A Bit of Magic : Holiday Shows Can Provide a Needed Lift to Spirits in Troubling Times

The tenacious recession that has shaken theater attendance across the county for the past few seasons proves no match when it comes time to nourish the human spirit.

The faithful always come back to the holiday shows.

Even as people are strapped for money, ticket sales are going strong for shows such as the San Diego Repertory Theatre’s “A Christmas Carol,” Lamb’s Players Theatre’s “A Festival of Christmas,” the Old Globe Theatre’s “Pastorela ‘92: A Shepherds’ Play” and Southeast Community Theatre’s “Black Nativity.”

Some people go to celebrate. Some go with family or groups as a bonding experience. Some go because the holidays fill them with confusion, dread and anxiety and the shows help them sort out their ambivalences.

Kerry Meads, who writes and this year directs the annual “Lamb’s Festival of Christmas”--a series of plays that take place on Christmas--is particularly sensitive to what she calls the “volatile” side of Christmas.

“It is frightening that the suicide rate tends to be higher during a family holiday time,” Meads said during a recent rehearsal break. “It is so sad because it is indicative of a loss of hope.”

Meads’ plays often deal with people who are trying to mend relationships with lovers, mothers, fathers, children. In this year’s “Festival of Christmas,” a teacher is left behind in a private school with some students who don’t have anywhere to go for the holidays.

“I have always loved the holidays, but the holidays always bring out difficulties in relationships, possibly because we want them to be so perfect. . . . We have always looked at ‘Festival’ as a gift to the community at a time when people are looking for something to bind their families together, to give them a place to start and focus.”

Lamb’s “Festival,” which was 75% sold-out more than a week before its Nov. 27 opening night at the Lamb’s home theater in National City, has been popular from its inception 15 years ago. Also 50% sold-out is Lamb’s second offering, “An American Christmas,” a musical version of “The Gift of the Magi,” told between courses of an elaborate Christmas dinner. That show doesn’t open until Dec. 8 at the Granger Music Hall in National City.

The Old Globe’s second annual “Pastorela ‘92” also has sold out three of its performances well in advance of its Dec. 8 opening at the Old Naval Hospital Chapel across the street from Balboa Park. For Raul Moncada, who adapted this traditional Mexican retelling of the shepherds’ journey to the manger, the show’s multiculturalism comes as a relief in the wake of this election year.

“Working on the piece brings relief to me from the ugliness of the recent election year,” he said, referring to the Republican National Convention, which he said ignored minorities in its picture of America.

The pastorela is a response to that because it praises cultural diversity.

“I think people are very eager to feel good,” Moncada said. “It has been a joyful experience.” It has also been an affordable one for many people. The ticket prices are lower than most movie tickets: $6 general admission, $2 for children and $4.50 apiece for groups of 15 or more.

Dorothy Roberts, one of the original subscribers to the San Diego Rep, has retired to Grand Junction, Colo., but she still comes back to San Diego to see her family and the San Diego Rep’s “A Christmas Carol,” which opens Dec. 3 at the Lyceum Stage.

The Rep has made a tradition out of changing “A Christmas Carol” every year. This year, it will be a gospel version co-conceived and created by Rep Producing Director Sam Woodhouse and Osayande Baruti, with some of Dickens’ words set to gospel music and sung by a 10-voice gospel choir.

The mixture of challenge and tradition is what keeps Roberts coming back.

“When we retired and moved to Colorado three years ago, I knew the one thing I would miss the most would be the Repertory Theatre,” Roberts said. “The economy has affected us, but this is something we put a priority on doing because it has always been a tradition in our family to go to this and this sounded new and different and we need to have challenging thoughts.”

The opening night of “A Christmas Carol” also continues a Rep tradition of giving Christmas back to the community with its “A Magic Christmas” program. Throughout the run of the show, patrons are urged to bring unwrapped gifts that will be distributed to disadvantaged and shelter families at a special benefit performance Dec. 26.

Next door in the Lyceum Space, is another gospel musical, the Southeast Community Theatre’s “Black Nativity,” opening Dec. 3.

UC San Diego Prof. Floyd Gaffney, who directs the piece each year, initially chose it as a way to give people in the black community a Christmas they could identify with. Because he culls his singers from churches rather than from the local acting pool, “Black Nativity” has become a way to link the community with the theater.

“It gives us a chance to use the talent of those people who are not theater trained but have beautiful voices. It gives them a chance to do community theater,” Gaffney said of the 4-year-old production.

But not all holiday productions are tied strictly to Christmas.

Nehemiah Persoff’s “Sholom Aleichem” at the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company will summon up old Yiddish tales in a show that opens Dec. 10 and runs through the first night of Hanukkah at the Hahn Cosmopolitan Theatre.

At the North Coast Repertory Theatre, Artistic Director Olive Blakistone has done very well with her own tradition of doing work that touches on the holidays each year--even though she chooses a different show each year.

Last year, North Coast presented a fine production of Alan Ayckbourn’s sour Christmas card, “Season’s Greetings.” This year she is directing Tom Dudzick’s more concisely titled “Greetings!”--a story about a Catholic man who brings his Jewish fiancee home for Christmas--opening tonight.

