Intermission

Paula Vogel’s play, A Civil War Christmas, is a marvel, and the Portland production is beyond any reasonable expectation. The ensemble cast acts, sings, dances, and plays a piano, a banjo, a flute, a piccolo, drums, a trumpet, and a guitar. An actor may play a Native American man in one scene, a young Black boy in another, and a white woman in a third. In each transformation, the posture, accent, and voice changes, but there are few costume changes, and those are simple--a shawl, a hat, a jacket. One of the actors even becomes a horse (brilliantly) for two scenes, when he isn’t being a Jewish Union soldier on the verge of death or the blind woman, Mary Surrat who ran a boarding house where men plotted to assassinate Lincoln. 


Set in 1864, when Lincoln was President and the Civil War was raging, it’s about a time when Americans were divided; when racism and prejudice caused intense suffering; and when White Supremacists fought to defend their way of life. In the world of the play, despite their political differences, people can sometimes be kind, generous, and compassionate with each other. Parallels with the present moment are vivid but unstated.