A Civil War Christmas (New York Theatre Workshop)

	Chris Henry and Jonathan-David. Photo: Carol Rosegg

Gather around the tree, children. Aunt Paula will tell you a Christmas story, and, if you're sated with sugarplums, it's just the thing: It's about war, death, and slavery, and it is set in a world where young men are led to slaughter and a little girl wanders the city's cold streets, inadequately clad and quietly expiring of hypothermia. Several characters harbor murder in their hearts and, oh yes, one them may be losing her mind.

Welcome to A Civil War Christmas, in which the ever-surprising Paula Vogel refashions herself as a kind of historical novelist for the stage. Actually, it might not be such a leap; her best works -- including How I Learned to Drive and The Long Christmas Ride Home -- are peerless portraits of dysfunctional families. A Civil War Christmas presents the United States, in its greatest moment of crisis, as an enormous dysfunctional family -- fractious, captious, and spoiling for a fight. Her goal is to bring her rangy cast of characters into a moment of harmony on the holy day of the title, for a brief moment of grace before history continues its ruthless forward march.

The action unfolds on Christmas Eve, 1864, in and around the District of Columbia. Taking a leaf from the E. L. Doctorow handbook, Vogel, who has steeped herself in research, weaves a storytelling web that enmeshes real historical figures with forgotten or invented characters, their narratives colliding in unexpected ways. Hannah, a slave woman seeking freedom, is separated from her daughter as they try to enter the District of Columbia; will they meet at the White House, as planned? Raz, a 13-year-old boy from Virginia, flees his home, looking to join the Confederate Mosby's Raiders; he walks right into the hands of Decatur Bronson, a black man and a sergeant in the Union Army. James Wormley, a black merchant, sells a rare-for-the-era Christmas tree to Elizabeth Keckley, seamstress and companion to Mary Todd Lincoln, for delivery to an orphanage; when Mrs. Lincoln unknowingly appropriates the tree for herself, the furious Wormley sends his sons to spirit it out of the White House. Abraham Lincoln eludes his bodyguard, setting out alone on an errand to retrieve his wife's Christmas present, unaware that he has put himself into John Wilkes Booth's line of fire.

Vogel crosscuts between these and other storylines, making room for a parade of characters that includes Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, and William Tecumseh Sherman. She deftly exploits the glaring disconnect between the season's sentiments and the ugly facts of wartime life, of armies on the brink of exhaustion and black men and women haunted by horrific memories of the auction block. And, like any good page-turner, A Civil War Christmas keeps you wondering what will happen next. This probably explains why, for all its twists and turns, the script never fully engages: Vogel is so busy spinning her yarn that the people in it never really come to life; they're like figures in an Advent calendar -- nicely drawn but thoroughly two-dimensional. This is especially true of Lincoln, Grant, Lee, et al., none of whom are rendered with any special insight or enlivening detail. The production's use of period songs and Christmas carols is undeniably evocative, but one wonders if the show might not be more effective with new music and lyrics that delve more deeply into the characters and their dilemmas.

Despite the attention given to storytelling, there are obvious gaps that no one has managed to fill: Hannah smuggles her daughter into D.C. because she herself has been denied entry; a few minutes later, she has arrived in town, apparently without incident. Vogel is further challenged by the moment in history she has chosen to illuminate; often, we're ahead of the story. The first act ends on a note of menace, as Booth and his cronies assemble to shoot Lincoln -- but there's no suspense because we know that the great man lived another four months. At other times, our knowledge of the dark events to come casts the story in a sadder, more revealing light -- making their hopes for peace and goodwill seem especially quixotic -- and, eventually, as much of the cast of characters mobilizes to rescue Hanna's daughter from certain death on the streets, A Civil War Christmas does become genuinely touching.

This is largely due to the efforts of a nimble company of actors, each of whom takes on a variety of roles. It never seemed obvious before, but, with the right beard, Bob Stillman looks very much like Abraham Lincoln, and he inhabits the role with grace and a certain melancholy charm. He has a fine marital partner in Alice Ripley's Mary Todd Lincoln, even if the actress is channeling pieces of her mad-housewife character from Next to Normal. (She is especially good at those moments when Mrs. Lincoln throws herself into obsessive or euphoric behavior.) K. Todd Freeman is equally effective as Bronson, who has to put up with the prejudices of Union soldiers, and as Wormley, railing against his apparently worthless sons. Karen Kandel works wonders with the role of Elizabeth Keckley, her determinedly busy manner masking her terrible grief over a son lost to war. Among the others, I especially liked Chris Henry as Grant, stoically waiting for the next battle, wishing someone would bring him a drink, and Jonathan-David as a dying soldier who imagines he sees Walt Whitman come to give him tender ministrations. Rachel Spencer Hewitt has a nice bit as a hospital matron who doesn't mind telling exactly what she thinks of Whitman, Clara Barton, and other celebrity dabblers in hospital work.

The production design embraces the entirety of New York Theatre Workshop. James Schuette has seemingly stripped the stage bare, leaving a deck and upstage wall of rough-hewn wood; many of the cast's costumes are hung on the walls, next to the audience; a gallery of period photos is displayed at the back of the house; the action is lit fluently by Scott Zielinski, who has a look for every narrative, each one graceful and seamless. Toni-Leslie James' costumes are engineered for rapid changes; she also provided some stunningly detailed gowns for Mrs. Lincoln and Elizabeth Keckley. Jill BC Du Boff's sound design is remarkably subtle; the actors are miked, but the reinforcement feels thoroughly natural.

Given its teeming canvas of characters and its full portfolio of humane, gracefully expressed, sentiments, I'll bet that A Civil War Christmas is going to please many theatregoers who are put off by the season's more tinseled entertainments. Still, it seems clear that Paula Vogel's best plays occupy a much smaller scale.--David Barbour