Discussion about The Christmas Revels with Carol Langstaff and Carol [Orgaine]

When. There was a need to celebrate our lives and the heritage that we spring from. The Christmas Revels is that celebration performed by members of the community together with professionals to bring forth music and dance drama and ritual. That we often have in a school and become unaware of. The spirit that we want an audience to participate in. As a growing process from within the inhabitants of the production. Sharing the. Dance and. Sometimes biting quality is very important to awaken the. Performers. The life of the music and the material. The use of old and young friends and sometimes animals is a large part of the production of the Christmas

crafts. By lifting the spirit from the ancient material a care was brought into our lives ourselves and each other. Which projects out into the audience. The Christmas revels founded by John Lang step father of Carol do. One of the guest on this afternoon's programs. With Carole Dominik is Carole or green. We'll be talking about the process of. Performing the Christmas revels and the spring levels at three locations in Cambridge Massachusetts in Hanover New Hampshire and in New York. Nick begins by explaining how. The Christmas revels began. If you ask me what they are very original feeling of where it came from is actually a Christmas party that my grandparents have had in their house for years and years and years where they invite all their friends and that's a huge maybe two three hundred people come. And they have a big room with two pianos in one end and the family sort of get up by the pianos and we. Throughout the evening sing carols with the audience with

the guests that are there and then the family members who have a lot of them are quite musical. Would sort of perform little. You know. Little special carols I always remember the men going down into the floor below and carrying the boar's head up and you could hear the men singing from downstairs in the kitchen. This this sound as it came up the stairs. So even in my own family there was this elaborate sort of celebration around that time. The other thing I just realized is that both my father and I are born in December around Christmas the day before and maybe three days afterwards. And I I decided one day that it was just meant that we were to be very involved with the winter solstice time and with celebrating it. And it might have something to do with why we were born and the material that we are involved with these traditions from many different places predominantly British Isles although some years we go it didn't do a French one are we love to do a Russian one. That kind of thing. But at any rate when I was about 12 or 10 somewhere in there my

father did a rebel's type show in New York and it was called The Christmas mask and he I guess he probably put it on himself lost his shirt. It's one of those things where you had to pay 10 trumpeters and you only wanted three. Anyway it was great. It was wonderful and I was one of the kids in the crowd that sort of rushed on from behind the audience and sang on the stage as a bunch of little children's weights. And then I think the next thing that happened was in 1968 I believe we did it on television on NBC and that was kind of fun I remember we got Dustin Hoffman to play the dragon. He wasn't too great as a dragon but remember some smoke coming out of his feet as he stomped around. And I was probably about 16 or 15 then and I sang my dulcimer and played that and then. She I don't remember I guess it was 11 years ago in Cambridge I sort of come back from from New York City and my father said Look why don't you. You don't have anything to do

why don't you put on the rebels. And I thought well that that sounds good. And I started doing this thing and he said he'd help a little bit. And for some reason it just all worked it had a lot of positive force and energy behind it and. It got started with just friends you know literally people who I almost met on the street I'd say Can you play the part of a dragon or a horse or whatever is needed and we pulled the thing together with all sorts of crazy people and it worked beautifully. And then it just picked up from there and has grown ever since. Where will you perform the Revels this year. New York and Hanover will be the same weekend the weekend of the 11th 12th 13th and then a little while after that I guess it's the 17th of December it begins in Cambridge and of course they run for about I don't know eight performances to Tryon. Are they separate companies Carol or are they all the same people. Well grounded is the rebels is this this sort of unusual beast in that it has a combination of amateurs those who love to sing

and children and sometimes people who just enjoy doing the English traditional dance like a Mars team or whatever. And then there are professionals that come in. So it's this combination in each town or city community where we're doing it there's always the main group of the cast is the community people themselves. And then there's a sprinkling in of professionals that comes and they usually are. They travel around the different cities or whatever so that the casts are quite different. What are a few of the myths or legends that you're presenting in the Christmas revels Carol. There are many different cultures. I think that have. Some way or have had some way of celebrating this lack of light that comes in the dead of winter and then it turns and it changes and we do move into a time where the light comes back and that is right around Christmas I think around the 28 this when the light begins to really become stronger and there's

a sense of maybe relief that we might see spring again. So many of the myths and legends connect with that connect with. Perhaps a death ritual and a resurrection as in the Saint George and the dragon which we often have in the in the shell the mummers that go around doing that. Certainly one of the traditions or revels has become a song called Lord of the dance which has again that story you know if you cut me down and I leapt up high. So there are many different places within the the show and have been where this type of a legend is brought up. The but. The but.

