Songs of War: An All Is Calm Review
Playhouse on Park brings the Christmas truce of 1914 to life in smoke-filled trenches for All is Calm. The a cappella docu-musical, written by Peter Rothstein, commemorates the silent night when the heart of humanity briefly crystallized on the battlefield of World War I. Director Sasha Brätt delivers a resonant production of a story constructed from real letters from the soldiers, woven into the carols they sang. This production, in the question it asks of how authentically a company of singers, actors, artists, fathers, everyday humans could deliver the feel of battle, answers that where we see soldiers in the battles of our world’s history, stood and laid fallen singers, actors, artists, fathers—everyday humans, who, by any other name were no less what they were.
From the beginning harmony to the last note, the company finds its full emotional dimension under the musical direction of Benjamin Rauch. The harmonies, woven together like the fates of the soldiers they represent, are prayers in their sentimentality, and “Auld Lang Syne” etches a new emotional memory. Bruce Barger, NicDaniel Charles, Charles Eaton, Kenneth Galm, Spencer Hamlin, Alex Hunt, Jeremy Luis Lopez, Ryan Phelps, Omar Sandakly, Luke Scott, Niko Touros, and Jermaine Woodard Jr. lend their voices to the courage, fear, and heart of the soldiers present on the Western Front in December 1914. Stories of war juxtapose the heavenly arrangement of sounds from the company (arranged by Erick Lichte and Timothy C. Takach)—each voice an instrument, pulling audiences into remnants of what was.
The letters, untouched by imagination and recited with dialectic nuance, honor each man’s singularity. They whisper the intimacy of who they were and who they might have been, across time. The production is not simply a recounting of the Christmas truce; it is a visual retrospective with meditative trimmings. From the throes of history comes the reminder that even in war, if everything was done with heart, there would be more life than death.
Micah Ohno’s costume design, including contrast between British and German silhouettes, grounds the historical nuances of the story. Reviving the fatigued reality of war with a drab that feels lived in. Johann Fitzpatrick’s scenic design suspends the tension of the war with the cold of gray and concrete, amplifying a visual temperature, adding the trappings of the trenches—sandbags, barbed wire, and isolation in a haze of fog with lighting to accent the weather-beaten tin and emphasize the visual texture of no man’s land.
All is Calm evokes an emotional pause, with an emotional connection that plays out like repressed memories, urging us to remember history—because forgetting costs us our future.
All Is Calm plays at Playhouse on Park through December 21st. For tickets, visit https://www.playhouseonpark.org/
