- First of all, Paula Vogel.
- Second of all, Tina Landau.
- Third, New York Theatre Workshop.
- The NYTW website describes the play as taking "a sprawling new look at the seemingly intractable challenges we once faced to see how far we’ve come as a nation and how far we still have to go." The word that stands out to me here is "sprawling." Tina Landau is known for her large scale productions and ensemble-driven work (she devised the Viewpoints technique with Anne Bogart.) A CIVIL WAR CHRISTMAS is definitely both large-scale and ensemble-driven, but because of its immensity, I didn't have a clue what was going on most of the time. But! I didn't care, because it was so awesome. This is where skill and technique can make a piece excellent. Vogel's complex play would fail on a weaker ensemble.
- The NYTW teams also created an epic dramaturgical resource to coincide with the production. It was a massive pdf document full of all kinds of historical info ranging from biographical details to performance practices of the period (including breeches roles - there is a breeches role in the play!)
- Sure the show was well put-together, but another reason I didn't mind following allowing on a path on which I was lost anyway is the element of star-struck-ness that was also happening in and around the play. The night I went was some kind of special night, and important theatre history people were around... people like Marvin Carlson, for example. During the play, Landau clearly directed all of the actors to make direct eye contact with the audience during the moments and songs that were aimed out to us. On several occurrences, Alice Ripley made direct eye contact with me (she is, by the way, just as fierce as TITLE OF SHOW claims). Other actors made eye contact with me as well, and it really made the environment cozy and inclusive, like we were all in one big log cabin singing Christmas carols around a fire. I don't even celebrate Christmas, but there's something really comfy and nostalgic about a classically Dickensian Christmastime (although this one was an emphatically American Christmastime).
- I'm not sure what else to say... I guess the crux of it is I can't exactly tell you what happened in any kind of plot or story or anything (I vaguely remember that the little girl gets lost in D.C. and somebody steals Mrs. Lincoln's Christmas tree that she actually kind of stole from the Mabou Mines lady anyway), but it didn't matter to me because the production was so finely tuned and technically beautiful. I am not a fan of participating in Viewpoints (I've read the book; it's not my thing), but I do know that it actually works for ensemble-building. The proof is in the (Christmas) pudding!
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Cole
Trans man, Playwright, Dramaturg, and Theatre & Dance Historian Archives
August 2014
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