Long Long Years Ago There Lived in a Small Town in Italy an Artist, by the Name of Philippe

OF PIGS AND PAINTINGS A Christmas Eve sketch for adult performers By Alec Shuttleworth and Robin Hill

The cast: Narrator Peppino, an Italian artist Pig, ideally with a strong Scottish accent Rat Cow 1 Cow 2 Camel Mary, the mother of Jesus

The scene: Inside Peppino’s studio, the night before Christmas.

Narrator: Long, long years ago, there lived in a small town in Italy an artist, by the name of Peppino. And this Peppino was a very fine artist. He had many patrons, and all who saw his pictures agreed that there was in them a life and vitality unlike any other painting they had ever seen. (And in Italy at this time there were many paintings.) One year in December, Peppino decided to paint a Nativity scene. He had great plans for this work, as he told his wife, Giovanna.

Peppino: It willa be the greatest Nativity scene was ever painted! Narrator: Now Giovanna knew nothing of art, though she knew this much: that in all the years of her marriage to Peppino, she had never gone hungry. (And that, if you are married to an artist, is all you really need to know of art.) And so Peppino started to paint. And what a painting! So powerful was the scene he created that people who came to his studio said they could smell the very stable, and all its many animals. On Christmas Eve, Peppino worked long into the night, for on Christmas Day his painting was to be taken to the chapel. There, no less a personage than His Grace, the Bishop, was to dedicate his work before a packed congregation of eager worshippers. In fact, the work was finished but for little touches here and there, which Peppino made, straining his tired eyes in the dim candle light of his tiny studio. When, exactly, Peppino fell asleep, he would not later be able to recall, but when he awoke, it was with a start, his brushes falling by his side. Someone had coughed.

Pig: Ah hem!

Peppino: Who is there? I hear you, but I no see you!

Pig: Ah hem!

Peppino: Come now! Show yourself, this instant!

Pig: Ah hem!

Peppino: [Gasping!] No! This cannot be! Narrator: Peppino was looking at his canvas, and there he saw it, with his own two eyes. Glaring rather angrily back at the artist was a pig – a rather disgruntled-looking pig.

Pig: Am I to assume … matey … that this so-called “Nativity scene” is finished?

Narrator: Peppino just stared, open-mouthed. This pig was part of his painting, and yet he knew it was a creature which he had not painted. And this pig had just spoken to him.

Pig: Hello! Eh, am I talking to myself here? To ask my question one more time for the sake of clarity: do I assume that you consider this picture to be … complete?

Peppino: Si. Si! Is more or less finito. May I ask you, kind piggy… where you come from?

Pig: Well, I come from this scene, of course.

Peppino: How you come from this scene? I no paint no piggy.

Pig: That, if I might make so bold, is rather my point. Why, I would like to ask, am I not in your picture?

Peppino: Whadda you mean, why you no in my picture? Is a Nativity! Is no piggies in the Nativity. Pig: Oh come now! That really takes the bacon! Let me tell you, Signor Painter, that there was a pig in the Nativity – my good self as it happens. And if you don’t mind, I would very much like you … to paint … me … in!

Rat: And while you are at it, you might think about including me.

Narrator: Peppino scanned the picture once more and saw to his surprise, standing upright and looking him square in the eye, a rat!

Peppino: Nooooo. Is no good. Is Nativity scene! No smelly-welly ratface! No squiggily-wiggily piggily!

Pig: Haw, jist a minute pal. Would you care to explain why my presence in your Nativity scene is so unpalatable? This had better no’ be an “All swine are unclean” thing, by the way. We’ve moved on from that, or hadn’t you noticed?

Peppino: [Angrily] Is tradition, pure and simple! No pig! No rat! No argument! Capisce???

Pig: OK. OK. I understand alright. Just keep your trotters on. Listen: you’ve just painted what is certainly the most accurate depiction of the Nativity ever created, and that’s no mean feat. So if you don’t put me in your picture, people are bound to think I wasn’t there.

Rat: And don’t forget, there’s always a rat or two scuffling about in a stable. There’s more to farm life than donkeys and chooks, you know! Cow 1: To be strictly accurate of course, it was more of a byre than a stable.

Cow 2: An humble abode, I’ll grant you, though quite good enough for us.

Narrator: These two voices, Peppino realised, came from two cows, one brown, the other black.

Cow 1: You know, that manger is actually ours.

Cow 2: Yes people forget, don’t they, dear. Baby Jesus is lying … in our lunch.

Cow 1: Not that we mind.

Cow 2: Oh no, no, no! Not that we are complaining. Having said that, perhaps a little artistic recognition of the fact that we made some small sacrifice … might be appropriate.

Cow 1: Indeeeeeed! We noticed that Mary, Joseph and the baby all have haloes. Perhaps the teensiest, tiniest halo for the cows wouldn’t go amiss? Just to mark our own little contribution.

Pig: [Upset] Haloes! I’ll give you bloomin’ haloes! I’d just be happy to be in the picture at all. It’s always the same old story: always the same old animals: cows, sheep, donkeys, camels.

