Review: CHRISTMAS DAY, Almeida Theatre

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

Sam Grabiner’s latest play posits a thousand questions about the intricacies associated with Jewishness today; from the pogroms of the late 19th century, to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. It is hard to imagine a more prescient or dramatically ambitious piece of theatre today.

Christmas Day succeeds in exploring the vastness of many Jewish experiences, opinions, and quandaries. The differences of experience and opinion around the not-Christmas table differs greatly between each character, with tension boiling over in most interactions. Grabiner successfully represents these differing views authentically and without judgment. In today’s theatre, rarely does a playwright succeed so well in exposing an audience’s discomfort at watching a group of people explore each others’ viewpoints.

Unfortunately, Christmas Day’s ambition does sometimes lead to confusion. This is an inevitable outcome given the show’s 1 hour 50 minutes run time without an interval, and the play’s text being so laden with history and symbolism. Much like the character of Noah’s lamentation on Jewish identity and belonging closing the play (deftly and vulnerably portrayed by Samuel Blenkin), this play could benefit from an expansion to more clearly deal with its demands.

Maud (Callie Cooke), the only non-Jewish principal cast member, hilariously provides much needed pathos at key parts of the play. Tamara (Bel Powley) and Aaron (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd) also expertly fizz, particularly where they explore what they haven’t said to one another.

James Macdonald’s direction makes an audience member brilliantly uncomfortable. This play necessitates tension, and the direction and pacing means that it rarely diffuses. Miriam Buether’s set design also does well to convey the office-cum-squat Noah and Tamara are living in, and the space heater used as a Dr Eckleburg-esque flame of God is inspired. Amy Ball’s casting of this play is also deserving of praise, with the family/family-friend dynamics naturally bleeding through their collective performances.

The closing symoblism of a dead fox’s blood being used in a near baptism-like ceremony contrasts Judaism with Christianity shockingly. Despite the bloody finish, Grabiner shows hopefulness, as in Berakhot, with the fox representing a fulfilment of Zechariah’s prophecy of joyful rebuilding. The play leaves an audience questioning so much, and its climactic prophecy of hope is something anyone can hold on to while experiencing the increasingly hostile attitude to otherness.

**** Four stars

Reviewed by: Jeff Mostyn

Christmas Day plays at London’s Almeida Theatre until 8 January, with further info here.