Christmas isn't what it’s supposed to be anymore. So many people have this idea that Christmas is about the presents, or that it is a time you don't have to wake up feeling groggy to go to school. I usually wake up around 5:30 to straighten my hair and apply makeup. I can skip that during Christmas.
To me Christmas is about sharing and really spending as much quality time with the people I love. The Arts Club Theatre production of White Christmas (my first viewing but the Arts Club’s 100th anniversary showing, on opening night, Wednesday December 7) really captured that aspect of one of our most famous holidays.
The setting and costumes were spot-on, reminiscing the fifties and its lore, from the glamorous dresses to the dapper men in suits it felt like I had time travelled, everything felt so real. But I will have to ask my grandfather to tell me all about Ed Sullivan and his show.
The music, composed by Irving Berlin, was something new to me. I had never heard of him before and I felt it was a gift to get to hear him for the first time. It’s feel-good music that people of all ages can enjoy. It brought tears to the eyes of the older people and made little kids happily clap and dance in their seats.
Sara-Jeanne Hosie (I first discovered her in her warm impersonation of Patsy Cline last June when my grandfather and I saw her in Dean Regan’s production of A Closer Walk with Patsy Cline at the Granville Island Stage), plays the dazzling but straight-laced Betty Haynes, in White Christmas. I had the opportunity to talk to her before a performance in a strangely silent, empty and dark Stanley, that the best part of being in White Christmas was that at the ending scene when the company sang White Christmas. She said, "You really reach out to the audience when you’re up on stage, and you can see people with tears running down their cheeks and you can see families come together and just enjoy themselves."
I feel that White Christmas really did all that for me plus it gave me a warm feeling that every Christmas should give. As I said before, Christmas is about sharing and the Arts Club Theatre really shared something special with me this holiday season.
White Christmas at the Stanley Industrial Stage plays until December 28, 2011