Narrator: Just then a new voice was heard: Camel: On that note, I would like to make a simple point of my own, dear painter. One doesn’t want to make a fuss, but your camel-rendering does, in fact, leave much to be desired. You have painted me as a dromedary: one hump. In fact, I was a Bactrian camel from the East, not an Arabian dromedary. Two humps, actually. Much more balanced appearance, better mileage, less servicing and a higher trade-in price altogether than the one-humper. However … as noted previously, one really doesn’t want to make a fuss.

Pig: Yes, yes, yes! That’s all very well, but the key fact remains that there was a pig there, and he is never seen in Nativity pictures.

Rat: And a rat.

Cow 1: And a cow.

Cow 2: Twoooooooooooo cows.

Cow 1: Forgive me dear. Twoooooooooooo cows.

Camel: And a camel – a Bactrian camel.

Peppino: Alright, already! Let’s stop with the zoological roll call, shall we? For now, we get this one thing straight. I don’t paint no piggies in a Nativity. Is just not right. Is a traaaaaaavesty. Is distracting. How you expect the people to worship the baby Jesus, if all the time they looking at Signor Snoutface here. [Stage whisper] People wanna look at the peeeeeeeeaceful scene. Sereeeeeeeeeene mamma. Iiiiiiiiiinnocent, sleeping baby. Aaaaaaah! Pig: [Loudly] Sleeping? Sleeping??? That baby was bawling the place down!

Animals: [All chuckle in agreement.]

Peppino: No, no, no! I know this baby he no cry. “Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, the little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet his head. The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes, but little Lord Jesus no … crying … he … makes.” Huh?

Cow 1: To be absolutely true to the memory of it all, actually we weren’t lowing. We were pretty much silent for the most part, although had we been lowing, you wouldn’t have heard it for the din the baby was making.”

Peppino: No, no no! The baby Jesus he no cry. HE … NO … CRY!

Mary: [Very, very calmly] He did cry.

Peppino: What? Who goes there? What you say now?

Narrator: It was Mary. Mary, who looked up from the baby she was nursing, and smiled.

Mary: [Gently] He did cry, Peppino. Of course he cried. He was a baby. Crying is what babies do.

Peppino: But this baby … this baby … he is God. Mary: This baby is also fully human. That’s the point, you see. My baby entered this earth (this life we all have) fully human. He cried, Peppino. He cried that night, and I saw him cry again. Very often. He cried as all children cry. And he cried as a man too. He cried when he saw thousands of hungry people waiting to be fed. When he saw the lame and the sick and the possessed and the unclean longing to be healed. I saw him cry when his friend Lazarus died. I saw him weep bitter tears in the olive grove at Gethsemane the night before he died. And when they whipped him and nailed him to the cross. Oh Peppino, believe me, he cried. My boy cried.

[Short pause]

Narrator: The squabbling had stopped. And Peppino saw that all the animals had turned to look at the baby lying on his mother’s lap. Turned to look at the baby whose tiny form miraculously was bridging the gulf between heaven and earth. Turned to look at the baby for whom the rough-hewn manger was too soon to give way to a rough-hewn cross. [Short pause] Peppino picked up his brush. And leant forward so close he could hear the child breathing. And with the most delicate of touches, he painted a tear in the corner of Jesus’ eye. And this most wonderful Nativity picture ever painted was suddenly even more real. For in the adoration of the child was suddenly seen the tear, the seed of his purpose.

[Short pause]

Pig: Of course, from the angle you’ve painted this picture, you wouldn’t have been able to see me at all. Rat: And although I was there, I’m a rat. I keep myself well hidden. Totally out of sight!

Narrator: And the other animals too seemed to have forgotten all their little worries and petty complaints, lost for a moment in the wonder of it all. It is said that the bishop wept when he saw the painting on Christmas morning. And the congregation, as they filed past Peppino’s Nativity, were stunned into silence as they leant forward to kiss the Madonna and child. As you might guess, the painting is long since lost. Peppino is dead these several hundred years, forgotten, although he really was a great artist. His only surviving work is a painting of the Prodigal Son, feeding a little curly-tailed pig. But that, as they say, is another story. Although, really … it’s the same story.

[Exeunt to quiet Christmas music]

Copyright © 2009 by Alec Shuttleworth and Robin Hill. This sketch may be distributed, adapted and used (solely for non-profit purposes) on the understanding that a donation (as generous as you like) to The Church of Scotland HIV/AIDS Project be made when a performance is given.

If you use the sketch, have fun, and let us know how it goes!

All the best! Have a very merry and peaceful Christmas when it comes,

Alec and Robin

Rev Alec Shuttleworth The Rev Dr Robin Hill The Manse The Manse 1 Kirkport 8A Elcho Road Tarbolton Longniddry Mauchline East Lothian KA5 5QJ EH32 0LB Scotland Scotland [email protected] robinailsa@btinternet,com

The Church of Scotland HIV/AIDS Project 121 George Street Edinburgh EH2 4YN Scotland [email protected]