Revel, Revel
Hot Santa, we love you so
By Sam Hurwitt

East Bay Express

December 7, 2005
 

Holly go lightly: California Revels

Though the organization also whips up festive observances of other holidays now and again, California Revels has been re-creating Yuletide traditions of the past for so long now that its Christmas Revels has become a holiday tradition in its own right. The revelers celebrate their 20th anniversary this week at their longtime home, the Oakland Scottish Rite Center overlooking Lake Merritt. To put things in perspective, had you wandered off into the trees and made a little too much mistletoe-induced merry at the first Revels at Mills College in 1986, the fruit of your labors would have been old enough to vote in the last election. It’s all part of the circle of life, or at least that’s what you told the cops.

A seasonal celebration with its pagan roots showing as a joyous ushering-in of the Winter Solstice (though it won’t quite reach the solstice this time — the Revels end on December 18, and the days get brighter from the 21st on out), the show takes on a different cultural theme each year, from Galician to Appalachian or from Russian to Mesoamerican (though more often exploring various regions and eras of the British Isles).

This year the Revels returns to the medieval/Renaissance roots of the first installment, set in Derbyshire’s Haddon Hall in 15th-century England. The show is dedicated to California Revels cofounder Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer, who passed away this year. Expect hearty songs and stories, much carousing, local early-music combo Ensemble Alcatraz getting medieval on your ass, the jingling bells of Morris dancers, and everyone’s favorite Christmas mascot, a dragon.