‘All Is Calm’ chronicles 1914 Christmas Eve truce
For one night, they dropped their guns and shook hands.
For the third year in a row, Mother Road Theatre will celebrate that World War I miracle with “All Is Calm” beginning on Wednesday, Dec. 20, at Keshet Performance Space. The show will run through Christmas Eve.
In 1914, amid the carnage of trench warfare, a German soldier stepped into the void of No Man’s Land and began singing “Silent Night.”
When he was finished, a British soldier stood above the barbed wire and shook his hand.
“They started talking and telling stories and drinking rum, sharing food and treats and shaking hands,” Mother Road company member Jessica Quindlen said.
The Allied and German troops stumbled into a truce. They shared chocolate and tobacco, gathered their dead and skirmished in football matches. Traumatized by the horror, both sides found camaraderie with one another, often defying orders against fraternization.
Most of us learned about the slaughter of World War I in history class. But the tale of this moment of essential humanity remained veiled until 2007, too rare to have sprung from fiction. The story
is told through the words and songs of the men who lived it.
“It was very much hidden for years because the powers that be didn’t want to put a face on the enemy,” Mother Road artistic director Julia Thudium said.
A Paris Opera tenor sang “O Holy Night.”
The combined play/a cappella musical germinated when Peter Rothstein, founderdirector of the Minneapolisbased Theater Latté Da, researched the story through letters, postcards, news articles, journals and epitaphs. Mother Road is bringing the show back for what may be the last time because of its success.
“I think it’s a holiday show, but it’s not anything anybody’s really seen,” Quindlen said. “It’s not ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ or ‘White Christmas.’ I think it’s really touching for people to see in the midst of such slaughter, these men took a night off.”
When the war started in July 1914, soldiers were told they would be home by Christmas. The fighting finally ended in November 1918, taking the lives of 9 million soldiers and 7 million civilians. Today thousands of poppies bloom across what came to be called Flanders Field.