a rather banal script.
A bizarre cartoonification of Nativity plays “for kids” is reflected in titles such as: Chaos at Christmas – Away in a Spaceship – The Twinkle Elves Save Christmas – Where’s Blitzen? – A Christmas Quarrel – A Bundle of Joy – It’s a Miracle! – Straw and Order … and more in this vein.
Do such plays meet a child’s innate longing for awe and reverence? Probably not: “Joseph and Mary walk to center stage, sit in chairs and pull out baby Jesus from underneath one of the chairs.”
Would it not be wonderful if there were a Christmas play for children that beguiled with depth of meaning on a par with the spiritual quality of the Oberufer Christmas Plays?
Indeed, such scripts exist in a collection of beautiful Christmas plays for children by the Swiss author and Waldorf teacher Marguerite Lobeck-Kürsteiner (1893-197?). It is sadly out of print but can still be found on the used-book market:
These plays, written in a Swiss-German dialect in the 1940s, overshadowed by World War II, show with heartwarming clarity what Rudolf Steiner’s insights are able to add to the story of the Nativity.
Note: Anthroposophy makes the world in all its aspects more accessible and meaningful to anyone who studies it without prejudice. Adults who engage with the teachings of Steiner have their understanding expanded with time to include the wellspring of the spirit-world that carries and forms the physical realm and expresses itself in the interaction of all its aspects.
In brief, Anthroposophy trains a more exact way of observing the world and is far removed from cult-like teachings of strange beliefs. But more on that another time …
About the Author
Marguerite Kürsteiner was born 1893 in Switzerland. A great passion for drama and poetry led her to study recitation, and she married the artist Fritz Lobeck in 1923. Both were interested in the work of Rudolf Steiner and attended the lectures of his final years. In 1927, Marguerite joined Conrad Curt Englert (1899-1945) in the founding of Zurich’s first and Switzerland’s second Waldorf School.
Overview of the first Waldorf Schools
Having trained in Stuttgart, Germany, she taught Eurythmy and, with artistic imagination and a fine sense for language, wrote class plays that were performed at the solstices of Christmas and St John’s.
The annual production of her Midsummer Play (1956) has meanwhile become a cherished tradition at many schools in the three German-speaking countries.
Every year the younger classes look forward with eager anticipation to the time when it will be their turn to impersonate this mystery play’s beloved cast of characters.
Personal Impressions
As a pupil at the Waldorf School in Zurich in the Seventies, I had the great privilege of taking part in the production of her plays under Frau Lobeck’s personal direction, both at Christmas and St John’s.
Now eighty years old and hampered by a broken leg in a cumbersome cast, she still moved about the stage with joyful energy to demonstrate eurythmic arm movements together with the choreography.
Indeed, Marguerite Lobeck was living proof of how the life-long practice of Eurythmy can pickle a person in youthfulness – mind, body and soul.
a christmas Play for Children
This unforgettable experience made me cherish her work. Still in possession of her booklet of scripts several decades later, I translated one of her Christmas plays (‘Das grosse Erzengelspiel’) to perform it with my class in England, wanting to honour the memory and legacy of a great teacher.
In the context of my publication A Waldorf Diary I am now making my translation available, so that at least one of Lobeck’s beautiful Christmas plays for children may spread and bring joy to people around the world in enhancing their celebrations.
Note: The play was written for Class 4 but is suitable for older children too. If it cannot be staged, the script is great for reading aloud in parts, both in the classroom and the family circle, as part of a meaningful celebration of Advent, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the twelve Holy Nights. Its yearly repetition increases understanding and can create a deep bond with the message of Love, Redemption and Peace that is at the heart of Christmas.
Marguerite Lobeck was uniquely able to work a spiritual perspective into the plays she wrote for her classes. In the Christmas play I translated, for example, three archangels appear besides Gabriel:
Archangels: Mark our words, great and small!
Listen well, angels all.
Cymbals sound …
Now be still,
So you may
Hear God’s will.
O wise archangel Uriel,
On your visit to the Earth,
Where will you go?
Uriel: To the Earth’s core I’ll go, to see
If its stones are still glowing,
Its springs are still flowing,
If its heavenly power
Is still working strong.
Archangels: O most exalted Michael,
Where lies your way?
Michael: I’ll go to find what flies and creeps
Among the beasts, what swims or leaps;
For I have heard that greed and strife
Rule among them – fear for life.
Archangels: O gentle Raphael,
Where leads your way?
Raphael: To forests, fields and meadows sweet,
To valleys, mountains, moor and heath:
I’ll greet every flower, bush and tree.
Archangels: O beautiful Gabriel, where will you be?
Gabriel: Go you ahead, descend! … Without regret
I’ll stay behind. My time has not come yet.
