NANKO
[Calls aloud.]
Rada, these plums are excellent.  Don’t you see
Life is a battle!  Survival of the fittest! 
Something red again.  Trickling under the door? 
Blood, I suppose.  Well, I don’t think it’s right
To spoil a person’s pleasure on Christmas Eve. 
I wonder how the gramophone does work? 
He said the tune that he was putting in
Was just the thing for Christmas Eve.  I wonder,
I wonder what it was.

[He picks up the box from which the record was taken and reads the title.]

“A Christmas Carol Sung by the monks of St. Peter’s monastery At midnight mass, on Christmas Eve—­ADESTE, FIDELES!”

Fancy that!  How wonderful! 
A Christmas carol on the gramophone! 
So all the future ages will be sure
To know exactly what religion was. 
To think we cannot hear it!  Well, no matter,
These plums are excellent.  Everybody’s gone. 
To think I was the fittest, after all! 
Come, Rada, you’re pretending!
[He accidentally starts the gramophone working and jumps back, a little
alarmed.  He runs to the door and knocks.]
Rada!  Rada! 
I’ve started it!  Subka!  Subka!  Do you hear? 
The gramophone’s working!
[He stoops down and looks at the floor again.  The artillery booms like a
thunder peal in the distance.  Then the gramophone drowns it with the deep
voices of the monks, a great chorus, singing ADESTE, FIDELES!  NANKO dips
his finger in something on the floor and stares at it.  A look of horror
comes into his face.  He stands with his mouth open, listening.]
It’s true!

CAST
of the first performance at the Christmas (1913)
Festival of THE MACDOWELL CLUB
OF NEW YORK CITY

RADA

A Drama in One Act by Alfred Noyes

(A Christmas Tragedy of the Balkans, being a
plea for “Peace on earth, good will toward men.”)

* * * * *

PERSONS OF THE PLAY

RADA, wife of the vilage doctor, Miss Mirzah Cheslir

SUBKA, her daughter, aged twelve, Miss Lenore Phelps

ARRAM, } two hostile soldiers quartered Mr. Henry Hull
MICHAEL,} on her house in time of war Mr. Wright Kramer

NANKO, a half-witted schoolmaster, Mr. Charles White Whittlesey

FIRST SOLDIER .......  Mr. Charles Douville Coburn

SECOND SOLDIER ......  Mr. Harold Herts

{.....  Mr. Charles F. Peters
OTHER SOLDIERS  {.....  Mr. Harold Butterfield
{.....  Mr. W. G. Belew

* * * * *

SCENE:  The living-room of a country doctor in the Balkans, in a village which has just been taken by the enemy.

TIME:  Christmas Eve.

Stage Director, Miss Mary Shaw