Every year, the Lamb’s Players Theatre in Coronado offers a family-friendly Christmas production. The play is known as the Festival of Christmas, and the tradition is in its 39th year.
My husband and I first were introduced to this Coronado Christmas tradition last year, when we thoroughly enjoyed the play All I Want for Christmas. As we walked from our home to the theater this past weekend, we were looking forward to enjoying again the cozy feeling of good cheer that last year’s play gave us.
This year, the Festival of Christmas play is called The Angel’s Arms, and it was written and directed by Kerry Meads, who is Lamb’s Associate Artistic Director. Robert Smyth, Lamb’s Producing Artistic Director, calls the play “one of our audience’s favorites.” It is set in an inn on the English coast in 1860.
As soon as my husband and I entered the theater, we began to admire the set, which is always a creative work of art at Lamb’s. The stage is not large, and the theater seats only 350 patrons in stadium seating, so it takes ingenuity to create a set that is often as tall as it is wide. As usual, Mike Buckley, Scenic Design, created a work of art. The English inn before us included two levels, a “working” fireplace, a bedecked mantel, wooden and tile floors, stairs with a tricky seventh step, and a spot by the old front door to hang mistletoe. The set also included clever diamond-paned windows, authentic to the time, and when the snowstorm raged outside and the actors lit real candles in brass candlesticks, the audience could easily imagine peering through those cozy old English windows and huddling up by the fire along with the characters in the play.
The lights came up and the play began with a blustery, likable young writer named Jeffery Scott (played by Brian Mackey) entering the inn. The Angel’s Arms Inn is dark and deserted, and Scott cannot find the proprietor, Mrs. Boswell. Suddenly, out of the shadows appears a pleasant-faced lady (Lauren King Thompson) wearing a white dress with white ribbons in her hair. Her presence is a mystery, but she immediately befriends Scott before learning that he is suffering from a lengthy case of writer’s block.
The lady encourages Scott to just TRY to tell a story, and he finally obliges. As Scott begins to spin his yarn, the characters in his imagination appear on stage, and we watch together as the story of Angel’s Arms Inn unfolds before us.
The inn, we learn, was occupied some years ago by a kind bachelor named Nicholas Cobham (played by Anthony Ballard) who is restoring the inn while also acting as guardian for two chattering young sisters, Rosemary (Abby Depuy) and Charlotte MacNeil (Nicki Elledge). The trio only expects one guest that Christmas Eve night, a mysterious, veiled visitor who has returned every Christmas for 20 years, a Miss Priscilla Harris.
Ms. Harris has hardly disappeared to her room before she is followed unexpectedly by more visitors marooned by the gathering snowstorm outside, a gregarious girl from the city (Siri Hafso), her restrained but protective fiancé (Jordan Miller), and a pair of salty sailors with secrets of their own (David Kirk Grant and Jack French). Although Nicholas Cobham really has “no room at the inn,” he is persuaded to shuffle accommodations around to offer a place for all his guests. Through his hospitality, stories are shared, hearts are opened, and secrets are unveiled. Some secrets are unveiled to the narrator, Jeffery Scott, as well.
My husband and I found the play well executed and acted, and we especially enjoyed the jolly Christmas songs around the piano towards the end of the play (a staple of any Christmas play!). We didn’t love the story itself as much as the preceding year, as it felt somewhat predictable or forced at times. We also felt like some of the acting, particularly of the young women, was a little overblown, but that may be because they were attempting to convey the more feminine, overexcited attitude popular in the 1850s.
That said, the point of the Festival of Christmas is to “tell a good story well” and to “celebrate the Christmas season,” as Producing Artistic Director Robert Smyth says, and this play certainly does that. It is also appropriate for all ages, although it might be best for upper elementary school-aged children and older in order to grasp the plot.
I thoroughly recommend what I saw several families doing in the audience: bring your whole family, enjoy hot chocolate and cookies in the Encore Café during the intermission, and start a lovely Christmas tradition of supporting the arts and celebrating Christmas together.
To purchase tickets and learn more, visit the Lamb’s Players website here. Remember that patrons under 35 years of age and all active duty military get half-price tickets every day.
