PLAYWRIGHT TAKES A FRESH
APPROACH TO THE BIBLICAL STORY OF CHRISTMAS
From The Montgomery
Advertiser, December 9, 1989, written by Jan Murray
Return to the Jewell Ellen
Smith Home Page
Each year, Jewell Ellen
Smith chooses a different setting to tell the story of Bethlehem, but the
spiritual message remains the same. Each December is filled with Christmas
cantatas or advent plays. But, what about a dinner theater that presents the
biblical story every year in a different fashion?
Those familiar with Jewell
Ellen Smith of Enterprise know the 74-year-old playwright is a master of
Christmas and Easter plays. She's written them for production at the Fort
Rucker Officer's Club since the mid-1960's. This year's story, titled
"Christmas at Hungry Bear Mountain," will, in her words,
"probably prove to be one of the best," although she has no
particular favorite among the 27 plays she's written.
Each one becomes a favorite. I sort of lose interest in the old
ones," she said with a chuckle.
Last year's play was set in the emergency room of an old Army
hospital and was titled "The Vital Signs." Her first Christmas play
was titled "Dear Caesar Augustus," which told of the birth of Jesus
Christ. The letter was written to the nation’s ruler from the Bethlehem
innkeeper who had no rooms for a weary Mary and Joseph.
The producer of this year’s play says his favorite was
"Marco Polo Reports" in which Marco Polo told the story of Jesus.
"She has a very vivid imagination, but she won’t admit
it," says Chief Warrant Officer Jerry Unruh, who has produced Mrs. Smith’s
work six years. She’s been able to take the biblical story and, without taking
one iota away from the authenticity of that story, tell it from a different
perspective."
Mrs. Smith volunteers her plays and, until recently, she directed
them as well.
"But when I got to where I was falling off the stage, I
decided it was time to quit," she said. "Directing is very difficult
and very stressful."
She enjoys seeing her work come to life and views it as a way of
being an evangelist by telling the story of Jesus in unforgettable ways.
"I think Christmas is our grandest religious festival.
Easter and Christmas are the great festivals of the church," she says.
"It’s my way of telling the Christmas story. It’s a way for other people
to join together and tell the story of Bethlehem. It’s told in such a way that
people never forget it. Over the years, thousands have seen the plays and come
again and again."
The Chief Warrant Officer and part-time producer added that many
people who have transferred from the area have taken copies of past plays, with
Mrs. Smith’s permission, and now stage them at other bases in the United States
and abroad.
The current play actually is a "play within a play"— it
tells the story of a country church in the Appalachian Mountains that produces
a nativity play, all of which is brought to colorful, humorous life with
character such as the "Bad Bentley Boys" who play the Three Wise Men
in the mountain church production. The play has 37 cast members.
The play opens and closes on the front porch of the home of the
mountain’s wealthiest citizen, a retired school teacher, Lizzie Darden. Lizzie
spends much of her time looking after her 16-year-old niece, Sally Lou, between
visits from old Dr. Dave Smith. The doctor cast Sally Lou as Mary, mother of
Jesus, in his mountain church production.
"The purpose of the story is to tell the story. But you’ve
got to have some humor, some relief from the heavy part. You can’t be dead
serious all the time so I always put in some light stuff like the Bad Bentley
Boys who are three brothers that are sort of backwards and never have amounted
to a hill of beans," she said. But old Dr. Dave Smith thinks they have
potential and casts the as the Three Wise Men because he thinks it’s good for
them … I’m afraid the Bad Bentley Boys are going to steal the show."
Like many of her other works, Mrs. Smith’s "Christmas at
Hungry Bear Mountain" draws from her family’s experiences. She says she
always honors her three children by naming characters after them.
In this play, the country physician on Hungry Bear Mountain, Dr.
Smith, played by John Gray, takes the name of Mrs. Smith’s son who is a doctor
in Mobile. The character of the Rev. Wiley Meeks, played by Thom Haigh, has the
name of her other son who is an Army doctor. Her research chemist daughter, Nan
Kemp, lends her name to the character who plays the Angel of the Lord, acted by
Mary Jane Collins.
Mrs. Smith says she couldn’t use her children’s names without
using her oldest grandson’s name, Allen Smith. Allen in the main play is the
name of the character cast in the mountain church play to play Joseph, played
by Mike Buchieri.
Authenticity is a must with Mrs. Smith.
"The baby in the manger is always a live baby. In this play,
we’re going to have two birds. They’ll be pigeons or turtle doves or some other
kind of bird," she said. "I insist on authenticity. All the
historical information I put in is the real stuff."
The title of the current play was derived from memories of a
visit to the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky, a mountain in New York
called Bear Mountain, and a state park in the Virginias called Hungry Mother’s
State Park. She combined the three and came up with "Christmas in Hungry
Bear Mountain."
The play is set in 1914 because she wanted to mention the
Spanish-American War of 1898. The 16-year-old character Sally Lou, born in
1898, will relate a war story Mrs. Smith took from a tale once told by her late
father-in-law who she said was a "so-called sharpshooter" in that
war.
The scriptural basis for the play came from Isaiah 52:7, which
reads, "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth
good tidings, that publisheth peace … that saith unto Zion, Thy God
Reigneth."
She also chose Luke 2:10,11 which says, "Behold, I bring
unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you
is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."