What she looks for, she explained, is something that “has a spiritual message but one that has a rather wide umbrella that can cover a lot of people. I don’t look for something that is specifically about religion or has a message from organized religion.”

Blakistone, like Woodhouse, Moncada, Meads and Gaffney, speaks in terms of the annual holiday show being a gift that is given to the community--an attempt to reach out and draw people in.

For Meads, this is her favorite assignment of the year.

“I feel so fortunate that I have an opportunity to do this, and frankly to be able to go to the heart a little more than seems palatable at other times because supposedly going to the heart is not ‘real.’

“But over the years I have been writing, the biggest thing I have learned is that there is a longing in people’s lives for intimacy. There is a pain when there is not that sense of intimacy. And while people want intimacy, they are so afraid of it. A show like this can strip some of the layers.”

Holiday Shows in San Diego County

“Alvin & the Chipmunks”: Alvin, Simon and Theodore will sing holiday songs, with special visits by Santa Claus and Mother Goose. Performances are Dec. 19 at 3 and 7 p.m. at San Diego Concourse’s Golden Hall, 202 C St. Tickets are $8.50-$13.50. Call 236-6510, 278-TIXS or 236-6510.

“An American Christmas”: Lamb’s Players Theatre presents the San Diego premiere of the musical, “The Gifts of the Magi,” a collaboration of Randy Courts and Mark St. Germain, amid a sumptuous Victorian-style feast at Granger Music Hall. Performances begin Dec. 8 and continue at 7 p.m. Monday-Saturday and 5 p.m. Sunday (no performances Dec. 11 or 25). Tickets are $35 to $47. At 1615 East Fourth St., National City, 474-4542.

“Black Nativity”: Southeast Community Theatre presents the fourth annual retelling of the Nativity through gospel music, written by Langston Hughes and directed by Southeast’s artistic director Floyd Gaffney. Performances begin Dec. 3 and continue at 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays and 7 p.m. Sundays, with Sunday matinees at 2:30 p.m., through Dec. 20. Tickets are $12. At the Lyceum Space, 79 Horton Plaza, San Diego, 235-8025, 262-2817 or 264-3503.

“A Christmas Carol”: The San Diego Repertory Theatre’s 17th annual production of the Charles Dickens classic is done gospel-style on the Lyceum Stage. Performances begin Dec. 3 and continue at 8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and 7 p.m. Sundays, with Sunday matinees at 2 and Saturday matinees at 2 on Dec. 12, 19 and 26. Runs through Dec. 27. Tickets are $20 to $25. At 79 Horton Plaza, San Diego, 235-8025.

“A Christmas Carol”: Nebraska Theatre Caravan presents four performances of the Charles Dickens classic, stressing the Victorian English flavor of the work, at Poway Center for the Performing Arts at 2 and 8 p.m. Dec. 19-20. Tickets are $8.50 to $22.50. At 15498 Espola Road, Poway, 748-0505.

“Coal in Your Stocking”: A parody of Christmas Past, Present and Future by the Piparoos, a four-person local comedy troupe, this 15th annual take-off on “A Christmas Carol” sports such endorsements as “I loved it. I got in free,” by E. Scrooge. Performances are at 8 p.m. Dec. 16-22. Tickets are $10 in advance, $15 at the door. At Marquis/RUSE Theatre, 3717 India St., 281-4876.

“A Festival of Christmas”: Lamb’s Players Theatre’s 15th annual “Festival” tells of staff and students left behind for the Christmas holidays in a small private school. Performances begin Nov. 29 and continue at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays-Sundays, 2 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays and 10 a.m. Saturdays, with special weekday matinees at 2 p.m. Dec. 21-24. Tickets are $15 to $20. At 500 Plaza Blvd., National City, 474-3542.

“Greetings!”: Performances begin tonight and continue at 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 7 p.m. Sunday, with Sunday matinees at 2, through Dec. 26. Tickets are $10 to $14. At Lomas Santa Fe Plaza, Solana Beach, 481-1055.

“The Magic Christmas Window”: NewWorks Theatre presents this story featuring Mister Storyman, who tells two seasonal fairy stories designed for children. The show opens Dec. 19 and continues at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 21-23 and 2:30 p.m. Dec. 23, 26-31. Tickets are $6 to $10. At the Horton Park Plaza Hotel, at Fifth Avenue and E Street, 268-9142 or 262-6162.

“Sholom Aleichem”: Adapted from the works of Sholem Aleichem and performed by Nehemiah Persoff. The show opens Dec. 8 and continues at 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays and 7 p.m. Sundays, with Saturday-Sunday matinees at 2, through Dec. 20. Tickets are $20 to $22. At the Hahn Cosmopolitan Theatre, 444 Fourth Ave., 234-9583.

“The Tailor of Gloucestor”: The third annual musical adaptation of Beatrix Potter’s “The Tailor of Gloucestor” at the Coronado Playhouse. Performances begin Dec. 5 and continue at 8 p.m. Dec. 5 and 12, 7 p.m. Dec. 11, 18-19, and 2 p.m. Dec. 6, 12-13, 19-20, through Dec. 20. Tickets are $3 (for children) to $10. At 1775 Strand Way, Coronado, 435-4856.