By Lizzy Scully
Berthoud Recorder

As part of the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s family holiday tradition, Director Philip Sneed and the Foothills Theatre Company have brought an adaptation of Dylan Thomas’ “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” to the University of Colorado’s University Theatre stage.

“Unfortunately, Shakespeare did not leave us with a Christmas play,” Sneed wrote in the editorial for the playbill. So, the company chose to start its new winter programming in 2007 with a “20th century classic.”

The original story is a series of vignettes about various holiday season traditions, from wandering the neighborhood singing Christmas carols to exchanging presents, and is told from the perspective of the “Boy,” played by the charming and talented Orion Pilger. The play is somewhat disjointed, reflecting the memory of the Boy, but there is much boyish charm to the haphazard storyline. For example, in a scene recalled by adult narrators, the Boy and his best friend, played by Cambria Pilger, pretend to be hunters as they throw snowballs at cats, but then are quickly whisked into a new adventure when Mrs. Prothero’s dinner catches on fire and the firemen drench her house with water.

Narrator 1: Jim and I, fur-capped and moccasined trappers from Hudson Bay…
Narrator 4: Off Mumbles Road…
Narrator 1: Would hurl our deadly snowballs at the green of their eyes … We were so still, Eskimo-footed arctic marksmen in the muffling silence of the eternal snows…
Narrator 4: Eternal, ever since Wednesday … We never heard Mrs. Prothero’s first cry from her igloo at the bottom of the garden …

Whether or not you follow the sometimes complex and poetic narrative — Thomas was an avid poet, and the dialogue is not straightforward — it’s easy to understand the gist of each of the vignettes. In the snowball scene, the boys run excitedly around the stage, dressed in boots and heavy jackets, carrying glittery snowballs as fake snow falls gently in the background. Even without narrative, the activity of the scene would elicit memories of mischievous childhood behavior and excursions into a snow-filled world. And, as with each scene, the Boy is always accompanied by an active cast of five other actors, who alternate between being props (sometimes live props such as a dog), making sounds (such as the ocean and wind), and playing different characters related to the Boy, such as the “Uncles” or “Aunts.”

According to Sneed, the performance came together after much trial and error. “Some sections wanted to be shown (acted out), while others needed simply to be told, using Thomas’ beautiful text to evoke our own memories,” he wrote. “Our rehearsal process was one of trial and error, using standard improvisational techniques as well as our own invented methods.”

The resulting musical performance is delightful and perfect for children and adults alike. For more information, visit: www.coloradoshakes.org or call (303) 443-0600.