Review: Christmas Classics – Virtual Editions and Good as New!!
Reviews
12.23.2020
The two events I recommend here are among the most joyous presentations of the season, and are just as, if not more effective in virtual form! One marks its 50th ANNIVERSARY this year, that medieval pageant celebrating the winter solstice known as THE CHRISTMAS REVELS. The second has been a classic on page, stage, and screen since Charles Dickens wrote it in 1843. This is among the most beautiful, touching, vividly performed and just plain theatrically wondrous versions ever of A CHRISTMAS CAROL!…
Then DO NOT MISS THE CHRISTMAS REVELS— now marking a half century of pageantry which has wrapped itself around the stage of Harvard’s Sanders Theatre since Revels founder John Langstaff’s first Christmas Revels in 1971. This year we can’t gather together in person to celebrate the shortest day of the year and the beginning of the next one, BUT the Revels team has culled its archives and virtually wrapped itself around the globe with 50 years worth of highlights, music, stories, songs, and dances from all over the world, Celtic to Baltic, India to Roma, Northland to Mexico and beyond!
It all comes to life beginning with the statues of James Otis and Josiah Quincy who’ve seen it all. They are enacted by beloved local acting star couple Paula Plum and Richard Snee who guide us through the merriment, including precious archival footage of Christmas Revels past topped off by Yo-Yo Ma cello-ing a round of Dona Nobis Pacem with chorus zoomed in. Sweeping shots of the audience on their feet stand in for all of us as a ghost light hovers in the wings and echoes of revels past, present, and yes, future remain fully ensconced whether we’re physically there or not. The spirit of the season carries the day in this glorious pastiche of life and right good fun. STREAMING NOW THROUGH MIDNIGHT DEC 31!
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