“The poetry shines with an unearthly radiance.” – New York Times
“Surely this Christmas story ranks among the great experiences of the language.” – Harper’s Magazine.
When I was a senior in college, I decided I needed to isolate myself to discover what it was that I truly wanted to do with my life. I chose to live by myself in a little rooming house (bathroom in the hall, rent….$6 per week). That year I really explored acting for the first time and had two major roles in school productions. I also took a class in British Literature taught by the remarkable George Healy. I mention his name because he was the most inspiring teacher I had ever had and also the most popular teacher on the campus (There were 500 students enrolled in that class). Professor Healy introduced us to the most beautiful words ever written in the English language and to the strange and wonderful characters that wrote them. That year, those words became my constant companion, my inner monologue, a source of comfort and joy that I still return to many, many years later. Among those wonderful words, at the very top of the top, was Dylan Thomas’s “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.” I have performed it several times over the years. The more I return to it, the richer it gets.
This past summer my wife and I were on a trip through middle Europe. We were approaching Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. Every time I heard the name ‘Bratislava’ the phrase "victims of head shrinking tribes’ popped into my head. I knew it was from ‘A Child’s Christmas,’ and when I got back to the states I looked it up. Dylan is describing the ‘useful’ presents that he received, most of which felt very itchy and extremely uncomfortable to a young boy. One of them was “balaclavas for victims of head shrinking tribes.” Balaclavas are ski masks, itchy, woolen ski masks; and especially itchy because they fit so tightly (a good fit for victims of head shrinking tribes). But that association of Bratislava with balaclava, brought me back to the great narrative poem once more, and made me fall in love with it all over again for the fortieth time.
I realized that the older I got, the more meaningful it became. I was determined to perform it yet again and expressed my interest to a friend who knew of the Frosty Festival…..and here we are!
