Those Were The Coldest Nights

A play written for adults which, in telling the nativity story, attempts to “put flesh on the bones” of the principal characters and the impact which the events would have had on their everyday lives. Gabriel acts as an independent observer and five further principal characters narrate their stories, touching upon the difficulties which aspects of the story would have entailed e.g. the hardships of the journey to Bethlehem, and imaging their feelings as the tale unfolds. Taking into account the historical background (laws, religious traditions, etc. of the time) it highlights the reality of the circumstances and people (e.g. Mary must have been, in fact, one tough cookie – getting pregnant whilst betrothed, obliged to undertake the journey to Bethlehem in the final stages of pregnancy and give birth in a stable, far from friends and family, and, just when she might have been able to settle into family life, forced to flee to Egypt... yet she came through it all although she was only a country girl in her early teens). Putting the events into context makes the nativity story a truly dramatic tale.