Day 74: Christmas Theater

Seems like everything I've been invited to do since Thanksgiving ends up being about Christmas, and lots of experiences having to do with Christmas end up being about theater. I have mixed feelings about both-- they have influenced me since childhood, and in my memories, stir up the most nostalgic emotions. But part of my growing up has been the sharpening of a critical eye. I don't mean pure adolescent cynicism; though I am completely repulsed by people being trampled to death at Wal-Mart, I do think that Christmas inspires a lot of people to be emotionally generous. People are intoxicated by the emotions that they associate with the season, be they kindness or the pride of discount shopping, and it's up to us to direct the holidays in a direction we can be proud of.

Anyway, last night I found myself at a four-person church concert in Wallingford. The three singers sang a complete hour-and-a-half concert of Christmas music-- most of it either modern or new arrangements of traditional songs-- and I surprised myself by enjoying it. Two of the singers were old theater friends of Greg's, and one was Jewish. She sang several convincingly devout tributes to Mary, and the tenor sang a bit about how Christmas shouldn't be commercial, and the whole thing ended with a version of Silent Night arranged around the descant. The church was tiny and packed with ancient ladies in festive sweaters. I suppose I liked it because it was the antidote to my Transsiberian Orchestra experience, although my mind did wander into odd corners where I started thinking about small-town life and if these were the very people who go to Wal-Mart on Saturdays and church on Sundays, and I started hating myself for being so judgemental. I tried to just shut my brain up and enjoy the music, largely because Christmas church music is how I learned to read music in the first place, and that's a great thing. My parents aren't extremely religious either, but they go to church for the chance to sing and be part of the community, so I always imagine my mother singing the alto line in my ear and my father turning around to shake a stranger's hand. That is church to me.

But when the performance was over, the performance was over. Everybody shuffled out and we waited in the hallway while the congregations took apart the sound system. After a few minutes we heard a girl's voice belting out Amy Grant's "Grown-Up Christmas List" and we snuck in the back of the room to see the size of this kid. There was a small group gathered around her, her mother pressing her forward, and her eyes were right on us, the anonymous audience, as she performed runs (non-singers: think Mariah Carey vascillations all over the notes) over these lyrics:

No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
And everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end
This is my grown up Christmas List

And I mean, this girl was singing it. It was a head-turning performance. Everybody was grinning at her, and I just wanted to run out of the building. It seemed so insidious to me, this demonstration of talent for the sake of talent, and the way she was staring at us demaning that we be impressed by her. And what really bothers me is the use of this song for child-prodigy kids. Yes, the song is incredibly corny and vague in its optimism, but it is quietly political and. at the very least, about people other than yourself. Christmas without modesty is not something I want to be around.

But that was yesterday. Today was good. Today, I piled into a pickup truck with five others-- a couple of friends, a couple of coworkers-- and drove out through the first real snowfall to a matinee performance of It's A Wonderful Life at the Thomaston Opera House. The drive was long, and the snow on the branches was the kind you move to New England for, and we were crammed in with our coffee cups and scarves, and I was happy. The play was an awkward adaptation and the acting was absurd, like a parady of community theater. But that Opera House, with its crumbling ceiling and uncomfortable wooden seats, is charm enough for an afternoon.

Why do community theaters insist on reenacting well-known stories like It's a Wonderful Life? I can't say with any hostesty that it's a creative pursuit. It's an attempt to relive something that never really existed, to perform an idea of small-town goodness. Like Christmas, in a way. Part show, part total earnestness. We drove home as it was getting dark and cold and the snow looked blue on the trees, until there were no trees, and we were back in Hartford, where the wind comes around the corners of the buildings and you realize it's really winter.