A Christmas in Wales a whale of a Christmas Production

By Peter Rusland
News Leader Pictorial, November 22, 2006

Chemainus Theatre Festival's actors shared their superb acting gifts with us during Friday's production of the remarkable A Christmas In Wales musical play.

Never mind that director Sarah Rodgers' seven actors could shame most Hollywood prima donnas on stage - Wales is most notable for creatively capturing the magic of playwright Dylan Thomas' beloved Noel season.

Rodgers and her father Denis have successfully used Thomas' imagery-drenched English and music director Alison Jenkins arrangements to build a sweet yuletide opener that'll last until New Year's.

Some may find Wales another warm, fuzzy and frosty tale cheerfully rewrapped in the theatre's seasonal traditions.

But looking deeper, we see how some of Thomas' nostalgic presents may be enjoyed year round thanks to his sumptuous use of the English language served by skilled actors on a simple, snow-filled stage.

For example: "The moment before sleep"; snow "grew on the roofs of houses"; Four pints of ale just to get his normal colour back"; There are always uncles at Christmas"; "The violent past of a black eye"; "Like a prophet who has no doubt"; and "Can the fishes see it snowing?"

The Rodgers' cast of aunts and uncles make it easy to grab these scintillating sentences zipping by on a loom of scenes woven together like a woolen tartan.

That cloth is decorated with 14 invigorating scenes in the Welsh parlours, pubs and backyards from bygone times accompanied by tunes from Jenkins and her multi-instrumental mates.

Like a Welsh Wizard of Oz without the wicked witch, Rodgers' actors sweetly bring heart, courage and brains to their white set dressed only with three large snowballs doubling as furniture and more.

The cast led by David Thomson's Dylan awakens from the snow, like cherished Noel memories, takes us into Thomas' gently scrappy 1924 world, and then melts back in the drifts.

Standouts might include Samantha Currie's chameleon expressions, Thomson's impish turn as The Queer Chair, and Thomas Jones' goofy antics as an old man on a sofa made of those big snowballs and actors' bodies.

Rogers' Wales is a balanced emotional workout of theatre sports, song and dance without upstaging.

Hopefully Thomas' daughter, Aeronwy, visits the Chemainus Theatre to experience A Christmas In Wales before its run ends Dec. 31. Call 246-9820.

Christmas musical-play rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Christmas in Wales a whimsical adaptation of
Dylan Thomas prose

By Tom Masters
Chemainus Courier, December 1, 2006

A snowy field, three snowballs and a harp. Seven sleeping figures and it begins, a journey back in time to Christmas, 1924, as remembered by Dylan Thomas, who was ten years old at the time, and who as an adult became one of the major poets of the 20th century.

Based on Thomas' prose poem, A Child's Christmas in Wales, and adapted for Chemainus Theatre Festival by the daughter/father team of Sarah Rodgers and Denis Rodgers and directed by Sarah, the production is a skillful blending of prose, poetry, song and dance, music and whimsy with a smattering of Charles Dickens to boot.

It is never easy to adapt for the stage a prose work which, in its original form, relies on language of exceptional beauty and precision, where the performer's delivery must be clear enough that virtually every word is heard and understood. Thankfully, the efforts of director and cast have made this essential literary work wonderfully accessible to young and old alike.

The Welsh are known for their love of language, its intricacies and power to sway both the emotions and the intellect. It is no wonder that Dylan Thomas chose to evoke this tradition in remembrance of Christmas past, the joys and delicious mischief of a period that seems through the mist of time a simpler and more innocent era. In fact it was probably no different from our own with the proviso that there was no TV, no internet, no PlayStations and children had to use their imaginations to evoke the clowns and demons who populated their own play.

The story is a recollection by the young Dylan of a typical Christmas from his childhood. It is a remembrance of a boy who is a keen observer of human nature, a shrewd judge of character, a boy with a nose for mischief and yet who is part of the large, stern and loving family that extends beyond the relations to include everyone in the small, tight-knit, tradition-bound community.

In a bravura performance, middle-aged actor David Thomson portrays the ten year old Dylan with both joy and innocence. And, incidentally, manages with equal mastery to bring to life Dickens' Vixenish Mare and the Queer Chair, together with a host of other creations that could only have come from the imagination of the chain-smoking, hard drinking, lecherous and tortured Dylan Thomas who died at 39 after a life of dissipation, and left behind a legend.

The versatile company must not only recreate Dylan's extended family, including the 'uncles' believed to be folded up and stored in a box in a darkened attic to be brought forth next Christmas, but also the characters of Thomas' stories and poems, figments of his and his characters' imaginations as if they too were folded up and brought out for that eternal Christmas we all remember from our own childhoods.

Half the company prove themselves accomplished musicians, and all can sing and dance in addition to their many other talents as story tellers, mime artists, and veritable props, taking on the personas of a myriad of playmates, neighbours, friends and relations of the boy who is telling the story.

At the end of the evening the standing ovation somehow became a new combination, audience and actors together lustily bawling out the parts of 'Good King Wenceslas,' bringing us full circle. We were now all part of the story within the story. 'A Christmas in Wales' runs until December 31.