Far Cry From ‘Scrooge’ : Church Christmas Play Addresses Teen Despair, Drugs, Sex and AIDS

This is not your typical church Christmas play.

The angel is a bag lady. Satan sells drugs to teen-agers at a party. The prodigal son is a disillusioned high school student who lives in South County.

Instead of bringing back “Scrooge” for a fifth consecutive year, the Calvary Chapel in Capistrano Beach will risk offending Christmas traditionalists by staging “Generation Xmas”--a tale of teen-age despair that deals with issues of drugs, sex and AIDS.

The play is a window into the lives of troubled South County teen-agers that was written by 23-year-old Stephen Flores of Dana Point, a youth counselor at Calvary Chapel. The title is a play on words, referring to “Generation X,” a 1991 book by Douglas Coupland about the alienated children of baby boomers.

“I wrote this to be a bridge between teen-agers and their parents,” said Flores, who also portrays a drug dealer in the play, which opens at Calvary Chapel on Friday. “I want to show parents what’s really going on for their children.”

The play traces one youth’s Christmas Eve journey through a series of real-life situations in which drugs and sex are easily available. There are hard choices to be made and Jonah, the 16-year-old main character, makes all the wrong decisions.

He parties and tries cocaine for the first time. Needing a little extra cash, he is talked into helping a friend rip off car stereos.

“It’s a typical night in the life of a teen-ager in Orange County,” Flores said. “Teen-agers will recognize all the people in the play--the stoner who is 10 years out of high school but still throws crazy parties. The coke dealer. The stuck-up debutante.

“It’s a long way from ‘Scrooge’ and the Nativity scene,” Flores said.

After producing “Scrooge” four consecutive years, the church was looking for something fresh that carried a strong message.

“We’re excited about it because teen-agers here in Orange County are under a lot of pressure,” said Executive Pastor Craig Whitaker. “It’s not the typical Christian story you expect to see at Christmas.”

The frank look at teen-age lifestyles might upset a few parishioners, Whitaker acknowledged, but “anything different would raise a few eyebrows.”

“This is about the real world and it might open up some parents’ eyes to what’s going on with their kids,” Whitaker said. “If we in church try to cover that up, we’re just fooling ourselves.”

Cast member Derek Greenhalgh, 26, who runs a youth Bible study group at Calvary Chapel, said the play’s realism gives it emotional power.

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“If you’ve ever heard anyone give their testimony (description of life before conversion to a believer), this is very similar,” he said. “This play doesn’t candy-coat anything, yet I think it shows people there is still hope.”

Flores, a heavy drug user until he broke off his downward spiral when he turned to God, said teen-agers would be suspicious of anything but the truth. All Flores had to do was draw freely from his own past.

“I grew up in the church, but kind of fell away like most teen-agers do,” he said. The rest of his teen years flew by in a blur of drugs and alcohol “until I had my spiritual awakening at 20. I quit everything cold turkey and my life changed.”

He began counseling teen-agers at Calvary Chapel and enrolled in theater classes at Saddleback College. Flores had always been in the habit of writing down ideas, and the collection eventually inspired him to write “Generation Xmas.”

While church elders have not censored the play, Flores said he still felt the pressure of writing for a churchgoing audience.

“There’s a point where you feel like appeasing the parents,” he said. “You don’t want them to think you’re glorifying Satan or anything like that.”

But his bottom line: “This is the first time I’ve been able to show all the kids what’s going on in their lives,” he said. “It’s my chance to show older adults the truth. You can’t water that down.”

And Jonah? He turns out OK, Flores said.

“He finds out that Christmas is not about presents and things, it’s about hope and believing in yourself,” Flores said.