Pictured: The cast of All Is Calm, currently onstage at the Historic Asolo Theatre. Photo by Kayla Erny.

On a midnight battlefield crawling with smoke, nine soldiers stand silhouetted. Silent. Still. Their faces draped in shadows they are featureless. Anonymous. And when the figures start to sing, it is as a ghostly chorus roused from the dark of history.

So opens Peter Rothstein’s All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914, a nine-man a cappella ode to the soldiers of World War I who, for at least one fateful day, put aside their arms and embraced a common humanity instead. It is a powerful image and a promising hook—and one that the rest of the production will strive to live up to.

Based on the true story, the narrative is told through a clever combination of monologue and musical, mining the stark dynamic between the two. One moment, the cast is a veritable a cappella assault force, full of energy and volume with vocal interplay as complex as the choreography. The next, all is silent and still but for a lone voice against the quiet, its source isolated in the beam of a single spotlight. It’s an effective technique made even more poignant by the fact that every word comes from the journals, letters, poetry, and even epitaphs of the soldiers who were actually there.

And when it works, it works, transfixing the audience and evoking everything from laughter and hope to heartbreak and fury. However, the show can also be a bit of a marathon—and not just for the cast, nearly all of which are onstage for the entire proceeding, singing and moving and marching without intermission or rest. With more than 20 musical numbers crammed into a relatively brief runtime, one starts to wonder if perhaps less is more. And while the show hits several high notes throughout, there are moments when it feels as if we’re hitting the same note a touch too often.

The show does (nearly) end on perhaps its strongest note, as the harsh reality of war revisits the men and they realize their respite is fleeting and false, their voices rising in an angry and confusing cacophony that presages the chaos to come. It’s a startling moment executed with elegant precision. And one that makes the decision to spoonfeed theme and message to the audience in the following scenes all the more unfortunate. Whether this demonstrates a lack of confidence in the previous hour’s material or in the audience is anyone’s guess.

But when all is sung and done, All Is Calm remains an impressive example of a cappella theater and a worthy addition to anyone’s Christmas traditions.

Currently onstage in the Historic Asolo Theatre, All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914 runs through Dec. 22.

Pictured: The cast of All Is Calm, currently onstage at the Historic Asolo Theatre. Photo by Kayla Erny.