Week 15 – Chanukah Dinner, and the Traditional Christmas Play

From here atop the Gianicolo, the highest hill within the walls of the City of Rome, the view out over the Centro now has a distinctly different backdrop. The Appennini Mountains looming behind Rome now have snow-capped peaks. Winter has arrived in central Italy.

Menora in the Academy's dining room

On Friday night we had a special Chanukah dinner here at the Academy. Stephen Greenblatt, Ramie Targoff and their son Harry lit the menora just before dinner in the center of the dining room, and followed with the singing of a traditional Chanukah song. Dinner included latkes with homemade applesauce and sour cream, brisket and tongue, cabbage and carrots. Dessert consisted of small donut holes, hand-made in our own kitchen, served with homemade plum jelly.

 The evening before, on Thursday, was the traditional Christmas play written and performed by the Fellows (entirely in Italian) for the Academy staff and their families. The play is a very long-standing Academy tradition, and enables the Fellows to show in some small way our deep thanks to the staff for all that they do for us all year. We all spent a lot of time on the play – various Fellows worked on writing the script, translating it, memorizing the lines and acting, building sets, shopping for the gifts for the children, and wrapping them. I worked on the sets. The play, “Une Notte di Alarmi per Babbo Natale” (An Alarming Night for Santa) consisted of three acts, so we made a set for each of the acts.

Painting sets in the cryptoporticus (basement) of the Academy

For the sets/backdrops, we carried one of the large metal frame soccer goals into the main building (it was a tight squeeze through some of the doorways), and covered it in huge sheets of heavy brown paper. The artist Anna Hepler, the architect Kiel Moe, the historian Jonathan Conant and claimed some work space in the basement and all worked on drawing and painting the backdrops on the brown paper, which was a lot of fun. Anna was the maestro orchestrating it all.

In the end, it all came together really well, and the staff and their children seemed to enjoy the play. The actors rehearsed it many times the night before, and a couple times more the day of the play. Kathryn Blair Moore was the glue that held the entire play together – director, producer, chief organizer and puppet-maker.

Act 1 of the play, set at the North Pole.

Act 1 - A "CDC" (Center for Disease Control) Agent arrives at the North Pole with quarantine orders for Rudolph. Photo by Annie Schlechter.

The first act was set at the North Pole, and involved a crisis the day before Christmas when a center for Disease Control (CDC) agent (Susanna McFadden) arrives at Santa’s House a the North pole, and quarantines Rudolph (Kiel Moe), because they suspect he has influenza (because of his red nose). Santa (Jonathan Conant) and Mrs. Claus (Darian Totten) are unsuccessful in trying to convince the CDC agent that Rudolph’s nose is just like that. We had a brief puppet show at the end of Act 1 to tell the story of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, as that story is not well known in Italy.

Act 2 of the play. Babbo Natale (Santa) has difficulties with airport security. Photo by Annie Schlechter.

 Act 2 was set at the airport. Malelvo (“Bad Elf”), played by the spritely Chiara Bernazzani, engages in a little mischief, sneaking some small metal toys into Santa’s coat and shirt just before he goes through the metal detector. Two airport security agents (Richard Wittman and Aurelia D’Antonio) hassle, search, and delay Santa because of all the metal toys he is trying to get through security.

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Act 3. Santa, Mrs. Claus, Malelvo, and other assorted characters opt for "Plan B" and board a plane. Photo by Annie Schlechter.

Act 3 took place on the airplane, awaiting take-off. After a hilarious Aerea Polo Nord (North Pole Airlines) safety video made by the film maker Abigail Child, and featuring flight attendant Lauren Kinnee, we learn that the weather is too foggy for the plane to take-off, and Santa is stuck on the runway. Fortunately, the Center for Disease Control agent shows up (how often can one say that?) to return Rudolph and offer their apologies, as tests have shown that Rudolph does not have influenza, rather, his nose is naturally red. Rudolph then leads Santa’s sleigh through the fog to Rome to deliver the toys to all the children. The play ends with the entire cast on stage, led by Aurelia D’Antonio, singing “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” in Italian.

After the play, children play in the airplane set.

After the play, Babbo Natale (Santa), gave gifts to all the children of the Academy’s staff. A party followed, with a lot of traditional Italian Christmas treats, including pannetone, the cupola-shaped traditional Christmas sweet bread from Milan. Each of the children here at the Academy found a gingerbread ornament baked by our own kitchen staff, hung on a green ribbon, with their name on it in white icing.

My 6 month old daughter hangs her gingerbread ornament on the tree. Sort of.

On a personal note, most of my wife’s immediately family arrived last night for the holidays here in Italy. We’ll take a brief 4 day trip south to the Amalfi Coast (Sorrento, Capri, Pompeii, Herculaneum), and then return to Rome the day before Christmas Eve, to spend a family Christmas together here in Rome. Unfortunately, wife’s youngest sister’s flight to Rome from San Francisco yesterday was diverted due to the major snowstorm, and she is now marooned in a hotel in Pittsburgh, as the east coast runways are clogged with snow. She was due to arrive in Rome today, on December 20th, but now we’re hoping she’ll make it here to Rome in time to join us on Christmas Day, which also happens to be her birthday. Perhaps Rudolph will guide her way here…