The Christmas Story

Friday Dec 20th, 7 pm, at the Greensboro United Church of Christ, 165 E Craftsbury Rd, Greensboro, VT. $15 suggested donation, No one turned away for lack of $.

The show was created by Peter Schumann in 1962 at a residency in Putney Vermont and was performed every year at Christmas time until the mid 1980’s. The puppeteers are reviving the show with the help of archival video and photos as well as interviews with the original performers. The show is necessarily updated to reflect the horrors of the current situation, and contains a strong anti-war message.

From a 1967 New York Times review: “… a dramatization of the first Christmas that combined reverence and impudence exactly as they are combined in the medieval mystery plays. The scene is at once the holy land and super America; the time then, and now. Joseph and Mary sleep with the cows because they don’t have $26.50 for an oasis size downstairs at the Sandy Arms motel. King Herod prates about the balance-of-payment deficit. The bubble-headed bourgeoisie of Jerusalem dismiss the star in the east as a publicity stunt for a new picture. The approach may seem campy or sacrilegious. It is neither.”