Described by the author as “a passion play in five minutes,” this brilliant short play depicts the confrontation between a “Carpenter” and his hippie-like son ("Santa") whose “thing” is to carry an empty sack on his back, hoping to fill it and then give everything away. The father tries to understand his son, but he cannot; and the son, in turn, is unable to condone his father’s work of building crucifixes—on one of which he must then impale his own son. If only, he muses, the boy could have been a carpenter, like his father. It would have been so much simpler for everyone!
Included in the collection
Picture, Animal, Crisscross.
