The holidays are a weird time for critics. We stand by mouths agape as an entire nation, again, infantilizes itself with saccharine songs and schmaltzy movies. Critics in December who call mediocrity where they see it risk being labelled a “killjoy,” a “Grinch,” a “Scrooge.” Is there no place for us in this merry cultural tundra?
Thank god for TUTA Theatre and their production of Thornton Wilder’s 1931 one-act The Long Christmas Dinner, directed by Jacqueline Stone in the company’s first performance at the new Bramble Arts Loft. In this feel-bad Christmas-themed story we get so much of what holiday “entertainment” denies: characters with real flaws, lives altered by the forces of history, extreme emotions both positive and negative. And all of it presented by a cast of tremendous actors.
The Long Christmas Dinner follows nine decades in the Bayard family as they assemble for Christmas dinner time after time, year after year. The characters age before our eyes and exit through a mysterious portal when they die. The stage, devised cleanly and elegantly by scenic and lighting designer Keith Parham, is a simple three-quarter thrust wrapped around an ornate table bedecked with imaginary food, above which floats a cloudlike bulbous chandelier. The chandelier isn’t exactly period-appropriate (for any period), but it matches the mystical tone of the show.
Matt Miles. Photo by Josh Bernaski.
It's a short play, but a complicated one, full of setups and callbacks, abstract sequences and harsh reality. For the greatest effect, the actors must draw out the dramatic irony subtly implied throughout. Thankfully, from the first scene it's clear the performances, particularly those of the female actors, are up to the challenge. For example, Lucia (played with striking intensity by Alexis Primus) in the first Christmas dinner is condescending to her dotty mother-in-law (Joan Merlo). But many years later—only a few minutes from the audience's perspective—Lucia bemoans the old woman's absence. When her son Charles (Huy Nguyen) tells her not to think about depressing things, she says, “But sad things aren’t the same as depressing things. I must be getting old. I like them.”
Lucia’s transformation from orderly homemaker to maudlin depressive reads as natural and sincere. Primus doesn’t play sad, but rather a woman quietly battling against her immense sadness, suppressing it. We believe her pain in the labored way she carries herself, in her forlorn gazes. It's a strong performance that reveals the show's primary themes. For Lucia’s thoughts on Mother Bayard postmortem are an early example of the story's primary preoccupation: time, what it changes and what it doesn’t. (This might remind you of another Thornton Wilder play, the iconic Our Town, which portrays the same theme of time and change.)
With Lucia and her mother-in-law, we see a difficult truth: only the passage of time can give one the perspective they need to appreciate what they once had. It isn’t a totally original idea—that maturity makes us regret our immaturity—but the honesty and precision with which it’s presented lends gravity to a relationship we only observe in brief moments. This is true of the whole play, where through dialogue and action we explore oft-treaded but masterfully executed pontifications about time.
To demonstrate how time slows when people mourn, the actors sit silently picking at their invisible meals for a far longer duration than most find comfortable. Designer Parham cleverly floods the stage in cool colors during those painful periods, adding a complementary glum atmosphere. Alternatively, happy moments are warm and bright.
But the finest commentary arrives through Leonora’s (Seoyoung Park) arc. Park blows it out of her surname in a devastating scene where she holds her deceased infant child. “Oh, I did love it so,” she weeps, breaking the heart of the audience, who may have been surprised to find themselves crying so soon into a very short show. If there’s any criticism about The Long Christmas Dinner’s writing, other than some dated female tropes, it’s that emotionally charged sequences come at the oddest times, though maybe there’s something true-to-life about that.
Lucia consoles her, “Only time, only the passing of time can help in these things.” Oof. It’s a perfunctory response, almost insulting in its simplicity, but it also presents a hypothesis for what’s to come. Does time heal wounds, huh, Mr. Wilder?
Yes, though it’s complicated.
Leonora has twins, and her elation is just as honest as her grief. But then she has another child some time later, a boy, and rather than celebrate the birth she simply hands the kid off to a nurse, calling after him, “Good-bye darling. Don’t grow up too fast. Yes, yes.” This is a far cry from the woman who mourned her first so completely.
Wilder reveals, I think very intelligently, the flipside of, “Time heals old wounds.” That our pain has something to tell us, about what’s important, about what we must avoid. And if we heal from these wounds, we risk forgetting what they said. It's a lovely observation which does what art should: it gives us a new context to understand our world.
Now the show isn't perfect, though it's only a half-star away. My biggest issue with the production, maybe my only issue with it, were the songs. Several songs added to the show were not in the script. There are no musical numbers in the script. It’s not a musical. So they took a straight play and had characters break into song sometimes. It was a distraction and, in my opinion, suggested Director Stone didn’t have faith in the material itself, that it needed to be zhuzhed up. Though thankfully the songs are short and the play remains the real star.
In addition to Our Town, Wilder is known for writing more than 30 plays including another classic play, The Skin of Our Teeth; both plays were awarded Pulitzer Prizes for Drama. Another of his plays was The Merchant of Yonkers, which became Wilder's screenplay for The Matchmaker, later the musical Hello, Dolly. Wilder also was author of the novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, a Pulitzer winner for fiction. If you're interested in more about Wilder and Our Town, Howard Sherman has written an excellent oral history about it.
The Long Christmas Dinner by TUTA Theatre continues at the new Bramble Arts Loft, 5545 N Clark St, thru December 29. Running time is 70 minutes with no intermission. Ticket prices are on a pay-what-you-choose basis. Recommended payments are $20, $45, and $60.
For more information on this and other productions, see theatreinchicago.com.
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