The Nutcracker, A Christmas Carol, A Charlie Brown Christmas and Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas! are staples of seasonal entertainment, festive, fun-filled live shows where everyone in the end learns the true meaning of Christmas.
Truce: A Christmas Wish from the Great War is a different kind of holiday production that looks at peace on Christmas in a highly unlikely place. The play, produced by City Lights Theater Company, previews Nov. 29, as a pay-what-you-can show, followed by a second preview at 2pm on Nov. 30 before opening that evening.
Originally directed by writers Kit Wilder and Jeffrey Bracco in 2014 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the “Christmas Truce,” the play is a dramatized retelling of the story of when enemy troops called a temporary ceasefire as a gesture of goodwill on Christmas Eve during WWI, then the bloodiest conflict in history, which killed 15 million people.
“It’s spoken quite a bit in the play that they all thought they would be home by Christmas,” says director Angie Higgins. “Of course, that didn’t happen. This play focuses on the letters the troops are writing home to their families, which is really what brings them together. That commonality of wishing they were home. Most war stories focus on the horror of war, and this script really focuses on humanity and what we have in common.”
In the summer of 1914, Germany invaded France and Belgium. The British were sent to the Western Front to help the allies fight the Germans. On Christmas Eve in Ploegsteert, Belgium, German soldiers lined their trenches with lit candles and Christmas trees, and began singing Christmas carols. Less than 30 yards away, soldiers in the British trenches began singing their own carols.
On Christmas Day, the two troops asked for a truce until midnight and exchanged items like food, liquor and cigarettes. They wished each other a Merry Christmas, took photographs and even played soccer. There’s a memorial to the truce in Belgium where visitors leave soccer balls, as well as a bronze sculpture of two soldiers reaching out to shake hands.
Though historians argue that some of the event’s details have been embellished or fictionalized, the story was printed in newspapers. Over the years, it’s inspired an opera, pop songs, TV movies and even a Dr. Who episode. The French movie Joyeux Noel was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2005, and in 2014, Sainsbury’s, the chain of U.K. markets, aired a holiday ad, also marking the truce’s centennial.
In Higgins’ current staging, a new cast of 17 actors play soldiers, generals, nurses and family members. But the principal characters are Tommy and Georg (Eddie Zhang and Myles Rowland), who portray British and German soldiers, respectively. The plot follows their journey to battle and correspondence with families, and how they grapple with the morality of war.
“The heart of the story is these two soldiers who are fighting on different sides,” says Higgins. “They kind of represent the head and the heart in the situation, or the poet and the patriot. That would be my own personal subtitle for the play. It brings out all of the things that a soldier could be going through emotionally. And we get that inside view into their letters. This outcry to the families and that desire to be with their families and to just lay down their arms. It embodies that absence that they’re feeling, but also the love that they feel and that connection with home. That’s truly what drives them.”
The play will have screens that show documents and historic photographs, in addition to an original soundscape by composer George Psarras combined with period music and Christmas carols.
The Santa Clara Chorale will give a performance on opening night, which was pushed to Nov. 30 due to illness in the cast. Higgins and the cast will host a post-show discussion on Dec. 15, and History San Jose will curate a display on Dec. 19 at the theater that explores how WWI affected San Jose.
“It’s a story of hope,” Higgins says. “I want people to leave the play with a sense of hope that, despite our differences, we can come together. But really, it’s also a call to action. When we find ourselves and the world around us in the darkest of circumstances, it is up to us to be a beacon of light. It is up to us to choose love over hate.”
Truce: A Christmas Wish from the Great War runs Nov. 30–Dec. 22 at City Lights Theater Company in San Jose, with a pay-what-you-can preview on Nov. 29. cltc.org
