NEW YORK—The quintessential old-fashioned English Christmas never really existed until Charles Dickens wrote about it in “A Christmas Carol,” and Santa Claus was never round and jolly until Coca-Cola featured him that way in an advertising campaign. Yet both creations have long become part and parcel of the public consciousness. The same is true with Dylan Thomas’s joyfully nostalgic “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.”
The perennial (if not always annual) holiday treat is presented by the Irish Repertory Theatre, now at its temporary space near Union Square. Though Thomas had written parts of the story earlier, it was originally written as a radio play in 1952 and draws upon his boyhood memories of Christmas.
What makes the production so appealing is its quiet and elegant simplicity.