The devil also gets to take part in the action:
Devil: Good people! You see,
If it were not for me,
Things would go smoothly,
As they were meant to be …
While God is speaking,
I must silent be –
But His straight will I bend cleverly;
And when He is silent, I brag with skill
And say to man, do what you will!
Come – lie, betray, steal, rob and kill!
Thus the primal conflict of the forces of Darkness and Light, Evil and Goodness, War and Peace, Death and Life, Error and Redemption becomes part of the play from its very first scene.
The play’s words and images tell what all Christians are familiar with, but they gain depth due to Steiner’s work. The archangels, for example, are linked to one king and one physical realm each:
- Uriel – Caspar – Minerals
- Raphael – Melchior – Plants
- Michael – Balthazar – Animals
- Gabriel – Christ – Humans
Each archangel enters the stage as a guiding spirit inclined towards a particular sphere:
Uriel: O silent rocks!
Where is your glow?
Do you remember how, long ago,
Into your hearts the stars did shine,
Filling them with light divine,
That you may hold this light in your core
As shimmering ore?
Rocks: Dumb, grey and cold.
So old! … So old!
It’s been so long …
So long! … So long!
We are so far
From the stars’ song!
So far! … So far!
From the light … from the star.
We are so old …
Dumb, grey and cold.
Uriel: You springs and fountains! Where’s your flow?
Why do you hide so deep below?
Why do you leave the ground so dry,
So thirsty that all things will die?
Water: Swallowed by land …
Devoured by sand …
Forgotten by heaven’s dew …
From heaven’s light banned …
Far from the streams
That from Paradise spring …
We are too weak to flow,
Too weak to sing.
Raphael: O Earth, you are so bleak and bare!
Where are your tender leaves so fair?
Where are the flowers of your spring?
They’re wilted all … No bird will sing.
It saddens me to see your plight –
You lie in darkness and in night.
His people’s appeal to Melchior has, in our time, overtones of what may await in the not-so-distant future:
People: Help us, King Melchior!
Hunger plagues us!
Help us, o king!
There’s naught to feed us!
Orchard and field
No harvest yield.
Grass and herbs are bleak and dry:
Help us, king, or we shall die!
The Archangel Michael’s lines have a contemporary ring too:
Michael: Near and far
There is war.
Where I go,
Foe meets foe.
Wolf eats sheep,
Lion kills cattle,
Each beast’s life is strife and battle.
And man, who ought to keep the peace,
Himself acts worse than any beast.
The following dialogue between King Balthazar and his son goes right to the heart of the matter:
Balthazar: What is it, son? You seem quite shaken …
Prince: Father, my best calf was taken!
I will go out to catch the thief –
My sword shall punish his mischief!
They say a lion came at night,
Attacked my cattle, the herdsman took flight.
Now will I go to find the beast –
Blood calls for blood! My sword shall feast!
Balthazar: And so it never ends, my son,
The war must ever carry on.
And yet, an ancient tale so wise,
Tells us how once, in Paradise,
The lion and the lamb were friends.
No creature’s need a life did end –
And so it shall be once again.
Prince: No, father, no, I know you’re wrong!
On Earth, the strong alone live long.
The lion killed my calf – I will
Therefore go out, the lion to kill.
Balthazar: And when you’ve slain the lion too,
The lion’s kin will come for you …!
Prince: So let them! You yourself didst show
Me how to use my sword, my bow.
Balthazar: Weapons won’t cause the fight to cease –
Yet there’s a force that makës peace.
Look at the stars up in the sky,
In holy order circling high:
They do not steal each other’s light –
Each goes its way, and every night
Travels its path, as God did say …
Prince: Yes, but the stars are far away.
Father, farewell! I must do battle,
Or else the lion takes my cattle.
Balthazar: Farewell! … Maybe one day you’ll find,
Chasing your anger makes you blind.
I’ll go to gaze upon the skies,
To see if a new star will rise –
A star to tell us that we may
Be saved from greed and hate one day.
This explains to young children in simplest terms what diplomats around the world are grappling with daily.
But after the dire situation of all earthly realms has been expressed, it is time for Gabriel to signal the turning point:
Gabriel: I greet thee, Mary, maiden true,
For God Himself has chosen you.
He sends a message here through me:
Of His Son you shall the mother be,
And call him Jesus.
Mary: O Angel bright! … How can this be,
That God’s Son should be born from me,
Who is so poor and weak and small?
Gabriel: Just as the mighty oak tree tall
Grows from a little acorn first –
Just so shall God’s own Son on Earth
As a weak, helpless child have birth.
Mary: O Angel! If this is God’s will,
Then His request I shall fulfill;
And, as a mother good and mild,
I will look forward to this child.
