|
| |
|
|
Midsummer Revels
BY NINA MACLAUGHLIN
|
|
|
|
|
Revels has produced some version of Midsummer Revels for nearly 30 years — almost as long as it’s been performing The Christmas Revels, the show for which it’s best known (and that funds the rest of Revels’ productions) — but next Saturday and Sunday mark the second year of Midsummer Revels’ rebirth. After marking the longest day of the year with performances at the DeCordova Museum, the Majestic Theatre, and Sanders Theatre, Midsummer Revels began anew last year as a free, open-air summer-solstice celebration at the Children’s Museum. Almost 5000 persons showed up; as a result, the performances will take place over two nights this year. The summer solstice represents both a seasonal and a social shift. "It’s when people begin their summers," says George Emlen, Revels’ music director. "Schools are out and families go into a different mode." Whereas The Christmas Revels has a dark side — traditionally there’s a danger surrounding the shortest days of the year — Midsummer Revels is exclusively exuberant. "In winter, it’s a celebration," says Emlen, "but it’s about protecting yourself, about pulling inward and forming a community against the cold and the dark and hoping for the return of light. In summer, it’s the opposite. You’re opening outward. It’s a time to bring people out, to celebrate." And though the mid-winter version has a thematic focus, exploring the celebrations of a particular culture or country like England or Armenia or Appalachia, Midsummer has a "more open-ended quality." This year’s participants include Chinese lion dancers and musicians, dancing and drumming from Cape Verde, Brazilian samba and capoeira, New Orleans–style jazz with the South Station Stompers, the 40-member Revels Chorus singing in five different languages, and a slapstick Mummers’ play involving a dragon who steals the sun and a merry band of characters who get it back, including the Blue Sailor, the Straw Man, and the Padstow ’Obby ’Oss (i.e., Hobby Horse). The celebration begins as a grand procession down Congress Street with singers, dancers, puppets, and an ox-drawn sun chariot (the ox’s name is Jim, he’s from the Farm School in Athol, and at press time we hadn’t managed to learn whether he’ll be permitted to accept treats and if so what his favorites are) and ends with the lighting of the midsummer beacon and the singing of "When the Saints Go Marching In" and "The Wild Mountain Thyme." "After hearing all of this music from around the world that’s so exotic," says Emlen, "we end with something familiar to everyone. The audience joins in and we spread out and join hands and attempt to encircle the audience. There’s an inclusive quality. There’s a feeling of ah-ha!" Midsummer Revels takes place next Saturday and Sunday, June 19 and 20, at 6 p.m. at the Children’s Museum, 300 Congress Street in Boston. Admission is free; call (617) 972-8300 extension 21 or visit www.revels.org
|