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Question. Was. This year's Christmas Revels is devoted to music and legend three of the British Isles.

Yeah this is kind of a going back maybe to the original rebels concept where most of the material has come from from that area. We had hoped Interestingly enough this year we kind of were playing with the idea of having kind of an Irish rebels and we started into that and discovered that it's very difficult to find any material for this Irish rebels. Most of the songs in Ireland are about travelling the immigrating or love songs or battle songs and that really for the most part is what all of Irish music is made up of. Except for the wren which is a wonderful. Thing that's done on St. Stephen's Day that's the day after Christmas and I remember being over there doing it you you sort of dress up and blacken in your face always the the idea of the people who are doing the killing the death have to sort of come in disguise they are the village the people of the village and they just are representative so you mustn't really recognize people

individuals and you go from house to house and there's a little sort of bush of holiday which of course is significant and a ribbon they talk about hunting the rent the rent is the king of all birds. And we'd go to a house and knock on the door and sing this this funny little song. And then of course you ask for a little bit of money to help you on to go on and whatever. And we have the children that come out and do the Ren song which will play you a little up there. Like that. I think. It was. The. Last. Thing. I. Saw.

Since we didn't find much Irish music except for the wren here and of course we do have a wonderful Irish Kaley band that will come and play for us so that's wonderful their instrumental music and their tunes are just the most exciting things I think I've ever heard. Really the Irish instrumental music is fantastic. But we found some wonderful things from all the over the place nearby from Scotland we're going to have some bag there kind of bagpipes. They're actually from the wonderful was Worcester Kilty band. They will come up and play wonderful process procession piece and they'll play the Gay Gordons and will dance that which has a wonderful sort of Scottish. Quality about it and then we've gone to the Isle of Man where we found a

dirk dance which is a very interesting old dance it's done for the king Sometimes I think it was done by the prince actually and Dirk of course is a dagger. It's a rather mysterious dance a solo thing that's performed and we've gotten to see where else your lullaby. That's right there's a Hebridean lullaby which is a piece I love there too to carols that always interest me. One of the cherry tree Carol which we've done before which talks about Joseph getting angry when he finds out Mary is pregnant and I've always thought that's a wonderful folk rendition of the story where they take a Bible story and make it very real very idealised into what what their life is like instead of sort of just a fantasy legend. And this other Carol the Christ child followed by also has an element of that it talks about Mary talks about the scandal and the the sort

of gossip that went on because of her situation. And I think those are quite wonderful that the real real people sort of cares that are put in the song so that's from the Hebrides. And where else have we got to. There's a great lost sale we found from Cornish in England which is a nice nice one sailor somebody wassail songs we often pick new and different ones and this one's particularly nice and green growth the holly of course is a tune that Henry the Eighth supposedly wrote. So there there are many pieces really from from all over the British Isles. So the shortest day came in the year. And everywhere in the centuries of the Snow White came people singing dancing. To drive the dark the way.

They lighted candles in the winter trees. They hung their homes with evergreen. They burned the sieging fires all night long to keep the year alive. And when the new day's sunshine blazed away. They shouted. Rivoli. Rule across the ages you can hear them. Echoing behind this. The longer it goes seeing the same delight this shortest promise weakens in the sleeping land. They Carol give thanks. And dearly love their friend. And hope. Peace. So do we here this year and every year.

Well you know now the visual part of the rebels is to me a very exciting thing also we have a girl named Rainn Miller who helps us on the costumes and has been with us all along and she has an extraordinary talent of making painting the most wonderful rich gorgeous sort of Christmas colors and festival feeling on the stage through the costumes it's just remarkable and we started out sort of you know thrift shop curtains we make into costumes and she's got quite the knack for that. I forgot there's a wonderful thing that we're doing from Wales. There's a a legend about the Mary Hewitt and that is the gray Mary. It's translated and it's a tradition of a horse a white hobby horse. It's actually a horse's skull. That of course has a knob up there sort of on your forehead between the eyes is where this would be. And this horse still goes from house to house as as members do visiting. And

when it comes to the house is a great to do when they don't let it in they lock the door and there's a scene of riddles that are passed back and forth and this day in age they become quite bawdy. But at any rate this goes back and forth and finally they let the horse in and the horse is quite a sort of frightening figure it has these teeth that clamor and rattle at you when you carry on and Susan Cooper who of course is from Wales has written a lovely little story around this figure that we have this legend so there's a little play that's within the rebels about this figure and Mary who it is is a fascinating and there's a song that they sing wonderful sort of primitive whining kind of peace that goes around with a horse that the players use when they go to each house. So that's another legend that will be in this year's rolls. And we have the Vermont Philharmonic brass quintet part of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. It's going to come down and join us.

