At Irish Rep, Six Singing Actors Serve Up a Scrumptious Seasonal Confection, ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales’

Recent weeks have offered New York theatergoers a variety of seasonal delights, from an exuberant Broadway revival of the musical “Elf” to a new staging of “The Dead, 1904,” Irish Repertory Theater’s elegant, moving adaptation of the James Joyce story. While the latter production is still running at the American Irish Historical Society, the company is now also serving a scrumptious confection at its off-Broadway home, this one inspired by the work of a Welsh scribe.This year marks Irish Rep’s seventh presentation of “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” adapted from Dylan Thomas’s prose work and helmed by artistic director Charlotte Moore. Clocking in at a brisk 75 minutes, the show incorporates a steady stream of traditional and other holiday tunes, including a few written by Ms. Moore herself, delivered by a company of six singing actors under David Hancock Turner’s musical direction.The result feels like a cross between a highly literate revue and a cozy family show. There were only a couple of children in the audience at the matinee I attended, and the performers are certainly dressed, by costume designer David Toser, for a grownup party, in natty suits and elegant dresses in rich evening shades: black, burgundy, charcoal, forest green.But the trees, stockings, and presents that set designer Colm McNally has scattered around them — and Mr. Turner, who provides graceful piano accompaniment during and between songs — relay a sense of giddy excitement, which the cast members also emphasize, particularly when they’re not singing. Reed Lancaster brings a boyish buoyancy to the young Dylan Thomas, the only part indicated in the character listings though it’s apparent that Kimberly Doreen Burns, warmly dynamic, and a puckish Ashley Robinson represent his mom and dad, respectively.Polly McKie and Ali Ewoldt in ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales.’ Carol RoseggLike the other ensemble members — an Irish Rep veteran, Polly McKie; a longtime Broadway favorite, Howard McGillin; and the delightful, crystal-voiced Ali Ewoldt — they tend to deliver their individual lines in the heightened, patently joyful manner one associates with children’s shows, while also underlining the wistful nostalgia infusing Thomas’s account of a Christmas fondly remembered. The singing, too, is at once spirited and nuanced. Carols stressing the religious basis of the holiday are interspersed with witty treats like Milton Pascal and Gerald Marks’s “I Don’t Want a Lot for Christmas” and C. Frank Horn’s “Miss Fogarty’s Christmas Cake,” a tale of culinary overkill involving, to list just one ingredient, caraway seeds “in abundance/Such that worked up a fine stomach ache/That could kill a man twice.”For me, the highlight was “O Holy Night,” long one of my favorite Christmas songs and a showcase here for Ms. Ewoldt’s sparkling soprano, which has graced a few Broadway productions — among them “The Phantom of the Opera,” in which she played Christine Daaé several years back. I don’t want a lot for Christmas either, but seeing this woman in another high-profile leading role would count as a start.

At Irish Rep, Six Singing Actors Serve Up a Scrumptious Seasonal Confection, ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales’

More from the New York Sun

Could the Supreme Court’s Tariff Decision Be Applied to the Fed?

American Skier Hunter Hess Says Trump Post Led to ‘Two Hardest Weeks’ of His Life

A Haunting Study of Five Remarkable Black Men Who Soared Despite Societal Challenges

More from the New York Sun

Could the Supreme Court’s Tariff Decision Be Applied to the Fed?

American Skier Hunter Hess Says Trump Post Led to ‘Two Hardest Weeks’ of His Life

A Haunting Study of Five Remarkable Black Men Who Soared Despite Societal Challenges

Revisiting the Australian Film Debut of a Marvel Director

Supreme Court Hands Trump Major Defeat With a Six to Three Decision Striking Down His Global Tariffs

Veterans Sue To Stop Trump’s 250-Foot Triumphal Arch, Saying It Would ‘Dishonor’ Their Military Service

MAHA Movement Stunned by Trump Order Shielding Pesticide Makers From Lawsuits

‘How To Make a Killing’ is Dead on Arrival