‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse
Except in my house, I’m spending Christmas Eve browsing the internet and getting fired up by anti-Christmas spirit over on Penelope Trunk’s blog. She did this last year and the year before too and I know I should totally be zen about it but I feel compelled to respond. This year I thought she might let it go but instead she waited until Christmas Eve!
I like Penelope’s blog – she gives some career advice that’s solid and some that’s a little spurious but she’s a good writer and always entertaining. But I think she’s wrong about Christmas. I also think she’s got a bee in her bonnet and is being a little mean-spirited about it. I get that she’s a successful blogger and enjoys the attention – to a certain extent this is link and comment baiting – yet I do believe that she means what she says.
Her argument goes beyond saying that workplaces should not celebrate Christmas. She actually believes (or claims to believe) that 25 December should not be a public holiday at all. She believes that it’s a Christian holiday (a point that I would debate) and therefore shouldn’t have precedence over any other religious holiday.
Clearly Christmas is a religious holiday for millions of Christians around the world, from Utah to Uganda and Copenhagen to Chile. They believe Jesus is their saviour, or ‘Christ’, and they choose to celebrate his birth as a major religious festival. Some of them do it on 25 December, others on 7 January, but particularly for more committed Christians the religious significance is key. That’s fine. I am not trying to take Christmas away from them… but they do have to share.
The fact is that Christmas does not belong exclusively to Christians. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t. Another dimension to Christmas is that it’s a major cultural holiday. The most significant holiday on the Christian religious calendar is Good Friday but culturally this is insignificant compared with Christmas.
Christmas, as it is celebrated by most people in the English-speaking world, is not a Christian holiday. Just about the only thing that’s Christian about it is the name. The holiday has its roots in the Pagan festival of Yule or the Winter Solstice. Most of the traditions we associate with Christmas – Christmas trees, Santa Claus, foods such as mince pies and Christmas pudding, Christmas cards – are entirely cultural rather than religious in nature, or have deeper roots in Pagan or Roman culture. Christmas not only belongs to Christians around the world but to anyone whose culture has celebrated the holiday for hundreds of years.
While the holiday certainly has its downsides – our culture can be very materialistic and this seems particularly virulent at Christmas time – however the holiday has enough cultural significance and positivity that many non-Christians celebrate it. In both Australia and the UK, I know Jews, Buddhists, Atheists and Agnostics who celebrate Christmas. This includes people from Anglo backgrounds whose ancestors were probably Christian and it also includes people who’ve emigrated from countries such as Thailand and Singapore who retain their own beliefs but have chosen to adopt customs from their new homeland as well.
I don’t believe that they are choosing to celebrate a Christian holiday – unless of course they are going to church and singing religious carols. I believe they are celebrating a shared cultural tradition. This is especially important outside North America because we don’t have Thanksgiving to fulfil the same role. (Thanksgiving also has religious roots, by the way).
I do understand that the historical context can make it harder for some Jews to embrace Christmas – certainly in Europe, the Jewish people were oppressed by the Christian majority for hundreds of years. It’s probably easier for an Atheist with Catholic grandparents or a Thai Buddhist who lives in Sydney, for example, because they don’t have that historical baggage – however, I do know many secular Jews who celebrate the holiday. I also understand that some non-Christians have no hard feelings about Christmas but that the holiday simply doesn’t form part of their own family’s traditions. It’s a matter of personal choice.
Of course, I don’t believe anyone should be forced to celebrate Christmas. I also agree that the religious side of Christmas – nativity scenes and so on – are probably out of place in the workplace or public schools. But nor do I think a Christmas tree in the lobby of the office or even a store clerk wishing you “merry Christmas” is ‘forcing’ you to celebrate Christmas or in some way an insult. Certainly I fail to see how a day off work on 25 December is offensive, as long as you have provision to take time off when you need to, whether it be for your own religious holidays or simply because you want the time off.
It’s not cost-effective for offices to open on Christmas Day and the history of Sunday trading shows that the choice to work quickly becomes an obligation to work (just ask any retail worker if they have a choice about working Sundays). The fact that it’s a public holiday – just like New Year’s Day – is enough reason to close the office. The fact that Christmas is celebrated by a majority of people in any given country is enough reason for it to be a public holiday. But if you really want to work and you have a job that you can do from home without supervision then probably your employer should let you work and take a day off in lieu.
Our society needs more celebrations and festivals, not fewer. I would prefer to see more emphasis on other religious and secular holidays rather than a weakening of Christmas. More should be done to encourage inter-cultural exchange, both in the workplace and in the wider world. I would love to have more about Hannukah (or other Jewish high holidays such as Yom Kippur and Passover) rather than less about Christmas. In Australian public schools for example, children learn about several world religions, including secular humanism. I’ve heard priests, rabbis, Buddhist order members and Atheists giving the ‘Thought for the Day’ every morning on BBC Radio 4. These are steps in the right direction. But declaring war on Christmas is unfounded and, given its deep cultural roots, will only serve to antagonise people.
