Newspaper Page Text
Page 4B life Style THURSDAY, DECEMBER 14 -20, 2017
From left Jeremy Wood, Karen Howell, Kate Johnson, Scott DePoy and Paige Mattox. Photo by R.Todd Fleeman.
Christmas at Sweet Apple brings sweet stories and songs for holidays
by Kathy Mitchell
W hen local theater brings audiences
a touch of local culture and history,
often something special happens.
That is the case with the current offering
from Dunwoody’s 42-year-old theater. Those
who miss the sometimes tender, sometimes
amusing anecdotes written by Celestine
Sibley during her years as a columnist for
the Atlanta Constitution can find her words,
wit and wisdom alive again at the Stage
Door Players production of Christmas at
Sweet Apple.
The theater invites area residents to
“take a break from the hustle and bustle
of the holiday craziness, and come sit by
the fire for a spell” with Christmas at Sweet
Apple, written by Decatur resident Phillip
DePoy. The play is based on the writings
of Sibley, who in addition to writing for
The Constitution for more than 50 years,
authored more than 15 books. While Sibley
was a reporter covering major news stories
and later The Constitution’s first female
editor, she probably is best remembered for
columns in which she told uniquely Southern
stories. She continued writing the column
until shortly before her death in 1999.
Sibley is a character in Christmas
at Sweet Apple, which chronicles her
interactions with people from the Atlanta
community—both the famous and
accomplished as well as the obscure and
downtrodden. She invites an odd collection
of characters to the Roswell cabin she calls
Sweet Apple for a bowl of gumbo, a cup
of punch and a simple Georgia mountain
Christmas.
Each guest has a story to tell. The group
includes Beth, a young woman whose
husband while awaiting trial for theft on
Christmas Eve skipped out on her, the
children and the courts. Sibley and a friend
try to help them and learn that what people
value may not be what others assume they
value. An older woman, Patience, tells a
family legend of the Christmas interaction
between a blind woman and a Civil War
soldier who convinced family members
that celebrating Christmas is not a sin.
Dave, a young Atlanta bar employee, has
a story from his Louisiana Cajun childhood
that involves a mute sister and a bull that
marches and dances the Cotton-eyed Joe.
Woven through the stories is the theme
that the most precious gifts are not those
of monetary value, but those that uniquely
express the love and concern of the giver.
If that’s not enough to inspire holiday
sentiment, the music—much of it suggesting
an old-fashioned Southern Christmas—
surely will.
While no year is specified for the events,
sometime in the 1950s would be a good
guess, based on the two characters that
represent actual people. In addition to
Sibley, there’s her friend Ollie Reeves,
former poet laureate of Georgia, who
died in 1963. But Sibley’s character in
the play speaks of her beloved “Muv,”
her affectionate name for her mother, as
having died, something that didn’t happen
until the 1970s. It’s possible that DePoy
did not intend to capture any literal point in
time but intended only to convey the spirit
of this renowned Southern writer and her
relationship to her community and her love
for the simple rural life of her childhood.
The play features a talented cast, who
in addition to their main roles, occasionally
appear as characters in the vignettes that
illustrate each storyteller’s recollections from
the past. Performing are actor and musician
Scott E. DePoy as Ollie Reeves, Karen
Howell as Patience, Kate Johnson as Beth,
Jeremy Woods as Dave and Paige Mattox
as Sibley, whom Mattox calls “a strong,
smart, inspiring woman.”
Remaining performances of Christmas
at Sweet Apple are Thursday, Dec. 14,
through Sunday, Dec. 17. The Stage Door
Players perform in a theater in the building
that houses the Dunwoody Library and the
Spruill Arts Center. The address is 5339
Chamblee Dunwoody Road, Dunwoody.
For tickets or further information, visit www.
stagedoorplayers.net.