Gabriel: O Virgin Mary, full of grace,
Farewell! And blessings on your ways.
Mary: Farewell anon!
God’s will be done …
I feel so happy and so light –
Surely all things will now come right.
The natural realms, represented by a group of rocks and a spring, a thorny rosebush and a palm tree, a lion and a calf, now experience in turn the transformative power of the Christ. For example:
Rocks: Heaven’s light
Drawing near.
Rocky ground
Opens here …
Sparkling gems
Everywhere –
Precious stones,
Crystals clear.
Thorn Bush: O heavens me …
What can this be?
I feel so warm! … I feel so good!
A stream of love flows through my wood.
And look: I’m bursting into bloom.
Calf: I say! … How can this miracle be?
All my fear is taken from me.
Lion: And I, it’s strange, I feel no need
To turn you into gory meat.
I feel we are two of a kind …
Could it be LOVE that changed my mind?
In this simple way, Anthroposophy’s wider perspective adds a new layer of old spirit-wisdom to the familiar story. And the children understand it instinctively and express it movingly in their performance.
Gabriel: O silent night! … In Heaven’s garden
Quietly blooms now star on star.
O darkest night! … A holy waiting
Fills every heart now, near and far.
O holy night! … Unseen, unheard,
Tonight on Earth is born God’s Word.
O you most glorious earthly night!
Receive in darkness heaven’s light.
Mary: How this great wonder fills me with delight!
A host of angels brightens the night;
An ox and ass, so meek and mild,
In friendly welcome bow to my child.
But though my heart is full of joy,
I have nothing at all to give my boy:
No house, no bed, no blanket warm –
Only a manger to keep him from harm.
Ox: Since the Fall from Paradise,
We beasts have lived in sadness ever,
Going dumbly our ways,
Telling our troubles never.
But in this holy hour, it’s true,
God’s Word has come to save us, too.
Ass: Drooping my head, dumb I remain.
No words have I to tell of my pain.
Heavy burdens I bear on pathways steep.
I stand before you, unable to weep –
Saviour! Your birth in this stable so small,
Gladdens the weary hearts of us creatures all.
Lobeck’s script employs a whole range of verse metres in imaginative and suitable ways to create a perfect blend of deep reverence and light humour.
Servant: I am his servant, pity me!
I’d rather be something else, you see.
In private, let me tell you this:
Life in this palace is not one of bliss.
Because King Herod … He is bad!
Full of conceit, and swears like mad.
He seems to think foul language is cool.
(Just like some pupils of this school.)
Now, throne! Stand firm, without a wobble.
Herod would sit here and look noble.
Her plays are a particularly brilliant illustration of the difference it makes when we teach out of a genuine understanding of Anthroposophy.
At the same time, they let us experience the way in which an authentic Waldorf Education feeds the soul with imaginations that have the ring of truth about them.
Insiders predict that over 90% of content on the internet will soon be some form of falsehood. Through a dense web of written and spoken lies, manipulated or generated texts, photos and videos, untruthfulness is expected to become the norm. And especially young people will be affected by this “new normal”.
Such a scenario must be of great concern to parents and educators, seeing that it adds additional challenges to their endeavour of raising self-directed and morally sound individuals.
Our dawning Age of Fakery makes training young souls for Truth more important than ever. And Lobeck’s beautiful Christmas play for children is able to support this essential part of their education.
Looking for an evergreen Christmas gift for your family? Get the English script:
NOTES: Not everyone can stage a play, but it is perfectly possible to use this play script as reading material for Advent and share out the parts to bring the story of the Nativity alive. Even if one cannot put on a production, this play is excellent for reading aloud, also with older children. All will likely be inspired to dramatize their favourite parts in simple and imaginative ways – either at school or in the home.
When staging the play with a class, it is advisable to begin early. I introduced the script three months before the performances for repeated readings of each scene, and improvised acting to get familiar with the parts. The final casting was done a month later. Because we were doing the play with two classes, there were enough individuals for 39 parts. In a smaller class or a family group, everyone gets to take on more than one part.
We used German and Austrian carols as musical accompaniment, but Christmas songs in any other language would be just as fitting.
Glad to see this! The 8th grade at the Rudolf Steiner School in NYC used to do “A Little Play of the Nativity” written by Arvia Ege. It follows the Oberufer play quite closely. I wrote a 3 Kings play for 6th graders which also follows the Oberufer play. In this day and age, I wonder if any US schools dare to put on such Christian plays.
Thank you, Roberto, lovely to hear from you! Quite apart from the religious dimension, it is hard to put on another play before Christmas which competes with the Oberufer Plays for performance times and spaces. But this play gives so much to the children that the trouble is really worthwhile.