(Jessa) in the Huntington Theatre Company’s
production of Paula Vogel’s A Civil
War Christmas: An American Musical
Celebration playing now through
December 13 at the B.U. Theatre.
Photo by T. Charles Erickson
by Tracey Cusick
Like the characters in Paula Vogel’s A Civil War Christmas: An American Musical Celebration, we live in a country at war. Modern conflicts in the Middle East may be geographically distant, but like our ancestors, we worry about loved ones in the military, soldiers worry about their families back home, and civilians often get caught up in the middle. The holidays are particularly poignant.
Set in and around Washington D.C. on Christmas Eve 1864, the first act introduces the characters, who include Union and Confederate soldiers, Abraham and Mary Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth and his nefarious associates, an enslaved woman and her daughter fleeing North to freedom, and a mother who lost her soldier son in battle. The set is sparse, yet with many characters frequently on stage together, it easily conveys the White House, the War Department, city streets, and a military encampment.
The second act explores what brought these characters to Washington D.C. on Christmas Eve. An abolitionist explains his motivations for enlisting in the Union Army, and how he is able to be a soldier without violating his oath not to kill. Another Union soldier, who made a personal vow to “take no prisoners” after his wife was stolen away, keeps that vow without taking the life of a thirteen-year old Confederate soldier. As the play progresses, plot lines overlap during the search for a child lost in the cold night. As one character remarks, people living in the nineteenth century understood the dangers of hypothermia, and the actors do a terrific job of conveying the increasing panic as the search for this child continues.
While most of the plot involves the travails of everyday people whose names have been lost to history, it’s a treat to see actors breathe life into Walt Whitman, Clara Barton, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Humor is an important element to the play, a pine tree becomes a character unto itself through various plots to secure it for a Christmas tree. While well-acted, President Lincoln’s “fear” of trouble at home if he doesn’t have a Christmas gift for wife Mary seems out of character: although Lincoln had a terrific sense of humor despite his apparent depression, he was not so unkind as to allow his wife Mary, who herself had a history of emotional problems, to become the butt of a public joke. Notwithstanding humor at her expense, Mary grows during the play, her concerns shifting from fancy new gloves to comforting wounded soldiers at a military hospital.
This musical uses historical Civil War era songs, one of which, “Follow the Drinking Gourd,” was used to point out the route North on the Underground Railroad. Recorded music did not exist until decades after the Civil War, strong performances of African American spirituals and other ballads are a reminder that while we have radios and iPods, we don’t sing as much as our ancestors.
An ensemble cast of a dozen actors portray over three dozen characters, including a horse and a mule. Particularly memorable were Gilbert Glenn Brown as soldier/blacksmith Decatur Bronson and Alanna T. Logan as Jessa, the young girl lost in the cold on Christmas Eve.
Theater goers who arrived early were treated to a performance by “The Christmas Revels,” and other choral groups will be performing throughout the play’s run. A Civil War Christmas will be at the Huntington Theatre through December 13th , go to huntingtontheatre.org for tickets or more information.
Tracey Cusick lives in the East Fenway.
Discussion
No comments yet.