Asolo Rep's 'All is Calm' brings hope for the holidays

Peter Rothstein’s “All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914” is a Christmas story, but you won't see Scrooge, Santa or the Nutcracker on stage. 

The heroes of this story were flesh and blood. And their story really happened. It took place in World War I along the Western Front in 1914. On the nights before Christmas, countless German and British soldiers put down their rifles, crossed battle lines and sang Christmas carols together. 

Rothstein’s a cappella musical celebrates this unlikely outbreak of peace. He wrote and directed it in 2015. (Rothstein was the artistic director of Theater Latte Da in Minneapolis at the time.) The libretto and song selections are his creations; Erick Lichte and Timothy C. Takach collaborated on vocal arrangements. 

After a humble birth as a radio show, “All is Calm” premiered as a small-cast production at Theatre Latte Da in 2015. Since then, it’s been performed around the nation and the world. Rothstein will direct the Asolo Repertory Theatre production, which runs Dec. 6-22 at the Historic Asolo Theater, thanks to a partnership with The Ringling. Telling the story of the Christmas truce of 1914 is his passion. In the following talk, Rothstein shares why.

“The Christmas Truce of 1914.” If I stepped out of my time machine, what would I see?

You’d see snow. It’s snowing on the Western Front at Christmas time. You’d see German and British soldiers stop fighting for no apparent reason. This happened over several different nights. Soldiers on both sides exchanged gifts of chocolate and tobacco, played soccer and buried each other's dead. That’s what you’d see — but you’d also hear something. The winter was cold and sound traveled. You could hear a soldier’s cough from a mile away. Or hear a few soldiers singing Christmas carols in different languages. On the following night, you’d hear more soldiers singing. Night after night, the music just kept growing.

Where did this magical musical truce take place?

There were ceasefires at multiple locations along the front. Some lasted about a day. In other truces, soldiers on both sides left their trenches and celebrated Christmas together for several nights. Some truces lasted until New Year's Day. The soldiers involved were miles apart, yet they somehow got the same idea at the same time. There was something magical about it.

What inspired you to dramatize this unlikely miracle?

The story of the Christmas truce just grabbed me. I’d wanted to put it on stage the instant I learned about it. But for years, I didn't know how to dramatize it. The story’s climax is a lack of conflict — and that doesn't work for drama. I needed to find a form that did work. I asked myself, “What’s driving the story?” The answer seems obvious, but it took me years of research to find it.

Image courtesy of Michael Devaney

What did you find?

I realized that music was the catalyst for the Christmas truce. Winter was setting in. Soldiers on both sides were cold, lonely, isolated and homesick. Spontaneously, they began singing Christmas carols in their own languages. The soldiers' songs floated across no man’s land. Each side could hear the other. Before long, they were singing to each other. German soldiers, British soldiers. They’d hold impromptu concerts and call for encores in different languages. The result was a universal language of music — and a separate peace. I’m not sure historians will back me up on this, but I don't believe the Christmas truce of 1914 would have happened without this musical conversation. Music was cause, not effect. It’s what brought the soldiers together.

Ah. The soldiers didn’t sing because they’d stopped fighting. They stopped fighting because they were singing.

Exactly. Music was the key to the Christmas truce. Once I realized that, I had my dramatic structure. Now I knew how to tell the story. I didn’t have my characters yet. I still had to find the story’s heroes. But I could finally start writing the story. It took me 12 years to finish it.

What took you so long?

Yes, I was writing. But I was struggling. I’d realized there were holes in the story. “All is Calm” is a fact-based historical drama. But I didn’t have all the facts. There were more years of research ahead.

What was your starting point?

Ironically, I began in March 20, 2003 — on the night the United States invaded Baghdad. I flew to Europe and did more research in Belgium, Germany and France and Great Britain. What I discovered changed my perception of the Christmas truce. I’d known what that story meant to me, in my time. Now I could see what it meant to the military leaders of the time.

What’s the difference?

Perception. It’s Christmas at the start of world war on the Western Front. Franz, Tommy and Fritz stopped trying to kill each other and started singing Christmas carols. To contemporary eyes, it’s a heartwarming Christmas story. In the eyes of military leadership, it was a serious threat. Churchill was first Lord of the British Admiralty in 1914. He said something like, “I wonder what would happen if the British army suddenly and simultaneously went on strike?”

That reminds me of the old anti-war poster: “Suppose they gave a war and nobody came.”

That was a real possibility in 1914, If word of the Christmas truce got out, other soldiers might follow their bad example. And it would undermine the drumbeat of war propaganda back home. 

Wow. It could ruin the whole war.

Military leaders on both sides had to get the war back on track. Certain soldiers refused to fight? Shifting rotations solved the problem. They removed the truce’s participants and replaced them with different soldiers. That killed the truce. And they also suppressed the story of the Christmas truce. That’s what I discovered.

It’s a nasty discovery.

Yes. But it clarified my character focus. ... Who were the heroes of the Christmas truce of 1914? Certainly not the commanding officers. The nameless soldiers in the trenches were the real heroes. The Christmas truce was their story. Their leaders erased it from the history books. “All is Calm” would have to tell the soldiers’ stories. Not my fictionalized versions, and not in my words. The soldiers would tell their stories in their own words.

So, you didn’t write the libretto for “All is Calm.” The soldiers did?

Their words are the heart of it. I drew on the soldiers’ letters and journals, yes. But they’re not my only sources. I also drew on news articles, Great War poetry, gravestone inscriptions,and an old radio broadcast that’s probably bogus. I did write the epilogue. Beyond that, the libretto is all found text from that period.

Where’d you find the music?

Again, from a wide range of period sources. There are iconic World War I songs and Christmas carols in the languages of the participating nations — French, English, Dutch and German. The compositions are authentic and performed a cappella, one after the other.

What do you tell the actors recreating the Christmas truce?

I talk about the stakes of that moment. The moment when soldiers on both sides put down their rifles, stepped out of their trenches and walked into no man’s land. Imagine what that was like. Now put yourself in one soldier’s shoes. You’re exposed, unarmed, helpless. Hundreds of enemy soldiers are facing you in the trenches on the other side. You have faith that none of them will shoot you. They should, for many reasons. But you’re trusting your life that the hundreds of enemies you face will all find the courage to exercise peace. It’s an amazing act of courage — and it happened again and again in the Christmas truce. Try to feel that courage. Then make the audience feel it.