I'm talking with Carol Dominik and Carol or again the director and producer of the Christmas revels the Christmas revels will be performing in three locations in New England in Hanover New Hampshire in New York City and in Cambridge Massachusetts. The first we're going to open Friday night the 11th at 8:00 o'clock and then we'll have two performances on Saturday matinee at 2 in an evening performance at 8:00 and then on

Sunday the 12th we will also have two performances to an eight and I might say something with tickets. Don't don't be dismayed by there are going to be five performances as I mentioned. I know quite a few times we've sold out by this time. And I think it's worth making a call now we're going to the box office the box office numbers 6 in 3 6 4 6 2 4 2 2. The very favorite part for me I think in the Raffles Carol is the part where you invite everyone to get up and dance and of the first act or more the intermission Yeah. What about that Lord Of The Dance what's behind that. Well the tune of course is the tune of simple gifts to be simple tis a gift to be free. But most people know Aaron Copeland used it and Sidney Carter took that and wrote the words of Lord of the dance. And then I worked with two other fine Maurice dancers Jonathan

Morse and shag Gretz in Cambridge years ago and we choreographed traditional Mar steps to that tune and that that song and the steps in my mind connect up very much with what the words are about. So that's that's kind of an exciting typical rebels thing where we've taken a very traditional idea and elaborated on it and combined and brought in traditional dance steps and into it. And that is it does have a wonderful sort of driving pulse and inviting feeling that the audience just what's the style is right up until about the story the story of it. Well let's hear it let's hear it and that's a great idea. Long long. Long.

Long. History. And then wouldn't be James on the dimes. Long. Long. Long. Long. Long long time like clothes so that it was on this trip that have. Long. Long. Long. Long. Long long long long time here in the sky with the devil on your back.

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My. Yes. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. Lord Of The Dance to the old Shaker tune Simple Gifts and that's

ending. The first part of Christmas revels production the refrain continues as the cast and the audience sing together and dance out of the theater in a long line Carol Dominik and Carol or again the producer and director of the Christmas revels are talking about the pageantry and the sets and the costumes and the music that they'll include in their British Isles Christmas revels. Carol and Carol have both performed in the Christmas revels performances. Carol what of what have you done in the Christmas revels. Well I have never participated on stage too much or sung to much but I really I remember seeing the country rebels once in Strafford and there were all my friends dancing up the green up into the beautiful meeting house there. And I wept with joy. It was such fun to see all my friends dancing and I wanted to be one of them so I did audition one year it happened to be the year it was a Victorian thing. And I auditioned to be in the chorus and I assumed that would be singing and dancing but with rebels you're never quite

sure I've learned over the years what you're going to become and I remember distinctly for the Victorian rebels the grain Miller whom we talked about earlier. It is incredible with costume she actually rented and had many museums donate original costumes for us all to wear and I had this beautiful Victorian lady's dress and there was a dramatic piece that year it was a ghost story and Carol's decided that the ghost should be female and I'm quite tall so it was appropriate that I would kind of whisper my way with this white ghost costume and then they decided I was too short. So they got one of the children a boy named Jamie Dicus who's about seven years old and I had him on my show last. Fall. So we were two people ghost. I've been an animal in the past sort of running across the stage and I will never forget one year and we've done a couple times the 12 Days of Christmas. And then I think I was a lady milking a swan a swimming I'm never sure what you. Been many things. So you don't just audition to dance and sing you never know quite what you're going to

do. Do a lot of that pulls together the last week because we get on stage and it's very exciting how it pulls together and I think because it posed together so gradually naturally people feel very at ease on stage and it's fun and everybody contributes to the creation of the show and that's what makes it easy to be up there. Many people have stories or particular songs that they think that fit. You listen to them enough to know that they're going to know the programs pretty decided yeah program is pretty so you might be cast at the last minute to stand in a certain place and do a jig right now that I haven't thought of who should be the unicorn they slip in under that or whatever. I find it interesting what you were saying about the confidence on the stage because I know sometimes friends in Cambridge they've used very much the same cast keeps coming back. And we do we seem to have a nice turnover and I think that turnover is quite important because I think if you're in the rebels again and again you become kind of relaxed and you think well this is very easy and I'm just kind of go out there and do it and there's nothing like the people

