Christmas is a season laden with memories, packed with evocative images, and stuffed with celebration. The season is a virtual trove of customs and rituals, some very public and some deeply personal, that we re-visit year after year. With themes ranging from “Peace on Earth” to “Hurry while supplies last”, it is a season that appeals to a broad array of human impulses — some spiritual and some material. But above all, it is a season.
In the German-speaking countries of central Europe, this sense of season runs very deep. The celebration of the Yule begins in November as the days grow very short and it runs through the Solstice and into the new year. The grand experience of the season is the sum of a number of smaller occasions. Each new observance, usually centered on a feast day, adds to the complexity and nuance of the season as a whole. In this Revels, we begin with lantern processionals on the November feast of St. Martin and trace the merrymaking all the way through the arrival of the New Year. Advent, and the symbolism of the Advent wreath give structure to the weeks preceding Christmas Day. St. Nickolaus is celebrated on his own feast day, which recognizes the good deeds of well-behaved children. Christmas itself is observed with the presentation of the highly decorated Tannenbaum and the singing of splendid carols. Finally we mark the turning of the year with timeless alpine rituals and a mummers’ play with a Teutonic twist. Along the way, we experience the panoply of German celebration from rustic shoe slapping dances to polyphonic chorales, from the haunting call of the Alphorn to the exalted melodies of Europe’s most renowned composers.
Much of what you will experience in this performance will seem quite familiar, albeit in a language you may not quite understand. That is because so much of modern American Christmas ritual can trace its parentage back to traditions deeply rooted in German culture. Think of the Christmas tree in your front window, or the carols you might sing before the fireplace, or even the children’s eager anticipation of the arrival of Saint Nick. The yuletide customs of Germany have informed our own.
Picture now the early 19th century in the regions surrounding old Bavaria. The shortest day has come, snow lies crisply underfoot and through the crystalline night air, we hear the joyous shout — Fröhliche Weihnachten!
— David Parr, Artistic Director

The Program

The King and the Fool, as this show is known, is an allegory set in the palace of a medieval English King. The jolly seasonal festivities are interrupted by the arrival of a mysterious guest, the Black Knight, with whom the King must do single combat. After handing over his badge of office to his Fool, the King confronts the Knight and is vanquished. A long season of darkness ensues, only to be lifted by the chanting of the children as they celebrate the Yuletide turning of the seasons. The King returns, order is restored and the Mummers enter to delight the crowd with the story of St. George and the Dragon.

This show was a revival of a production we first presented in 1995. It had several significant differences, most notably the framing device of a storybook being read to a group of Victorian children which contained the narrative of the plot line. Several songs were replaced with new arrangements by Shira Kammen. There was a hapless Dragon who made repeated false entrances at the enthusiastic behest of one of the children, and a sixteen foot tall Black Knight Puppet, created by Annie Hallet. Geoff Hoyle reprized his role of The Fool, including his famous Dance of Death, performed with an animated skeleton. David Parr was the King. Other featured performers included Chris Caswell and Shira Kammen.

The Program

Song Lyrics

Director's Note

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw a tremendous revival of interest in English folklore. “Songcatchers” such as Cecil Sharpe wandered the English and even Appalachian countryside, recording songs, stories dances and folk customs in as “pure” a form as they could find. In this show, we follow an imaginary songcatcher, S. Allgood, as he encounters the people of rural England and attempts to document their customs before they vanish forever.

Among many striking moments in this show were Wendell Brook's rendition of a very somber Kentish John Barleycorn and the hypnotic arrangement of Nottamun Town created by Shira Kammen. Bobby Wineapple portrayed the bespectacled Samuel Allgood, and Geoff Hoyle was nearly everybody else, turning in hilarious characterizations of an elderly country Parson, A wiley Innkeeper, A dour Lowland Scot, a music hall comedian, and even a truculent old woman whose pig won't go over the stile. Other high points in this production were an enactment of the children's story, The Buried Moon, narrated by Jan Hetherington, and much dancing featuring luminaries from throughout the Bay Area English traditional dance community.

Director's Note

The Program

The setting for this Revels was the town of Trois Rivieres during the era of the voyageurs. The French Canadian folk story of the Chasse Gallerie or flying canoe propelled the action. In a story more familiar to American audiences as The Devil and Daniel Webster, Satan tempts a group of lonely fur trappers with the promise of a return home in time for the New Year's festivities,but demands their mortal souls as payment. The return is made by means of a magical flying canoe, but when the devil attempts to collect, he is challenged to a clog dancing contest in which he is badly over-matched by the local champion. A mummer-like folk play in which a Loup Garou or werewolf substituted for the dragon rounded out the festivities.