We had our production of The Tempest last Tuesday and we are now adjusting to life beyond the play. Hopefully we’ll have a cast reunion for pre-Christmas drinks very soon! There’s also talk of reviving the play in January, which I would absolutely love to do because I feel that we’ve only just begun to realise the potential of this production.
The lovely Zarina Holmes filmed the performance for us so I can’t wait to see the video. In the mean time, she has put some still photographs on Facebook. The photos are from a semi-dress rehearsal so a few of us, including myself, are not in full costume and no one has full make-up. It should give you a flavour though!
We were aiming to do The Tempest in the style of Artaud, which means we were trying to create an experience for the audience rather than emphasising the separation between player and audience. This was most evident in the first scene, the shipwreck, but we brought elements of it throughout the play. The Tempest is one of Shakespeare’s most ‘magical’ plays so it lends itself well to this sort of thing.
It was very different performing with 35 people standing and sitting around me. (We had two performances with 35 people in each showing). It was theatre-in-the-round and though we encouraged people to move around so they could see, in reality they stayed pretty still so we had to angle ourselves accordingly.
It all went a lot better than I thought it might after the shambles of the dress rehearsal. The audience seemed really engaged and entertained, which was great. We hit some real high notes with the performance and no real low notes – everyone pretty much remembered their lines.
I was playing Miranda, the heroine. My only hairy moment was, in the second performance, after the scene where I confronted Caliban the monster, the strap of my dress popped open. Fortunately I was wearing a safety pin with a rose, so I mimed crying into Prospero’s shoulder (my fictional father) while I refixed it. I wonder if anyone noticed. My fellow thespian didn’t – he just thought it was an inspired heightening of the dramatic effect!
I’m proud to have worked with such a talented group of people and I hope we can do this again soon. It was the City Academy advanced class – but we’re calling ourselves the Kinky Fish Company, in honour of the blindfolds and anchovy paste used in the play. As we said on the night of the performance, we’re all really grateful for our wonderful teacher Cat Clancy and all the hard work she put in – she went way beyond the call of duty and gave up a lot of her own time unpaid to help us.
Afterwards, my wonderful real-life beloved and betrothed gave me a huge bunch of dark red roses. Aww.
***
Here’s the text from the programme so you can see who the actors are, refresh yourself on the plot of The Tempest, and read more about Artaud and his theories on theatre.
By William Shakespeare, abridged and directed by Cat Clancy
A Kinky Fish production in association with City Academy
Dramatis personae
Island dwellers
Prospero Adam Mattison-Ward, Ahmed Arif, Richard Kirkcaldy Magician and Rightful Duke of Milan
Miranda Caitlin Fitzsimmons Prospero’s daughter
Caliban Gregory Lecointe and Alberto Santangelo Monster and Prospero’s slave
Ariel Teagan Mann and Naomi Segal An airy sprite and Prospero’s servant
Goddess Ceres Larissa Moran
Goddess Juno Rosalind Stern
Ship crew and passengers
Alonsa Maria Annecca Queen of Naples
Antonia Michelle McKay Prospero’s sister and usurper Duchess of Milan
Ferdinand Tadhg O’Brien Prince of Naples, Alonsa’s son and Miranda’s love interest
Gonzalo Gregory Lecointe A nobleman
Sebastian Alberto Santangelo Alonsa’s brother
The Master Larissa Moran Ship captain
Boatswain Rosalind Stern
Trinculo Larissa Moran
A drunk shipwrecked mariner, a dull fool
Stephano Rosalind Stern
A drunk shipwrecked butler
Supporting cast Whole company Mariners, nymphs, huntsmen, sound effects etc
Synopsis
The magician Prospero, rightful Duke of Milan, and his daughter, Miranda, are stranded on an island. Twelve years ago Prospero’s jealous sister Antonia – helped by Alonsa, the Queen of Naples – deposed him and set him adrift with the five-year-old Miranda. The nobleman Gonzalo secretly helped Prospero, upgrading his small and shoddy boat, supplying him with food and water, and books from Prospero’s library.
Possessed of magic powers due to his great learning and prodigious library, Prospero is reluctantly served by a spirit, Ariel, whom he had rescued from imprisonment in a tree. Ariel had been trapped there by the witch Sycorax, who died prior to Prospero’s arrival. Prospero also keeps the witch’s son Caliban, a deformed monster, as his slave.
The play opens as Prospero, having divined that his sister Antonia, is on a ship passing close by the island has raised a storm (the tempest of the title) that causes the ship to run aground. Also on the ship are Queen Alonsa, Alonsa’s brother Sebastian, Alonsa’s royal advisor Gonzalo, Alonsa’s son, Ferdinand, plus crew members. Prospero, by his spells, separates the survivors of the wreck into several groups. Alonsa and her son Ferdinand believe one another dead.
