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Christmas Carnivals » Christmas Dinner » The Long Christmas Dinner |
The Long Christmas Dinner |
Go out for a play this Christmas with your closest ones to infuse yourself with some of the social values that literature has to offer, especially if it is one of Thornton Wilder’s works. Christmas Carnivals The Long Christmas Dinner by the noted American playwright and novelist.
The play was published in 1931 in The Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays in One Act. It dramatizes the lives of 11 members and four generations of the Bayard family over a ninety-year span of family Christmas dinners in the Bayard house. The first Christmas dinner is given by Roderick and Lucia Bayard, who have recently purchased the house. They invite Roderick's mother to celebrate the holiday with them. As the holiday tradition continues, Cousin Brandon, a heavy drinker, joins the group, Mother Bayard dies, Roderick prospers, and Roderick and Lucia have a son, Charles and a daughter, Genevieve. Over a series of dinners, the children grow up. Roderick eventually dies of a drinking problem. Genevieve goes abroad to study music.
Charles marries Leonora. They have three children, the twins, Lucia and Samuel, and a son, Roderick. Samuel is killed in WWI, Lucia and Roderick leave home to seek their fortunes, and an elderly cousin, Ermengarde joins the Christmas table. The last dinner finds Ermengarde alone, reading a letter from Leonora, herself now an aging matriarch, preparing to go to the first Christmas dinner at the new home of her married children, who now expecting their first child. Thus, one family cycle is completed, and another one begins.
The Long Christmas Dinner speaks to all generations. It is a simple, profound reminder that holiday dinners bring families together in one place for shared food and conversation, thereby reinforcing the ancient custom of the sharing of food within communities. Although family members come and go over time, the family itself remains intact. This play with a social message is kept alive at Christmas Carnivals The Long Christmas Dinner.
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