The Long Christmas Dinner

I turned 40 at the beginning of October.  I had been dreading entry into middle age, but about six weeks before The Big Day, I realized that ‘40’ in Roman numerals was ‘XL’.  In other words, another way to look at my fortieth year was to think of it as ‘extra large’. Forty was going to be an extra large year.

This got me thinking: “What have I accomplished in forty years?  What have I failed to do?” Then I did some math: “If I die at 80, I’m already halfway there.”  That was a dark thought, so I went back to questions: “What can I control? What can I not control?  I can control my actions. I cannot control time.”

How do we perceive the passage of time?  It seems like time never moves at the right speed for us: “I hope this beautiful moment never ends.”  “Why won’t this awful day end?” “Will tomorrow never come?” (The experience of directing opera is often the same way: there’s always too much music, or not enough, for the staging one has in mind.)

In working on ‘The Long Christmas Dinner’, I found that the characters were asking similar questions to what I had asked myself: “Has it really been two / five / ten / twenty / fifty years since so-and-so was born / married / became a parent / died?”

And in asking all these questions, we all start to realize the importance of ritual.  That those holiday gatherings serve as landmarks of time, reminding us of comings and goings, of arrivals and departures, of memories good and bad.  That these events — usually with family, and all the blessings and challenges that dynamic creates — help us understand how we’re changing, or remaining constant.  “Now that we’ve gathered again, what’s new? What’s the same? What have I discovered in the last year? Why am I making the same mistakes?”

At Chicago Fringe Opera, we talk about our artists and audiences as being part of the Fringe Family.  This production invites you to sit at the table: to celebrate with us, to share in our joys and sorrows.  At the same time, the design team and I consciously wanted to avoid generalizing about what Christmas means to each of us.  The traditions of this holiday are so specific to each of our families — if we celebrate Christmas at all — that to make blanket interpretations and statements about it would be overly simplistic.  Rather, we wanted to focus on how the holiday — any holiday — gives us a point of reference for how we’ve treated each other over the years, and how we might be changing, or perhaps just staying the same.

Another math problem: Wilder’s original play premiered in New Haven, Connecticut, on November 25, 1931.  The final scene reveals that the story has covered almost ninety years. On what date does it end?

– George Cederquist

View a pdf breakdown of the Bayard family tree.

Chicago Fringe Opera is grateful to the following individuals and organizations for their support and in-kind donations for The Long Christmas Dinner:

Arctic Circle Taxidermy and Prop Design
Zygmunt Dyrkacz and Lela Headd Dyrkacz
Lincoln Square Printing
Paul French and Our Lady of Mount Carmel
Steep Theatre

This project is partially supported by a CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events.