“‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there,” read the opening lines of Clement Clarke Moore’s classic poem, “A Visit From St. Nicholas.” Moore wrote the whimsical poem as a Christmas gift for his six children; he first read it to them on a cold Christmas Eve in Manhattan in 1882.
Decades later, another father would read the poem every December to his son, James Hadley, now the writer and stage director of Cirque du Soleil’s premiere holiday show “‘Twas the Night Before.” For many, the poem evokes warm holiday nostalgia.
“Now looking back, I think, wow, what a wonderful tradition. … I have very sentimental memories of that,” Hadley said. “It’s amazing how much of the images stuck with me … so much of what we associate with Christmas comes from this poem.”
The poem’s fanciful stanzas, and the parent-child tradition of reading it during the holidays, inspired Cirque du Soleil’s touring show “‘Twas the Night Before,” coming to Atlanta’s Fox Theatre Dec. 3-15.
The plot unfolds as a father attempts to remind his disenchanted, TikTok-addicted daughter of the true magic of Christmas.
“He’s trying to use the poem to reconnect with her to bring back that Christmas spirit,” Hadley said. “And of course, she’s not interested in the beginning. Through the magic of theater, they’re transported into the world of the poem.”
The world of the poem is brought to life in true Cirque style. With enchanting costumes, dreamy special effects, jaw-dropping aerial artists, death-defying stunt artists, jugglers, dancers, roller skaters, music and, for this show, artificial snow. Cirque certainly knows how to enrapture an audience. And while “‘Twas the Night Before” is designed as a touring theatrical show performed at local venues across the country rather than on one of the company’s custom-built, high-tech stages, the show is no less bewitching.
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
The poem is not utilized in a linear fashion. Hadley instead deconstructs and reorders the stanzas to best suit the plot arc and to elevate either forgotten or overplayed lines that may have lost their pizzazz with too much repetition.
“I think a lot of people are going to rediscover this poem with this show,” he said. “We started with finding those beautiful pieces of the poem that we could link to different acts.”
For example, “the children were nestled all snug in their beds while visions of sugarplums danced in their heads” turns into a chaotic pillow fight on stage.
“Some other pieces are more poetic that we’ve been able to link them to some aerial acts,” Hadley said. “Some are more silly, fun and rambunctious.”
The family-friendly show, which is in its fifth year, has expanded and changed. Hadley said he’s seen “‘Twas the Night Before” become another family tradition for many of his audience members. It has grown in popularity so much that the show has increased from one to four full casts, each with 26 members and their own artistic director and touring schedule. Mélissa Colello, an aerial performer from France, is the artistic director for the cast coming to Atlanta.
While the show still has the usual crowd-pleasers, such as the “the big reindeer hoop diving act at the end,” Hadley said, it has evolved to hit deeper notes emotionally.
“There’s a lot of emotional moments that I’m really excited about. … The father has a really emotional rope act, which is really beautiful,” he said. Hadley cried during a recent run-through of the act in Montreal.
The act takes place at a moment when the father, played in Atlanta’s cast by Ron Oppenheimer, has lost his daughter to the mystical world and is trying to find her.
“I’m kind of at a point where I’m giving up and losing hope,” Oppenheimer said of his character, who then grabs on to the bottom hoop of a lamp hanging from a single rope descending from the rafters. He is raised high were he swings and gracefully contorts his body around the lamp.
Californian Oppenheimer, 26, graduated from the National Circus School in Montreal in 2021 and is one of the first to ever perform or master the “lamp act.”
Credit: Kyle Flubacker, MSG Entertainment
Credit: Kyle Flubacker, MSG Entertainment
“It’s a very dim act because there’s the light from the lamp and then not much other light. It’s a very dark, intimate, emotional act,” he said. “The song [for the act] is my favorite one, not just because I’m in it, but it’s the most dramatic and emotional one.”
Heightening each act, whether it be emotive, festive or playful, is music composed by Jean-Phi Goncalves who took liberty with Christmas classics to reinvigorate well-known tunes. There are hip-hop renditions, holiday mashups and some more elegant melodies.
“I think there’s music that we’ve all sort of come to almost tune out because we hear it as music that we hear in the mall, but he’s [Goncalves] really reimagined it and modernized it and made it fun,” Hadley said. “Usually when someone asks me, ‘what do you think is surprising about the show?’ … it’s the music.”
The set design, by Genevieve Lizotte, is simple, yet when the light cascades onto the elements on stage, it awakens.
“There’s really not a lot to it [the set design] … it’s a lot of tinsel, a lot of garland … but as soon as you light it in a different way or add some LED sparkles, it completely transforms,” Hadley said. “It can be very intimate, or really big, bright and much more of a celebration.”
Credit: Michael Last, MSG Entertainment
Credit: Michael Last, MSG Entertainment
IF YOU GO
Cirque du Soleil’s “‘Twas the Night Before” has 17 performances Dec. 3-15 at the Fox Theatre. Tickets start at $50 and can be purchased online at foxtheatre.org.
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