The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
A tale of tolerance
‘Coney Island Christmas’ nostaligic story of a Jewish childhood in NY
While Ivoryton Playhouse is plenty folksy and well situated for an authentic New England evening of dinner and a show, its holiday show is a little different from its professional season, says executive/artistic director Jacqui Hubbard.
This year that means a run of “Coney Island Christmas” by Donald Margulies from Thursday through Dec. 23. While it’s not exactly a conventional “true-meaning-of-Christmas” story, it is a heartwarming play with a message about how life could be better through understanding and tolerance for one another, said Hubbard.
“Christmas is about children and nostalgia. This play is about a Jewish child and her experience of the Christmas season and is filled with all the humor, warmth and family moments that make up part of the Christmas
tradition,” Hubbard said in an email exchange. “At a time when America is struggling with problems surrounding immigration, it is good to remember the immigrant families that we all came from and the wonderful, positive contributions that immigrants brought to this country.”
In the show, Shirley Abramowitz, now a grandmother visiting her family in California, tells her granddaughter the story of when she was a little girl in Coney Island and was cast as Jesus in the school pageant.
The audience is transported back to Coney Island in the 1940s with all the nostalgia of postwar America in a familiar tale of immigrant parents worried that they will lose their identity if they give up their traditions and immigrant children embracing the idea of being American and part of the new world.
“I think what I love about this show is it captures the message of Christmas in a different way yet it feels so familiar and nostalgic at the same time,” Hubbard said. “It is a play that feels like a classic.”
Commissioned by the late Gilbert Cates, “Coney Island Christmas” premiered at the Geffen Playhouse in 2012. This production in Ivoryton is directed by Sasha Bratt, who also directed “Biloxi Blues” last season.
Musical direction is by Frank Natter. Set design is by Dan Nischan, lighting design by Marcus Abbott, costume design by Lisa Bebey and sound design by Tate Burmeister.
The cast includes actors young and old, several of them Playhouse favorites and some new faces, Hubbard says.
The Essex village of Ivoryton, Hubbard notes, is decorated with over 500,000 Christmas lights.