A RED devil with goats’ horns, a one-legged shepherd miraculously cured and angels with baroque voices offered a charming version of the Christmas Story to Dubliners in St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral yesterday.
The old-world magic of Prague in the shape of the Marionette Theatre Rise Loutek brought the Christmas story to life using over 50 beautifully carved and painted marionettes along with Czech singing and music.
The play echoed how the story of Jesus’s birth might have been recounted in medieval times, with flavours of folk pastoral, epiphany plays and baroque texts. The tale was embellished with heroes and villains: a good one-legged shepherd eventually rewarded; the devil, a malevolent influence that might have been hissed at by audiences in years gone by; and Herod, first ordering the deaths of children and then getting his comeuppance.
The event ended with candle light, the Christmas tableau and a beautiful Czech carol, and was rewarded with sustained applause from the 300-strong audience of adults and children.
The 25 members of the theatre group, all volunteers, travelled over land to Dublin at the invitation of Fr Pat O’Donoghue of St Mary’s. He had travelled to Prague to see them perform on the advice of Jacob and Christina Lendvay, both of whom were living in Dublin next door to the Pro-Cathedral.
The Lendvays have said they will be returning to Prague with the group. Ms Lendvay said she could not find work in her area of expertise, landscape design, and did not foresee any improvements here in the near future.
Speaking after the event, Fr O’Donoghue said the group had “made Christmas” for the people of St Mary’s.
The free performance will be repeated in St Sylvester’s Church, Malahide today at 3pm and again in the Pro-Cathedral tomorrow, on the Feast of the Epiphany, at 3pm.
