(Photo l to r Mary House & Chris Loop)
The rush of the Holidays are here and I was not prepared for it. Amidst the never ending work and the deadlines, I was hoping somehow to catch the spirit of the Holidays. What was bugging me was the thought of having winter without Christmas, or rather without the spirit that is. That’s when I brought my daughter and niece to watch a play at the quaint Sierra Madre Playhouse entitled “Narnia” based on the novel by famed British Author Clive Staples Lewis, better known as C.S. Lewis, the play based on his novel “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.” It was their second night run of the tight performance schedule from November 23 to December 23, 2007, so tight anyway that they have to triple cast some of the characters.
The whole Sierra Madre Playhouse was completely turned back in time to 1940 all over again and the German Blitz against London was on. Sandbags were piled up along the sidewalk outside the theatre and the ticket booth sign proclaimed “SHELTER”, a safe place from an air attack. Entering thru the small corridor, huge World War II posters were everywhere and one quickly caught my eye warning me to “Always Keep Your Gas Mask Ready.” When we slumped into our comfortable seats and surveyed the stage, we can see a huge backdrop of the British Flag, proudly hanging amidst a scattered array of British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) prop microphones at stage center. Our narrator, Mr. Don Savage in his neatly pressed two-piece business suit quickly stood up from his armchair on stage right and led the audience in singing a standing rendition of the British National Anthem “God Save the Queen”, after which, part of the cast (or was it the crew?) stumbled playfully onstage trying to reach for the various sound effect pieces on stage left which will bring sound and life to the play. You see this play actually takes “Narnia” as a radio drama play in war-torn London complete with radio static.
And so the magic begins. “Narnia” revolves around the Pevensie children, Peter (the Eldest), Susan, Edmund, and Lucy who are evacuated from London due to the German bombings were brought to the huge country home of Professor Kirke. One day, Lucy (splendidly played by 11 year old Sarah Gilman in photo) discovers a wardrobe or what we call nowadays a clothes cabinet and she enters into a magical world called Narnia. She meets a faun, which tells her of a curse that has turned Narnia into winter for a long time, but without Christmas. Seems like my own predicament. But back to the play. As we watched and listened (remember, this is a live radio broadcast, but the acting of the whole cast was superb), instead of handling Lucy to the White Evil Witch who has cast a curse over Narnia (beautifully played by Stasha Surdyke), he lets her go.
(Megan Sanborne, Keith Harmel, Kenneth Woods, & Sarah Gilman)Edmund meets the White Witch who tricks him into bringing the other three children to her first. You see there is an old rhyme that says:
When Adam’s flesh and Adam’s bone
Sits at Cair Paravel in throne,
The evil time will be over and done.
Now I am glued to the plot as well as to my seat as the story unravels onstage on the BBC radio station live set. Who is Aslan? They say Aslan the Lion is on the move to free Narnia from the Evil Witch’s curse but the four children must help the great Lion as prophesied.
The four children will help save Narnia from the perpetual curse of winter and bring back Christmas and goodness to all the creatures together with “Aslan”, the great Lion. The curse of having no Christmas is broken:
Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.
Father Christmas finally arrives and gives the three children not toys but tools to help them defeat the Evil White Witch. Stumbling upon the prophesy of “a deeper Magic” that the Witch did not know about, Aslan the resurrected Lion with the help of the children, brought Spring and Christmas back to Narnia.
Coming out from the theatre with the cast given standing ovations by the audience for a great performance, I slowly crossed the street of the normal world with my daughter and niece in tow, the soft cool night breeze of Sierra Madre hitting my face gently, and the warmth of Christmas deep inside. Then I remembered a similar story of long ago.
Ages of silence end to night
Then to the long-expectant earth
Glad angels come to greet His birth
In burst of music, love, and light.
Written in 1950, C.S. Lewis dedicated this his first novel “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” with the following:
My Dear Lucy (Barfield),
I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fair tale, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall still be.
Your affectionate Godfather,
C.S. Lewis
Catch the deep magic of Christmas. Watch “Narnia” at the Sierra Madre Playhouse directed by Alison Kalmus together with the Southern California Lyric Theater.
(Sierra Madre Playhouse is at 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 and can be reached at (626) 256-3809.)
For show schedule and tickets:
www.sierramadreplayhouse.org
By Jay J. Fermin ppp-usa