By Gina Malone
Truman Capote’s short story A Christmas Memory has become a beloved holiday classic as a book, in film adaptations and on stage. This holiday season, actor and theologian E.R. Haire, Jr. brings the one-man show to Flat Rock with free performances at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, December 13 and 14, and on Sunday, December 15, at 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. in the Wilderness Room of the Parish House of St. John in the Wilderness Episcopal Church. Due to limited seating, an RSVP is required.
Haire, who will be performing the show for the sixth season at St. John in the Wilderness says that Capote’s story resonates with audiences for a number of reasons, but particularly as a reminder of familial love. “In the case of this story, it’s an elderly cousin who is a stand-in for a grandmother,” he says. “But most importantly, she is a friend and she represents friendship beyond measure. Also, the story is nostalgic for us, for a time when you could actually get a thank-you card signed by the president himself. You could commune with nature—uninterrupted; you could enjoy the simplicity of getting by on what you had or what you could create and being content with it—and all of these things are manifested by the characters in the story, and they tap gently on our longing to have those experiences, too.”
Set during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the autobiographical story was part of a trilogy of holiday stories Capote wrote about the time he lived with elderly relatives in rural Alabama. All of the stories feature Miss Sook Faulk, the cousin with whom young Buddy of the stories shares a special closeness. Togetherness, generosity, divinity seen in others and in the natural world, and unconditional love all play into the narrative. “Whether or not Capote meant to, he touches on themes central to an authentic Christian faith,” Haire says, “and these themes are also universal in humble truth.”
Haire studied at both the Yale School of Drama and the Yale Divinity School, where he received a Master of Sacred Theology. He went on to earn a Ph.D. in Theology and Ethics at the University of Edinburgh, concentrating his studies in religion, media and culture. A member of the Screen Actors Guild, he has worked in Los Angeles as an actor and at Paramount Studios. Theater credits include Richard III, The Importance of Being Earnest and Hamlet.
The Parish House is located at 1905 Greenville Highway, Flat Rock. To attend, RSVP is required at bit.ly/christmasmemory24. Visit StJohnFlatRock.org for more information.
