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| World Premiere Opens SJA Concert Series |
| World Premiere Opens SJA Concert Series |
German soldiers began decorating their trenches with Christmas lights in the region of Ypres, Christmas Eve 1914, singing Stille Nacht (Silent Night). British soldiers across the line began singing English carols. It was a German soldier, unarmed who crossed the line to join hands with the British, their enemies. Soon one by one, all the soldiers from the opposing troops dropped their weapons and joined one another to celebrate the start of a truce and share a most unlikely Christmas with one another.
To remind people of this groundbreaking event and the timeliness of its resonance regarding today’s troubling war, Theater Latté Da Artistic Director and SJA parishioner Peter Rothstein will direct a new work he wrote titled All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914. Two performances of this radio musical drama will be presented at SJA’s gym Sunday, December 23 at 3:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. A world premiere and the first presentation of SJA’s 2007-2008 Concert Series, the idea came to Rothstein about five years ago.
Rothstein feels that he’s best suited to direct theater. As a writer, he’s more often the conceptualist with a provocative idea that a writer will create dialogue for. Originally he wasn’t sure if he would create the text or pull it together from existing sources. While researching in Europe this past August for All Is Calm, he fell in love with the quotes from all of the men who experienced war confrontation. For awhile he felt he’d create a character that would track through the piece but there just wasn’t enough text for one individual’s experience.
This tenacious director-and-writer wondered how one could create such an epic scale such as this event for the stage. The more he researched, the more he realized that the form of telling people’s stories would dictate the concept. Realizing that it was powerfully effective to create an audio world and ask that people just close their eyes and listen, he went for a reader’s theater like approach. Because they are building the piece for radio, Latté Da is not using a set, costumes or visuals. As a point of interest, MPR will be broadcasting All Is Calm on Friday, December 21st at 10:30 am live from Westminster Presbyterian Church.
Rothstein feels that if he did create any visuals that he would want to use some abstract film piece that would run parallel to the performance. In general he likes to focus on characters and their stories. “My aesthetic is to create theater that asks the audience to be responsible for the telling of the story as well, that it triggers the imagination, not that it creates a movie for you.” That’s just what one did back in 1914, you listened to the radio, so it’s an apt approach to present the troops experience in an audio-like way. “I always try to let the content dictate the form,” he reminded, “The characters are in the driver’s seat versus contemporary technology or the director.”
Compiling 53 quotes or pieces of text that refer to 24 events, and incorporating 26 songs, Rothstein came up with over 30 characters. “I wanted there to be a wide range of voices told by three actors who shift dialects.” The three actors playing Man 1, 2, & 3 are musical theater stalwart Alan Sorenson, David Roberts and John Catron (presently Carlson in Park Square Theater’s Of Mice and Men) actors who physically represent three different generations. Rothstein says for the most part the actors memorize the text but will appear to be reading from the script like a reader’s theatre presentation. The three actors were involved in two workshops with Rothstein, one in August and one in September. Now they will rehearse this December. Basically having to flip accents on a dime with playing so many differing nationalities, they’ve been doing dialect coaching along the way.
Music Underscores Dialogue
“The music offers a fun range of stuff,” offers Rothstein, [like] Celtic tunes that are incredibly prophetic.” To handle such diverse and complex a range of musical material, he approached Cantus almost two years ago about the music. This nationally renowned a cappella men’s ensemble formed in 1995 from St. Olaf College. Presently they work in residence at St. John’s in Collegeville and have recorded ten albums. As time went on, Cantus and Rothstein dug up trench songs and Christmas carols from the various countries. The final decisions for music however came from Rothstein’s research this summer. “Often they would create new lyrics to existing songs and Cantus will do some of this in gorgeous eight part harmony,” offered Rothstein. Also Cantus does not perform with a conductor but rather work off each other and even find their pitches without the aid of a piano. In All Is Calm, there is complicated weaving of text with music, often times music underscores text. They’ll be singing while actors are speaking. Latté Da’s mission comes to mind: “To find new ways for text and music to intersect.”
To hear a podcast of an All Is Calm preview: Click Here. To hear a podcast of an interview with Peter Rothstein: Click Here.
Just Go to the Source
Much of the research was found in European museums, particularly archives found at the Imperial War Museum in London and Royal War Museum in Brussels, as well as the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ieper, Belgium. “It’s interesting to see the way people curate and choose to curate war and I would consider the Imperial War Museum in London as a glorification of war at some level,” Rothstein professed. “You enter and there’s big cannons outside of the museum and inside there’s all this expensive weaponry. However, the In Flanders Fields Museum [have] no weaponry, no miniature battle scenes— it’s much more about creating a human face on the war.” He added, “It’s interesting to see museums documenting these events. All have a different point of view about war—the way that it is curated and brought to the public.” Rothstein spent much time at the In Flanders Field Museum dissecting what was the relationship between history and himself as a spectator living today and how that was different in the In Flanders space compared to the other museums.
Rothstein went to the Western Front and to the actual site of “The Truce,” which took place in Belgium. He witnessed authentic documentation with postcards and letters. Rothstein also said that almost all of the quotes he used for this piece come from first hand sources in museums. The BBC in London did a huge series on interviewing survivors of WW1 where Rothstein was able to access the archives. The power of this piece lies within the communal experience of these people who witnessed this extraordinary event, The Truce of 1914, so Rothstein wanted to use around 30 characters to tell this story coming from a communal experience as opposed to a primary narrative voice.
The Big Question
Michael: For you, does this project sort of walk the talk with your stance on war?
Peter: It does, but also what is beautiful about this particular story is that America was not in the war yet. I love that there was not this good America, bad America—we weren’t part of the paradigm yet. It definitely takes an anti-war perspective but at the same time the heroes of this story are the military, the lowest of the rank. The beauty of the piece is that it makes the warriors the greatest advocates for peace—the men on the ground vs. the higher ranks of the army. These are the unheard voices in history books that called upon this truce. Make it about the voices of the soldiers, those that were of the working class, the young, they are the most profound. Don’t give the Kings sitting on a throne the last word. These soldiers achieved what the Pope could not, to not fight and share a Merry Christmas with one another instead.”
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All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914 will be presented as the first offering of St. Joan of Arc’s 2007-2008 Concert Series
Two performances will be presented: Sunday, December 23 Ticket Prices: $25 for adults, $10 for students
To order: Click TicketWorks or call 651-209-6689 |
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