As Melissa Meztler walks into the basement of First United Methodist Church in downtown Tacoma, she’s carrying a pig. No, make that a goat – or is it a pig with antlers?
Whatever it is, it’s one of six huge, rather scary masks she’s made out of papier-mché for this year’s production of the Revels, rehearsing at the church. Based on folk song, dance and Yuletide traditions, the Christmas Revels is an annual Rialto Theater tradition. This year, the show goes to old Bavaria, drawing on local Schuhplattler dancers and Tacoma interpretations of Alpine rituals – such as Metzler’s masks.
Oh, and there’s a lot of lederhosen and beer, too.
The Revels is a largely amateur folk-based production that was founded in Cambridge, Mass., in 1971, and has since been licensed in nine other cities around the country, including Tacoma. While scripts, music and even costumes are shared, each city brings its own character and skills to the concept. The show draws on Yuletide traditions from different places and times: Previous Revels shows in Tacoma have been set in Victorian and medieval England, France and old Quebec.
This year, Revels director Mary Lynn said they wanted something less time-specific. Olden-day Bavaria fit the bill – and had some pretty fun, colorful costumes besides, she said. “We try to recreate the fun of Revels with a different look and sound each year,” Lynn said.
Metzler’s masks are colorful, if not exactly fun. Based on the 10th-century Alpine tradition of sending men in wild masks to follow the white-robed female spirit Perchta around the countryside to drive out evil beings, the Perchten masks are fantastic mixes of animal, human and demon. Metzler and her husband, Dan, came up with their own creations made of chicken wire, molding foam and papier-mché, attached to helmets for support. There’s a gray-faced bald guy with tongue hanging out and 3-foot horns on either side, and a couple of wild-antlered beasts halfway between goat and pig. There’s a surfer-dude troll with V-shaped horns and tangled blonde-yarn hair, and a lion with big fangs. They’re all huge, and all a little bit scary.
As Metzler tries the masks on the men who’ll wear them, she takes notes on which is top-heavy, which needs more support, whether the wearers can breathe. Although she’s done costumes for Revels before, the masks are a learn-as-you-go thing.
“Most people don’t make masks every day,” she said. “We’d start an idea and play with it until it worked.”
When all the masks are on, the six men rehearse their half-dancing procession around the room to the bizarre clanking of a giant metal glockenspiel played by Rick Lorenz, who’s wearing a human face with alpine goat horns.
Tagging along on the end are two extra characters, one of whom Revels audiences will recognize: He’s got bushy white hair, and will be wearing red robes. Yes, it’s Santa, in his German form of Sankt Nikolaus. Played by Clark Maffit, he’s genial, wise, kind. But next to him is a particularly Germanic sidekick most folks here won’t know about: Ruprecht, who’s neither wise nor kind.
“Ruprecht is a gnomish-type character who carries switches and coal to punish naughty children,” explained Seattle comedian Tony Curry, who was Scrooge in last year’s Revels and who’s playing Ruprecht this year with hilarious ridiculousness. Hunched and big-nosed, he tails Saint Nick like a rather annoying elf, growling nearly understandable gibberish and waving his switches in a mock-threatening way.
“It’s a very dark side of Santa, of the commercialized version we know,” Curry said. “It’s very intriguing. I’d never heard of the character before.”
While Ruprecht chases the children in the Revels kids’ chorus and Saint Nick looks on benevolently, the adults in the Bavarian scene are making merry with German carols such as “Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen” and audience singalongs such as “Stille Nacht,” plus plenty of hunting and drinking songs. There’ll be a folk music trio of flute, clarinet and violin, some picturesque lantern songs from the children, and a lot of polkas. Costumes are heavy on the lederhosen and checked shirts, but with a couple of gorgeous 1840s damask dresses with lace collars and puffy caps, made by Tacoma costumer Alex Lewington.
There’s the usual silly mummers’ play, annual songs like “Lord of the Dance,” and the story of Sankt Nikolaus acted out, with a mini-version of the saint played by 8-year-old Adrian Uschel-Speir.
But the highlight of the dancing this year comes from two Tacomans who do competitive Schuhplattler dancing – you know, the kind with twirling skirts and thigh-and-foot slapping. Kurt Graupensperger and Katarina Murphy have been doing the German folk dance for about 10 years with the Seattle-based Enzian dancers, and when Graupensperger saw that this Revels show was themed on Bavaria, he decided to audition. As well as being a confident chorus member (he has sung at the Stadttheater in Freiburg, Germany) and performing a couple of solos with Murphy, Graupensperger is teaching two Schuhplattler dances to the Revels chorus.
“These men have been picking up Schuhplattler dancing amazingly well,” says Graupensperger. “It’s really difficult. Some of them look pretty darn good.”
And some of them don’t?
“Yes, but we play to that in the show,” he says with a smile.
Graupensperger thinks the whole thigh-slapping, arm-raising dance stems from a kind of rebellious showing-off, maybe even based originally on the mating dances of herons, who lift their wings and long legs just like Graupensperger himself does in the rehearsal. As the Revels chorus looks on appreciatively, the tall, thin man whoops and hollers, kicking up his long, lederhosen’d legs while Murphy pirouettes around the room, her red skirt swirling.
“(The German traditions) still have a lot of familiarity around here,” said Lynn of this year’s Revels. “I think it will ring a bell – you feel the roots of our Christmas.”
Rosemary Ponnekanti: 253-597-8568, rosemary.ponnekanti@thenewstribune.com, blog.thenewstribune.com/arts
The Christmas Revels
When: 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 1 and 5:30 p.m. Sunday, 7:30 p.m. Dec. 20 and 21
Where: Rialto Theater, 310 S. Ninth St., Tacoma
Tickets: $12-$27
Information: 253-591-5894, broadwaycenter.org, pugetsoundrevels.org
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