Sweet Memories

The Christmas memories of Dylan Thomas take the University Theatre stage.

Comments (0) By Susan Froyd Thursday, Nov 20 2008

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six. — Dylan Thomas

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There are no Christmases like those in the past. Regardless of the era in which you grew up, the one you experienced will always be the best one, thanks to the gilt edges of memory. And no one ever made that point better than the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, whose poem-story A Child’s Christmas in Wales captured his own past Christmases in a kind of detailed, literary permafrost. A natural for the stage, the lyrical story transforms well in a highly visual play of the same name, being produced this holiday season by the Colorado Shakespeare Festival under the direction of fest leader Philip Sneed.

“Like memory, A Child’s Christmas in Wales follows no single narrative, no one sequence of rising and falling action,” Sneed notes in an artistic statement. “Rather, the episodes of many Christmases are rolled into one giant snowball of memory.” Family members of all ages will no doubt be drawn into that perfect patchwork.

Performances of Wales begin tonight and continue daily — excepting Mondays, Thanksgiving and Christmas — through December 31, on the University Theatre Mainstage, University of Colorado at Boulder campus; admission ranges from $14 to $54. For tickets and information, visit www.coloradoshakes.org/season/childschristmas.htmlor call 303-492-0554.
Tuesdays-Sundays. Starts: Nov. 26. Continues through Dec. 31, 2008