Fellowship & Fairydust

In November 2021, I was asked to write freelance articles on the advent wreath’s four candles. Traditionally, these candles represent hope, peace, joy, and love. Each of these themes is central to Christmas, and more substantial than we think. The more we learn about the Old Testament Hebrew word hesed (“loving kindness”), the more we realize that love goes beyond our sentimental clichés.

However, Christmas is more than just hope, peace, joy and love. It also has a sadness to it. It is the story of innocents slaughtered by tyrants. It is the story of a pregnant mother migrating across the country to satisfy a government policy, giving birth in a small barn. It is a story with its share of strife, and for many of us, a time to mourn what we’ve lost.

The sense that Christmas is about remembrance and mourning as much as it is about celebration, hit me especially this hard year. The day after Thanksgiving, I was looking through old files on my computer. I discovered a theatre review I had tried to publish in my high school newspaper. Here’s a revised version of the review: 

It is Black Friday 2012, and my family is sitting in a room with twelve pews. The room is housed in Colorado Springs’ historic Old Colorado City area – a collection of buildings housing candy stores, boutiques, craft and art shops of every kind. This building contains Simpich Showcase Theatre, operated by puppeteer and doll restorer David Simpich. My parents, sisters and I are here to see his production of “The Christmas Carol.”

The lights go out. David Simpich walks onto the stage dressed like a Victorian gentleman. He produces a feather on strings and moves it across an open book. He introduces himself as Charles Dickens and recites the “Marley was dead…” monologue. As he finishes talking about Marley, Simpich brings a marionette of Ebenezer Scrooge onstage. The play’s action begins in earnest. 

David Simpich is the only performer in this play. He creates every voice, from Tiny Tim’s high-pitched pleas to Scrooge’s guttural snarl. He even creates sound effects like wind rushing down the streets. The stage isn’t set up to obscure Simpich, so you see him taking props on and off the stage, manipulating the marionettes. Somehow, even though he never tries to disappear, your attention is always drawn to the marionettes’ intricate wooden faces.

I was curious how Simpich would manage the scene where Marley leaves and Scrooge looks out his window to see chained phantoms in the streets. The program didn’t list extra ghost marionettes, so I assumed he would find some way to represent them. When the scene arrives, Simpich pulls a thin white sheet across the stage. A green light shines onto the sheet, Simpich moves his hands through it. He narrates the scene from Dickens’ book, letting your mind create images of ghostly hordes in chains.

Sometime later, Tiny Tim says “God bless us, everyone.” Simpich bows and everyone applauds. I walk out of the small theater and go through a corridor to a small museum showcasing handcrafted dolls. These dolls were made by David Simpich’s parents, who ran Simpich Character Dolls until 2007. I’ve been here several times, but I stop to see Tom Sawyer, Mary Poppins, and Bob Cratchit. After the museum, I enter a small shop in the building’s front. Less expensive Simpich dolls are on sale, along with books like Oliver Twist and Little Lord Fauntleroy. Around the front desk, paintings by local artists are on display.

Visiting Simpich Showcase Theatre reminds you of something you probably learned once but forgot: wonder. Disney introduced many of us to wonder for the first time, though we didn’t have the words to explain it. Even today, it’s hard to sum up wonder. The nearest I can get is that wonder is finding something so intricate, so creative, and yet so wholesome that I must stop and look. In a world where hardship and pain permeate so much, it’s good to know there are still places where you can find it. Simpich Showcase Theatre does that for me.

I wrote this piece on November 30, 2012.

On November 26, 2021, I found the piece again and looked up Simpich Showcase Theater. I found a notice on their website that the theatre, store and other operations were closing. The pandemic was the primary reason, along with a flash flood in May 2020 that damaged their storage facilities. I think about how many similar projects, little places where artists produce hand-crafted work that could never be mass-produced or replaced, we have lost in the last two years. I looked around the website for a while, watching video recordings of Simpich shows – “The Christmas Carol,” an adaptation of “The Firebird,” an original Christmas play called “The Puppet Maker.” Nothing in Old Colorado City’s array of artisan shops will replace those puppets. I know that this season I shall mourn them.

This article previously published as “Christmas Mourning and Childhood Memories” on gcsalter.wordpress.com