Immediately following the gastronomical excesses of Thanksgiving are the monetary investments and personal sacrifices we make for Christmas.  At the heart of both is family and the importance we place in coming together to sustain and strengthen seminal bonds. 

In 1931, a 34-year-old college professor at the University of Chicago took the long view of these ritual gatherings and focused on what they look and feel like over time.  In his beautifully crafted one act play, The Long Christmas Dinner, Thornton Wilder also manages to deliver an incisive and sobering treatise on time and its fleeting fragility.  What he does so exquisitely in the 26 pages of his script is to point us in the direction of using that time most fully and appreciatively.  Chicago’s TUTA Theatre, who “searches for the unique and exceptional in the language of theatre”, has generously brought this rarely produced treasure to the stage at the sparkling new Bramble Arts Loft in Andersonville for the Christmas season.

Wilder has the prosperous Bayard family act as proxies for all families and takes us with him as he visits them experiencing Christmas dinners that span the course of 90 years and four generations.  He pays close attention to how the family interacts and the way they voice convictions, concerns and priorities.  In many ways, perhaps in all ways, they’re a very typical and intrinsically familiar family.  That notion becomes more and more entrenched as the play progresses.  When it opens, Lucia (Alexis Primus) is about to welcome her mother-in-law, Mother Bayard (Joan Merlo), to the dinner table of her new home.  Her husband, Roderick (Matt Miles) leads the family firm and is the classic head of the house as seen in the era.  Proud of his wife, his mother and his success, he glows with the light of the supremely satisfied.   Although wheelchair bound, Mother Bayard’s vibrant mind and observant eye reveal a robust inner vitality.  It’s her penchant for too frequently repeating how clearly she remembers seeing Indians in the streets during her youth and riding rafts across the Mississippi that hint at the creeping cognitive malaise common found in the aging.

Although rather formal by today’s standards, you can still easily recognize that beneath the rituals of decorum the family practices in their interactions that there is a true closeness of hearts. You feel how sacrosanct kinship is to them. Still, the circle of life encompasses families just as it does individuals.  We are born and we die.  And it’s the way that The Long Christmas Dinner treats these events that make us evaluate ourselves and our relationships with our own families.

The entire play occurs around a stately dining table in the middle of the stage.  Laden with gleaming silverware and China, the luxurious Oriental carpet it rests on and the elegant linear chandelier floating above it are the few things that will remain unchanged.  Two dimly lit doorways, one on the left and the other on the right of the stage, represent the ending and beginning of life, respectively.  Keith Parham’s quietly graceful set surreptitiously becomes its own character.   Stoic and impassive as it witnesses transitions through each doorway.   His lighting design would go on to memorably propel and enhance the dramatic impact of the play. 

Watching the arch of Uncle Branden’s presence was particularly impactful. Full of life, song and playful mischief, he was such a bright light when he first came to dinner.  Assuredly played by Wain Parham, he began to change when Roderick, his cousin, fell victim to his excesses in drink.  Branden’s silence began to grow when Roderick later passed through the doorway symbolizing death.  As he watched Roderick and Lucia’s children, Charles (Huy Nguyen) and Genevieve (Charlie Irving) grow, his warmth remained, but his effervescence and spontaneity notably faded until he too slowly drifted through the portal on the left.

As new generations of Bayard’s are born, explosions of joy and happiness are plentiful on the right where nurses dressed in immaculate white emerge through the passageway cradling babies who soon grow to teenagers and adults.   Often bearing the names of those who proceeded them, old names become new again and we can’t avoid noticing the cyclicality of existence.  Rather than a crown denoting succession, among the Bayard women a shawl becomes the item that chronicles the passage and toll of time.  Used to keep aging shoulders warm, it symbolizes both the inevitable and the blessing of continuity.   That same continuity can be heard when certain random phrases and observations are made by each successive generation that none had heard spoken before by someone else in the family.

Rifts, discord and the realities of life erupt in this very respectable family as they can and do in all.  Stifled by family expectations and the limitations of living in a small town, Charles’ son, Roderick II (Matt Miles) bolts to California when confronted about his drinking and lack of interest in familial responsibilities.  Charles and his wife Leonora (Seoyoung Park) had already lost a son during the first World War and their second son’s departure marked a crippling blow.  As we’re reminded by numerous characters throughout the play, time may not heal grief, but it soothes sufficiently to ease its pain and weight.  When Joan Merlo reappears as distant cousin, Ermengarde, that kind of wisdom flows with the power of rushing rapids.  A highly accomplished craftsman, Merlo’s phrasings of speech were transfixing as she wrapped the profound in tiny pellets of simplicity.  Her gleam of excellence ran through the entire cast, who were uniformly splendid. 

Most impressive was the meticulous pacing and abundance of satisfying nuance director and TUTA co-artistic director, Jacqueline Stone, built into the production.  She insured small gestures resonated with unexpected force and light touches of humor glittered brightly enough to make the project shine with warmth and contemporary flair.

In a time and landscape where holiday entertainment options are virtually endless, The Long Christmas Dinner counts as an especially rewarding option from a company who has a knack for curating works of discreet brilliance.

The Long Christmas Dinner

Through December 29^th, 2024

TUTA Theatre Company

Venue:  Bramble Arts Loft

5545 N. Clark Street

Chicago, IL  60640

https://www.tutatheatre.org/the-long-christmas-dinner-tickets