that are in it for the first time that are definitely feeling a bit frayed and nervous because it doesn't come together till the last minute. And so they're quite alert and quite ready and really on their toes to perform and when they get out there there is this freshness that's just very special that I love and I love the sort of nervousness that they get not quite knowing if it's all going to come together but there but it does and then their their involvement is just it's just wonderful. That last sort of dress rehearsal when it all just becomes a picture and a whole. When you audition people what do you look for. I mean people are listening now and they want to be in the room next year and you know be today be able to sing and know how to can write you know definitely have to read music you know that is an important they have to sing well. Project. And then each year depending on what revels it is I really do look for a type of person I like a real cross-section the most motley

looking crowd I can ever get is really what I go for. And I I'm always having sort of a bevy of beautiful women that come in and I can only take just so many beautiful women. Like you ugly ones it's very important. And I also feel that old tradition of somebody who's handicapped maybe yours or whatever if they're in the show. In the old miracle plays and morality plays they always had this and of course then the people in the audience would have some of that they were some kind of luck that that brought anyone that came to the show that was sick or handicapped. You see if there's someone like that on the stage. So I quite like that I don't think we have anyone in this New York as a blind person and I don't do this is a poor man with a wooden leg and I always try to ask him to dance and he has a little trouble but it is that's an element that I very much like in the rebels too. The other thing I love to do is to bring in some animal on the stage I think that's a very a real animal. And I think it's very important for the tradition in the feeling of keeping life sort of alive and in a soul.

And when you're I brought my pet chicken and Queenie the poor chicken just hated it. I don't think she will eat another. I've always wanted to bring a doggie and I don't know how Hawking Center feels about that but maybe someday. How much work goes into this do you work on it all year long. You work I want as little dribbles of work that can go on all year long and certainly my mind is always thinking of new material I'm always thinking of spring rebels now but I'm working on this one. And Carol you say there's always little things you have to do throughout the year keep in mind. Well my role is actually producer I'm not involved in choosing the material. I just have to keep on top of a lot of the business that goes on behind the scenes and publish city and and taking care of all the professionals in the chorus and get in the program and all the information I'm a liaison between Cambridge and Hanover on the business side of it pretty much and then the fun of being involved in in watching the show be created and it's fun and this year I'm lucky enough to be in the chorus as well last year when I produced a show I wasn't as it turns out I

broke my foot so I couldn't dance anyway. But when you sent him home you were all they sort of you know helped home last year. That's right and I really enjoyed that it was very appropriate cause the role called for kind of a decrepit. I mean and I walked out with my cast and came and it was a beautiful poem with us and yes I was absolutely right. So we did and somebody. Friday.

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Traditional music from the British Isles. This year's Christmas revels will feature music and pageantry and folklore from the British Isles. We heard selections also from the Sanders Theatre recording at Harvard University's Memorial Hall with the Christmas revels. Carole what other groups will be performing with the Christmas revels this year and this year's mummers play is the straw boys which is a wonderful tradition from a certain part of England where they're dressed in straw and it's a very short much more ritual rendition of the members play than all the sort of fault or all with the doctor coming in and not curing and all that business. What are some of the names of the other groups Carol. Well the sort said it's a local people but their name is the weather and see sort sit and they'll be dancing the Abbots Bromley which we heard in the beginning of the show and also the ritualistic dance at the end of the straw boys members play then the

mummers who are going to be doing the strawberries play come from the Montpelier area. And their names the names they've chosen is the Pekin book geysers and the geyser has nothing to do with the water geyser but geyser as in disguise and Chabon who's from a peeler will be doing quite a bit of this year's revels and he's directing the members play this year from up there right ahead has played the fool in the past and he has a magic quality. It's just remarkable he's really holds that sort of a pin in me. Sense of revels in him and he will be actually we won't see his face very much because he will be the marital wid this skeleton hobby horse which is very magic role. When Morris dancing to the hobby horse is very right. Right now there is like no other in the same kind of hobby horse in a sense I mean it's represented another hobby horse is in is also in that Abbots Bromley horn dance and there's four supernumerary figures in that of course that's the dance that has these

