Ruth Macgraff's The Cry Pitch Carrolls

What would you do if a stranger bearing the full-grown son of god showed up on your front lawn at Christmas? Opera visionary Ruth Margraff takes us to small-town America where three widows—Alice, Norma and Edith—are faced with the arrival of the son of god on their front lawns as Christmas approaches. The Bible Smuggler's Wife finds a chilly reception with her Small Christus when she returns to her hometown of Ishpeming, Michigan. As fragments of memory and broken faith emerge from the under the snow, the widows and the Bible Smuggler's Wife discover surprising truths about themselves and the nature of the divine.

A seasonal pageant for a non-denominational audience, The Cry Pitch Carrolls reflects on faith, community and nostalgia for Christmas past. It is a story about going home when home doesn't exist any more, and the gap between our nostalgic memories and our unsatisfied present. There is an emotional logic in its songs that embraces the poetry of the New Testament, even as it condemns the evils done in the name of Christianity.

The Cry Pitch Carrolls was perhaps an unlikely offering from Proximity, a group of agnostics, atheists, lapsed Catholics and Anglicans, Pagans and Jews. But this collection of carols honours our own "fragile and nostalgic christmas industries" and reminds us all to recognize the stranger in our midst.

Presented December 8th – 18th, 2005 at Performance Works, Granville Island

Ruth Magraff's The Cry Pitch Carrolls
Directed by Heidi Taylor
Musical direction by Joel DeStefano
Production design by Vera Lubimova and lighting by Julie Martens
Stage Management: Earl Wadden and Mike Dickinson
Cast: Carol Sawyer, Christine Stoddard, Paul Ternes, Bessie Wapp, and Melanie Yeats
The Band: Shanto Bhattacharya, Ben Rogalsky, and Joel DeStefano

Made possible with the generous support of: The Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council, and the City of Vancouver.