Prospero works to establish a romantic relationship between Ferdinand and Miranda; the two fall immediately in love, but Prospero worries that “too light winning [may] make the prize light”, and puts Ferdinand through a series of tests. He also decides that after his plan to exact vengeance on his betrayers has come to fruition, he will break and bury his staff, and “drown” his book of magic.
In the first of two sub-plots, Caliban falls in with Stephano and Trinculo, two drunken crew members, and attempts to raise a rebellion against Prospero (which ultimately fails). In another sub-plot, Antonia and Sebastian conspire to kill Alonsa and Gonzalo, so that Sebastian can become King. They are thwarted by Ariel, at Prospero’s command.
In the conclusion, all the main characters are brought together before Prospero, who forgives Antonia and Alonsa, pardons Caliban and uses his magic to ensure that everyone returns to Italy. Ariel, as her final task for Prospero, is charged to prepare fair sailing weather and she is then set free to the elements.
Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty
In our production of The Tempest we have explored some of the ideas of French dramatist Antonin Artaud. He believed that the theatre should affect the audience as much as possible, so he used a mixture of strange and disturbing forms of lighting, sound and performance.
In his book The Theatre and Its Double, Artaud expressed his admiration for Eastern forms of theatre, particularly the Balinese. He admired Eastern theatre because of the codified, highly ritualised and precise physicality of Balinese dance performance, and advocated what he called a “Theatre of Cruelty”. At one point, he stated that by cruelty, he meant not exclusively sadism or causing pain, but just as often a violent, physical determination to shatter the false reality.
He believed that text had been a tyrant over meaning, and advocated, instead, for a theatre made up of a unique language, halfway between thought and gesture. Artaud described the spiritual in physical terms, and believed that all theatre is physical expression in space.
Imagination, to Artaud, is reality; dreams, thoughts and delusions are no less real than the “outside” world. Reality appears to be a consensus, the same consensus the audience accepts when they enter a theatre to see a play and, for a time, pretend that what they are seeing is real.
The biggest lesson I need to learn in life is that I can do anything I want but I can’t necessarily do everything I want. I have to choose and focus. That’s hard.
Actually, maybe I can do everything I want – just not all at once. Rose Kennedy apparently once said: “You can have it all, my dear, but you can not have it all at once. Life is a journey with many different adventures and each part of it is special. Sometimes you will have to focus on the task at hand.”
It still comes down to the same thing. I need to choose what to focus on right now.
I am doing a lot of things in my life, all of which I enjoy. Yet there is an opportunity cost with anything I choose to do and right now I don’t feel that I’m concentrating on the really important things.
Here are some of the things I’m doing right now:
Working as a freelance journalist – balancing making a living, pitching for new and interesting work and trying to figure out how my strategy to survive and thrive in a changing industry.
General life stuff, including trying to keep fit and healthy.
Volunteering two to three times a month at the British Museum.
Trying to write a novel.
Amateur theatre.
Once of my most important goals is to finish writing my novel. To be honest, I’m not really making great progress on this goal.
I’m wondering if there is anything I should give up in order to make the time for this. I’m loath to give up the theatre given that I really love doing it and also aspire to write plays in the future – though maybe trying to do the novel writing and acting at the same time is too much. The British Museum doesn’t take up much of my time and I’ve already cut back so I’m comfortable with that. I obviously can’t give up life, or wedding organisation, or work, even if I wanted to.
The area where I feel I can cut back is social media. As I mentioned, I have three main blogs, plus also the occasional dated update on my professional site or True Wild Catches and Century of Books. All of this takes time and it’s not just a matter of writing my own posts and forgetting about them – the fun comes in being part of a blogging community, interacting with other bloggers, micro-blogging on Twitter (where I am undoubtedly spending too much time), using tools like StumbleUpon and Digg.
All this stuff is a lot of fun but it takes up a lot of time. I find it very hard to do social media in moderation – it’s the kind of thing where you have to jump in feet first, and as my frequent Twitter updates show, it’s very addictive! And really, with my industry (media) changing so quickly and so profoundly, it’s essential that I keep abreast of it. If anything, I should be doing more, not less – it would be valuable for me to try podcasting and online video production, for example.
The problem with blogging, as novelist A.L. Kennedy points out, is that there’s no definable end. You can never say a blog is done and there’s always more you can do for it, whether in writing, site design or promotion. I’m beginning to feel that part of the answer for me might be to reduce my blogs. It’s very hard to put a blog to death though so the question would be how – should I consolidate everything under my real name or on this blog? Or should I merge my food and travel blogs in some way? Or just stop writing one of them?
The other thing I really like the idea of is the Secular Sabbath – one day a week where you don’t use the computer or a mobile phone. I find this really appealing – I love the internet but the truth is, my brain is sometimes filled with digital detritus. I don’t know if there’s been any research but I do wonder whether too much time online is just as stifling to creativity and deadening as watching too much television.
Does anyone have any suggestions for how to best use my time? If you agree with my diagnosis, how should I rationalise my blogs?
