A lovely holiday treat: ‘Christmas at the Old Bull and Bush’

Tracey Stephens and Albert Coia [Chris Banks]

By David Siegel

Brimming with heart, musical numbers to elicit smiles, a unique wit, audience sing-alongs, and moments that disrupt theatrical norms, MetroStage’s “Christmas at the Old Bull and Bush” is a charmer. It is lovely, lively fare for the holidays; a figgy pudding in all its sweet glory.

Written and directed by Catherine Flye, the pre-1920s British music-hall-style entertainment and antics of Christmas at the Old Bull and Bush is chock-full of jolly jokes meant to cause groaning and almost three dozen holiday-tinged musical numbers related to The Great War.

But wait; “Christmas at the Old Bull and Bush” is more than a blithe, carefree production to forget one’s woes. There is a poignancy to it as it flows into Act II. The production has weight and serious convictions. There is also a singular tenderness hidden not so deeply when a song such as “Keep the Home Fires Burning” receives its just due:


Keep the home fires burning, 
While your hearts are yearning, 
Though your lads are far away 
They dream of home.

From an e-mail exchange with Flye, I learned that some of the production’s authenticity came from her memories of listening to her father tell stories about the Great War and read aloud from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Given her song selections, one does not have to be steeped into that war of more than 100 years ago to embrace the production. As I recall, even WW I flying ace Snoopy knew such numbers as “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” and “Pack Your Troubles.”

The MetroStage production of “Christmas at the Old Bull and Bush” has the comic chops and glorious voices of the endearingly bawdy Tracey Stephens, a coy Katherine Riddle, the arched eyebrows performance of Brian O’Connor, and the Borscht Belt-like humor of Albert Cola, along with Peter Boyer’s work as a maligned barkeep. And Flye has several cute comical turns as well.

Then add in what had me in particular bliss: the smooth, wide-ranging baritone voice of Bob McDonald. He gave fresh life and new insights to three songs I thought I knew. McDonald has had a diverse musical career that includes not only summer cabaret performances at Signature Theatre, but regularly sings the National Anthem at Washington Caps games and serves in the U.S. Army Chorus.

Let me highlight the three numbers that McDonald sang with the piano accompaniment of Joseph Walsh. In Act I, are the chirpy lyrics and dashing, romantic presentation of “On the Road to Mandalay.” The song is based on the Rudyard Kipling poem about British troops stationed in Burma. Sung by McDonald dressed in tails and top hot, the sentiments about returning to an exotic world so unlike Britain were easy to understand: “Come you back, you British soldier, Come you back to Mandalay.”

McDonald gives his own personal rendition of that American secular ode to the Christmas season, “A Christmas Song.” On the chilly, snow-flake-encrusted evening I took in the show, I easily drifted back to my own memories of many a New York City December night, with hot chestnuts right off a street vendor’s grill.

Act II opened with “Christmas in the Trenches,” and McDonald’s voice gave me a catch in the throat. The song based on the famous “Christmas Truce” of 1914, when the Great War was still young, and the various sides had not yet become mortal enemies. In the way it was set by Flye, costumed by Michael Sharp, and delivered by McDonald, the performance had a persuasive, quiet, anti-war sentiment.

Let me add, that as McDonald sang “Christmas in the Trenches,” I was carried back to the great WWI anti-war movie, “Paths of Glory,” staring Kirk Douglas, and the last scene when the singing of a frightened young German woman brought rowdy French infantrymen to rapt silence with misty eyes.

Concluding with a full-throated sing-along of “Auld Lang Syne,” MetroStage’s “Christmas at the Old Bull and Bush” is full of a rich Christmas spirit from another time and place that is jolly-good fun. It is a distinctive holiday diversion from too many Nutcrackers or A Christmas Carols, for those inclined.

Just don’t let the poignant parts pass you by, please. MetroStage’s “Christmas at the Old Bull and Bush” has a savory meaty core, not unlike the spicy sausage sandwich with hot mustard I had before the performance, hawked by Michael Sharp in the MetroStage foyer. Yum.

Where and when: “Christmas at the Old Bull & Bush plays through Dec. 24, at Metro Stage,  1201 N. Royal St. in Old Town, Alexandria. Show times are 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, and 7 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets are $55 or $60. Order tickets online or call the box office, 703-548-9044.

This article is based on a piece published in DC Metro Theater Arts Dec. 18.