The dramatization of this story called for much construction work. The reapers made their sickles of cardboard and covered them with gold or silver paper or painted them. They found pictures which gave the shape, and from these they cut the patterns ([Fig. 15]). One little girl brought a real sickle which had once belonged to a Filipino. It gave her happiness to reap with it, but the others were just as content to use the sickles from cardboard.
The need for a harvest song was felt, and in consequence a little song that most of the children knew was decided upon. The reapers sang it as they reaped and while Boaz was walking through his grain field. There was no real grain nor anything to represent it, the children deciding to leave this to the imagination. The action of the reapers and the words that were spoken gave evidence enough that grain was growing there.
There was very little stage setting used in the play. The stage was bare in the first scene in order to represent the road from Moab to Bethlehem. In the second scene a big earthenware jar was needed from which the reapers could drink. The third scene required a box which represented a seat by the city gate; the door which led off the stage at the side was used for the gate.
The action and the grouping of people in the third scene required careful planning by the children. Women came through the gate and passed down the street with water jugs on their shoulders; men gathered in groups to discuss bits of news; Boaz walked toward the gate and sat waiting for his kinsman. Finally, when the cousin appeared, Boaz hailed him and had him sit down. The citizens who were standing near were asked to be witnesses in this business transaction. That one man should take off his shoe and hand it to another was a custom that created much interest among the children. They began to examine pictures for the kinds of shoes that were worn, and this led many of them to wear their own sandals, which approached most nearly to those seen in the pictures. The children who did not own sandals tried to make them with cardboard and strips of cloth (see [Fig. 26]).
The costuming was very simple. The reapers wore the same little brown slips which had been worn in every play that had been given. Boaz enriched his costume by wearing brighter colors in his headdress and girdle and by wearing a slip that was longer than the others.
The play follows as it was finally given.
RUTH
SCENE I
Place: In Moab, on the road to Judah.