By Katherine Beeson
While many holiday theaters are filled with traditional productions featuring Santa, elves, reindeers and even a Tim who is Tiny, Vanguard Productions is presenting the Milwaukee premiere of a moving and simply wonderful story, “All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914.” The director is Joshua Pohja and musical director is Adam Qutaishat.
Based on a true story, “All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914” depicts the coming together of Allied and German troops who decide to lay down their weapons and celebrate the birth of Jesus together. They see each other not as the enemy, but as men “here because we’re here” and form a strong, albeit brief, bond during that holy time in 1914.
This show has an ethereal, haunting quality that truly stirs the soul. The men take turns reciting letters to home, reports to military commanders and diary descriptions of their experiences. This show truly captures a small, yet significant slice of time overlooked inmost history books.
As the men raise their cups and their celebration goes on, they suddenly hear someone in the distance singing the French translation of “Oh Holy Night” (Minuit Chrétien) in tones so clear and pure that the men can do nothing but stop to listen. Tomás Dominguez literally gave me goosebumps with his rendition.
The show is an ensemble presentation and all the men were wonderful. Lighting design by AntiShadows, LLC, contributes much to the overall effect of the show.
If you go to see “All is Calm,” I advise two things. First, come early to hear one of the actors give a pre-show speech that provides the audience with background on the production and general WWI wartime experiences. He will take questions from the audience. I do not know when this speech begins – we arrived about 20 minutes before show time and he was already speaking. The second is to sit as close to the stage as possible. The church’s acoustics coupled with the fact that no microphones are used (and the actors are using accents) makes it a bit hard to understand a lot of what is said. The facial expressions and general tones help, but I felt I missed a bit due to this.
“All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914” runs through Dec. 10 at Calvary Presbyterian Church, 935 W. Wisconsin Ave.