The Crow Brings Daylight
Adapted by Amir, 5th grade
Cast
Storyteller
Inuit 1
Po lar bear
Inuit 2
Inuit 3
Inuit 4
Crow
Chief
Daughter
Grandson
Ball of Daylight
Chief Inuit
Setting: Northern North America
(Stage lights are dim as to show the darkness of the north. There is a rock and an empty space to stage left. A small igloo dominates stage right. Inuit 2 and 4 are on stage; Inuit 1 and 3 are in the igloo).
Storyteller (sitting on rock): Many years ago when half the planet we now call home was dark and half of it was full of color, the origin of what became the Inuit tribe lived in what is now Alaska. Even though their world was black they were content until a crow told the Inuit about daylight and vowed to bring it to them.
Inuit 2: Polar Bear, I will get you!
Inuit 2 and Inuit 4 chase polar bear around stage.
Inuit 4: I can imagine polar bear feast tonight.
Inuit 1: I could mash berries into wine with wild berries fresh from my garden!
Inuit 3 exits igloo to walk around and collect berries.
Inuit 2 trips on a rock but cannot see it. He lets out a cry.
Inuit 4: Are you all right?
Inuit 3: Can you stand up?
Crow swoops down from the sky to take a rest among the Inuit tribe. Crow lands in front of the igloo.
Crow: What is the commotion? Is someone hurt?
Inuit 3: My peer was close to tracking down a polar bear when he tripped on that mound and fell.
Crow: I see. What you need is daylight!
Inuit 1: Daylight. What a funny name? What is it?
Crow: It is a substance that allows you see vivid colors such as blue, green, and yellow. There is plenty of it in the south.
Inuit 2: (standing up) With daylight we could hunt for longer periods of time.
Inuit 4: We could see the berries that we pick!
Inuit 3: Please Crow, could you go to the south and bring daylight back to us?
Inuits: Please Crow, we want to see daylight.
Crow: Well, I am not sure that a 94 year old crow can bypass all the dangers to the south and back.
Inuits: Please, Crow, we want to see daylight.
Blackout. Curtain closes.
End of scene 1.
Scene 2
Storyteller: With much pleading from the Inuits, crow agrees to go. Even though he much resents it, he feels it is his duty to bring the Inuit the daylight of which they are deprived.
Crow (muttering): I have to find daylight. I have to find daylight for the Inuits!
Storyteller: Crow crosses many mountains, flies through the grimmest of weather conditions and enters the bat filled caves where he rests. Finally, the light on the horizon becomes a reality.
Crow sings (From Rogers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma) -- There’s a bright golden haze on the meadow, there’s a bright golden haze on the meadow, the corn is as high as an elephant’s eye and it looks like it’s gonna go up to the sky. Then Chief Inuit and storyteller with Daylight Ball and Crow begin singing Harold Arlen’s “Somewhere over the Rainbow.” After “… way up high, there’s a place that I dreamed of once in a lullaby” curtain opens.
Scene 3
Setting: Snow is falling down from the sky. There is a river that runs across the stage. Daughter is upstage left by the river.
Storyteller: Because it is late, Crow is surprised to find a young girl bending near a river collecting water for her family while singing a rather euphonious song that sounds like an aria. Crow perches on a tree to hear this piece of music as beautiful as the south:
Daughter scoops a bucket of water from the river and exits stage right. As she walks off she sings Irving Berlin’s “I’ve got the sun in the morning and the moon at night…”
Crow: What a beautiful song. I could hear more of this angelic music and perhaps find a ball of daylight if I follow her! But a crow would be too obvious…I must turn myself into the smallest thing I know…How about a speck of dust!
Storyteller: This is just what Crow does and with a few flourishes he becomes a Speck of Dust.
Crow: I must find daylight. I must find daylight for the Inuit’s.
Storyteller: At last he was led to the girl’s home where there was a fire blazing in the hearth. Crow, as the Speck of Dust, carefully observed the scene.
Daughter finishes singing her song.
Scene 4
Stool is positioned on stage left.
Fire blazes in up center stage. Chief stands up left. Grandson is playing with some of his toys down center stage.
Chief (looking regal): Where have you been?
Daughter (enters stage right): Out to the river as you instructed me. The bucketfuls were quite heavy this time because of the ice. (puts buckets near the fire)
Chief: Put the ice near the fire. The fire’s warmth will thaw it out. (Daughter starts bickering with chief).
Storyteller: In a stunning move, Crow, disguised as a Speck of Dust goes to tickle the Chief’s favorite grandson’s ear. While doing this he says:
Crow: Tell your mother you feel like playing with a daylight ball or I will continue to tickle your ear.
Grandson: Mother, I feel like playing with a daylight ball. If I can not play with a daylight ball I shall weep.
Daughter: As you wish.
(Daughter gets Daylight Ball and ties a ribbon around it and sets it on the stool. Crow begins tickling Grandson’s ear again.)
Crow: Tell your mother you want to take a walk or I will continue to tickle your ear.
Grandson: Mother, I want to take a walk. If I can’t take a walk I shall weep.
Daughter: As you wish.
(Chief, Daughter, and Grandson exit.)
Storyteller: With a few spins Crow becomes a black-feathered bird again and he grasps the daylight ball by the ribbon and carries it over the mountains and caves to the north.
Scene 5
Set is same as in scene 1.
Storyteller: The daylight ball shatters as Crow touches the ground and in seconds the darkness flees.
(Inuits look around amazed)
Daylight: Inuits, I give you the gift of daylight. But like Man and Woman and unlike The Great Spirit I must gain my strength from time to time. I am sorry, Inuits, but I am only a small piece of daylight and you will have daylight half the year before the darkness overpowers me.
Chief Inuit: That does not matter, for before Crow brought you to the lands of the North we did not have daylight at all. We owe much gratitude to Crow, a 94 year old Crow who made the hazardous journey to the south and back. We will hold a feast in his honor when it is dark again and we have plenty of meat. Crow, do you accept this ranking?
Crow: I accept with very much thanks to the Inuit tribe.
The End