Black Female Playwrights: An Anthology of Plays before 1950

The First One

THE FIRST ONE A Play in One Act PERSONS NOAH, His Wife, Their Sons: SHEM, JAPHETH, HAM; EVE, Ham's Wife; the Sons' wives and children (6 or 7). Time: Three Years after the Flood Place: Valley of Ararat SETTING: Morning in the Valley of Ararat. The Mountain is in the near distance. Its lower slopes grassy with grazing herds. The very blue sky beyond that. These together form the background. On the left downstage is a brown tent. A few shrubs are scattered here and there over the stage indicating the temporary camp. A rude altar is built center stage. A Shepherd's crook, a goat skin water bottle, a staff and other evidences of nomadic life lie about the entrance to the tent. To the right stretches a plain clad with bright flowers. Several sheep or goat skins are spread about on the ground upon which the people kneel or sit whenever necessary. ACTION: Curtain rises on an empty stage. It is dawn. A great stillness, but immediately NOAH enters from the tent and ties back the flap. He is clad in loose fitting dingy robe tied about the waist with a strip of goat hide. Stooped shoulders, flowing beard. He gazes about him. His gaze takes in the entire stage. THE FIRST ONE / 81 NOAH. (fervently) Thou hast restored the Earth, Jehovah, it is good. (Turns to the t~nt.) My sons! Come, deck the altar for the sacrifices to Jehovah . It is the third year of our coming to this valley to give thanks offering to Jehovah that he spared us. (Enter JAPHETH bearing a haunch of meat and SHEM with another. The wife of Noah and· those of Shem and Japheth follow laying on sheaves of grain and fruit [dates and figs]. They are all middle-aged and clad in dingy garments.) NOAH. And where is Ham-son of myoId age? Why does he not come with his wife and son to the sacrifice? MRS. NOAH. He arose before the light and went. (She shades her eyes with one hand and points toward the plain with the other.) His wife, as ever, went with him. SHEM. (impatiently) This is the third year that we have come here to this Valley to commemorate our delivery from the flood. Ham knows the sacrifice is made always at sunrise. See! (He points to rising sun.) He should be here. NOAH. (lifts his hand in a gesture of reproval) We shall wait. The sweet singer, the child of my loins after old age had come upon me is warm to my heart-let us wait. (There is off-stage, right, the twanging of a rude stringed instrument and laughter. HAM, his wife and son come dancing on down-stage right. He is in his early twenties. He is dressed in a very white goat-skin with a wreath of shiny green leaves about his head. He has the rude instrument in his hands and strikes it. His wife is clad in a short blue garment with a girdle of shells. She has a wreath of scarlet flowers about her head. She has black hair, is small, young and lithe. She wears anklets and wristlets of the same red flowers. Their son about three years old wears nothing but a broad band of leaves and flowers about his middle. They caper and prance to the altar. Ham's wife and son bear flowers. A bird is perched on Ham's shoulder.) NOAH. (extends his arms in greeting) My son, thou art late. But the sunlight comes with thee. (Ham gives bird to Mrs. Noah, then embraces Noah.) HAM. (rests his head for a moment on Noah's shoulder) We arose early and went out on the plain to make ready for the burnt offering before Jehovah. MRS. SHEM. (tersely) But you bring nothing. HAM. See thou! We bring flowers and music to offer up. I shall dance before Jehovah and sing joyfully upon the harp that I made of the thews of rams. (He proudly displays the instrument and strums once or twice.) MRS. SHEM. (clapping her hands to her ears) Oh, Peace! Have we not enough of thy bawling and prancing all during the year? Shem and Japheth work always in the fields and vineyards, while you do naught but tend the flock and sing! MRS. JAPHETH. (looks contemptuously at both Ham and Noah) Still, thou 82...