"For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio" by W.H. Auden is an extraordinary retelling of the Nativity stories that combines poetry and prose, drama and comedy, the historical and the contemporary. I studied it during a college course, and have never forgotten it.

Now, with the help of too many people to mention here, it is being presented in a Hawai'i theater.

In 1942, when Auden wrote "Oratorio," the world was at war. He came from an Anglican tradition, abandoned the church in his youth, but had recently re-embraced Christianity. His faith was challenged by the rise of Hitler and a world in chaos.

Here, his retelling of the Nativity stories in poetry and prose, with generous dollops of fear and humor, is unique.

A cast of 11 plays the parts of Mary, Joseph, the Three Wise Men, Simeon, Herod, soldiers, shepherds and two narrators — all baffled by a miracle that equally exhilarates and challenges them.

Joseph is taunted about Mary by the patrons of a local bar. The Star of Bethlehem has a speaking role. The birth of Jesus is described as "an outrageous novelty." Herod the Great alternately threatens and whines.

The three Magi are weary and homesick. Soldiers joke among themselves before the Massacre of the Innocents.

"What is real about us all," says a shepherd, "is that each of us is waiting."

"A Christmas Oratorio" is both joyful and disquieting, because it communicates a central message: Faith comes with the tremendous responsibility of living a moral life. This sense of responsibility and morality can also be perceived by all, and that makes this production a widely appealing one.

A New York Times critic called it "one of the most powerful expressions of the meaning of Christmas in the 20th century." We're happy to make it available to Hawai'i theatergoers as a holiday offering.