Pierre Chartrand from Quebec, Canada was the featured guest performer. His brilliant clogging was pitted against the considerable skills of the Devil, played by Kalia Kliban. Audiences were taken by the gloriously rousing chorales sung in Quebecios French, and greatly amused by the flying canoe sequence, enacted by a variety of puppets. There was a children's story, The Handsome Stranger, featuring James Galileo, which echoed the larger theme of outwitting the Devil. This show, created by Revels in Cambridge MA, has played in numerous Revels cities and is a popular favorite.

Director's Note

This was our 20th anniversary production and so we decided to return to our California Revels roots by revisiting our inaugural show. It is a production that rests more on the stories told by a place than on conventional narration. Like the earlier version of this show, we presented an eclectic mixture of songs and dances that might have occurred within the confines of the Haddon Hall estate over the course of centuries.

Ensemble Alcatraz was the featured performing group, and lead singer Susan Rode Morris was a dazzling soloist throughout the show. Highlights included a rousing calendar counting Dilly song, and a John Barleycorn that featured the children's chorus as a waving field of grain - both arranged by Shira Kammen. The children brought down the house with their energetic rendition of The Twelve days of Christmas. Callie Floor's sumptuous costuming rendered the show in deep jewel tones, and her transformative dragon outfit for the story of The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh can still be viewed at the California Revels booth whenever we appear at a festival or Street Fair.

Director's Note

Show Poster

The Program

It had been twelve years since we performed a Christmas Revels located in Scotland. This time we chose an 18th century setting and although the show, like its 1992 predecessor was in the musical pastiche style, many of the songs were different. For instance, the second act opened with a lovely additive waltz number danced to the tune Dark Isle. This very traditional-sounding song, played in our performance by twenty members of the San Francisco Scottish Fiddlers, is actually a piece composed in the early 1960's by Ian McLachan. It has become a standard of the Scottish traditional repertoire and serves to illustrate how the notion of tradition is a dynamic one, and is constantly evolving.

Kevin Carr returned to Revels for this show, playing fiddle, pipe, whistle, and telling stories. He was joined by Susan Rode Morris on lead vocals, Shira Kammen on fiddle and Chris Caswell, who basically picked up and played any instrument that Kevin set down. The Piedmont Highland Dancers garnered much enthusiastic applause for their flinging and step dancing. The chorus joined with Susan Rode Morris on Rorate and the stirring Caw The Yaws, which have become staples of the Solstice Ensemble's repertoire. Bobby Weinapple delivered a sterling recitation of Robert Burns' To A Haggis, and Kevin Carr and the children's chorus enacted the legend of the Giant with the Golden Hair. A strange, but thoroughly Scottish Galoshin's Mummers play rounded out the festivities.

This was to be, sadly, the last opportunity to hear our beloved founder, Lisby Mayer perform her annual recitation of The Shortest Day, as she passed away on the following New Year's Day.

Director's Note

The Program

One of the most visually opulent and complex productions ever undertaken by California Revels was the 2003 Elizabethan show. Shakespearean comedian Will Kemp's self-promoting “Nine Day's Wonders” served as the basis for the action. In this broadside, Kemp documents how he won a bet by Morris dancing all the way from London to Norwich in just nine days. We shifted Kemp's calendar a bit to the Yuletide season and had him arriving in Norwich just in time to encounter Queen Elizabeth as her court made its progress through that region. A subplot involving mild chicanery by a humorless Master of Revels, a mummers play, mirrored in the second act by an elaborate court masque, and lots of music and dance - both courtly and country - made for a lavish spectacle.

Geoff Hoyle played the role of Kemp, and brought down the house in the climax of the masque as he stitched together a comic quilt of Shakespearean death lines. Bobby Weinapple was his nemesis as the Master of Revels, and Andrew Hurteau shone, both as the befuddled master of the West Haddock Mummers, and as the hero in the court masque. Our Queen Elizabeth was the splendid Deborah Doyle, renowned for the playing the role in numerous Renaissance Faires. Among the musical and dance highlights of the production were Buffins, danced by our teen girls, a grand Morris processional, and a lovely ensemble arrangement of One Yeir Begins sung by Jenny Jackson, Jonathon Moon and Bobby Weinapple, with lutenist Yair Evnine accompanying.

Rehearsing with Geoff Hoyle

Director's Note