Peace on earth: One can only hope. Perhaps peace, like love, mostly comes in small fragments.
One of those frequently evanescent fragments happened in World War I over Christmas of 1914. I suspect American memories have forgotten, if they ever fully grasped, the awfulness of that war, how it scarred the European psyche and sowed the seeds for another one scarcely 20 years later. But at several places along the Western Front, where each side dug deep fortified trenches and strung barbed wire, soldiers simply stopped fighting and began some cautious fraternizing over the holiday.
That's the story of All Is Calm:The Christmas Truce of 1914, from Mustard Seed Theatre. What a topic on which to base a musical, yes – but it works. The all-male cast sings far more than they speak, all the work acapella, which is to say no instruments. The words are taken from letters and memoirs of the soldiers and officers that were there, and not just those whose mother tongue was English. The music, too, is traditional, ranging from popular songs of the period to folk airs to Christmas carols.
There are no lead roles; the work is shared equally among the cast of Charlie Barron, Shawn Bowers, J Samuel Davis, Gary Glasgow, Christopher Hickey, Jason Meyers, Antonio Rodriguez, Tim Schall, Luke Steingruby and Jeffrey Wright. The ensemble works well enough at times to raise hairs on necks. Effective lighting from Michael Sullivan and yeoman work from dialect coach Richard Lewis to create a variety of British accents as well as French and German ones.
Not your usual holiday musical but a thoughtful one.
All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914
Mustarde Seed Theatre
Fontbonne University Black Box Theatre
through November 24, 2013