antlers that they hold over their heads which is still danced in England in Abbot's Bromley and of course the horns are kept in the church where they try and keep a handle on these pagan activities and I guess they feel if these horns are left in the church that makes it alright to do it. And there's the man woman and then there's the fool and the hobbyhorse and then the little boy hunter in that horn dance that are all represented of a very old feeling coming into that. Well we'll have Robin Howard from New York City who's this marvelous woman actress who spent a lot of her life traveling a great deal and collecting music and she's very familiar with Irish music in particular. And she's going to be doing the story as well as some other of the dramatic strike. Strike the gong of our song till souls take fire clap hands and bellow down its sleeve higher and longer and hug each

with your fellow with the windows raise the shout hang all how long is it. Bring every stranger and call for the lights and sing for them to you this day is born a king. Robin Howard with nativity from the Christmas revels recording that we've been listening to in this last hour and talking about the pageantry music costumes and dance of this year's Christmas revels with Carol Dominik and Carol again. How many people will be involved this year Carol. How many people are involved with the projects. About 70 to 75 when you count the kids and the sword dancers in the chorus and the visiting professionals I think easily 70 75 you know quite a bit not to mention all the tech crew which is I was slightly bigger about a hundred people sure. And you had people make the costumes for you. All of those hours go into it right. That's a lot of people donate their time the enthusiasm behind people who've been involved

is incredible. We have the biggest stage crew ever just people coming out of the woodwork that want to help. You set the stage. Yeah. What's the state going to look like this year and what's happening with the pageantry to the second part of it. Well at the beginning of this year's Revels is more traditions that are celebrated today I would say still in the British Isles and then towards the end of Act 1 we begin to lean back further into history and act in the beginning of Act 2 is really going quite quite into the more pagan older styles of things and I think that the audience up here now is really ready for this. Sometimes these things seem a bit weird or odd but this is really where our roots come from and even if someone isn't familiar with the material I think there's a part of all of us that it rings a chord somewhere in there. And the other wonderful thing about this year is we're going

back to using just trees on the stage and bringing in this green in this actual smell of the Evergreen the whole house is decorated too in this way I think is is the ultimate rebel set. I think it's really he's very very very much a part of the way a rebel should be as opposed to building a huge structure or whatever. But you spoke about the special feeling of coming into a clearing in a month was one of the feelings he went and wanted to get. Yeah. And we have some sound some wonderful gnarled old sumac trees that just carry that feeling of ancientness in them. And of course nowadays there is a big trend in real stage sets in New York this is the thing for a long time we wouldn't even if we had a little cabin to build we'd build a real wall instead of stretching your muslin and painting it up and rebels has always been very slanted towards doing this and a lot of people say oh my gosh this is so heavy Why are you bothering. But it's a chorus and it's been turned around now in all the Broadway people now are into this real

real isn't even on the stage it's kind of fascinating. I think people need to go back to that. As a matter fact were imp exporting some Vermont trees for the Cambridge and New York right. Right so we go to the woods were getting collecting trees for the three cities I feel the cities need those trees down there. I'm wondering about the pagan rituals that you were talking about in the second half. What kind of what kind of things are these new special dances that we use. Well some of them I mean I have talked about them it just happens that they're sort of collected in that part of the program at the very beginning. For instance the calling from the woods of these horns kudu horns which are actual sort of explaining that my hands ripple looking horns sort of you know wrinkled ever and conch shells they will be sounding in the theater to begin with out of a dark dark kind of glowing and then the Mary Wood will actually appear in sort of a ghost like way

you know out of the show and abbots Bromley horn dance which of course is a primitive feeling of the hunt coming coming back and being reenacted. So those some of those are the earlier pagan rituals that will be used. The Christmas will be produced in three cities and University of New York where a New York City. A new theater that's kind of open called Symphony Space which is nice up there in the neighborhood and Broadway 96. And that opens on Thursday December 10th and runs through Saturday. And then Cambridge our show of course is that weekend to December 11th 12th 13th. And. 11th. And then Cambridge is the last so they start the 17th of December and they go at Sanders Theater. They go right up till just before Christmas.

Thank you Carol and Carol or Again my producer and director of. The Christmas raffles for information about the Christmas revels at Hopkins Center call 6 0 3 6 4 6 2 4. 2 2. I'm Frank Cox. With. Regard. To. The law of.

God.