All In Love is Fair

By: Danielle Kelly

Join us Nov. 23-Dec. 22 at the Cow Palace!

In a world healing from a pandemic, it’s hard to remember events that can bring people together. Events where the whimsy of childhood thrives amidst a historically accurate atmosphere and where characters from classic books come alive. A place where performers can act and sing to the masses. Luckily one such event is celebrating its 40th anniversary in San Francisco at the Cow Palace, The Great Dickens Christmas Fair.

Patterson Family

In 1963, years before the Dickens Fair was even a twinkle in Ron and Phyllis Patterson’s eye, the couple worked together to recreate an Elizabethan market fair in Los Angeles. Originally it took place in a park and the neighborhood children performed for passersby. It was only over time where it grew into the hub that supports actors, vendors, and people who just like to dress up every now and then.“It was a commedia dell'arte, an Italian Renaissance theater form that the kids were doing. And the backyard was too small, so they rented a local park, and they got a radio station involved. And in the process of researching where commedia dell'arte was performed, it was on a wagon with a fold down stage called a commedia cart, and it would roll into the actors, the players, the gypsies, would roll into town and set up in a market square in the middle of a village in the springtime, when it was possible, because the weather was better and the snows were melted and the roads had dried out enough,” (Kevin Patterson).

Meet Kevin Patterson

According to Patterson, his parents were dedicated to creating improvisational, theatrical experiences to completely immerse their audiences. That love of theater and providing this environment continued throughout the years, as the now dubbed Renaissance Fairs grew in popularity throughout California and the world. After the success of their first effort, the Patterson family wondered if they could do anything for the wintertime. Elizabethan market fairs traditionally occurred in the springtime when the weather was warmer and being outdoors was more pleasant. Now that the Pattersons had started this tradition more and more people started to join. No longer was it a performance venue for a children's theater troupe, but a professional stage where adult actors gathered, and vendors started selling homemade wares.

Early Fair photos:

1972 Dickens Fair (Kevin’s parents – Ron and Phyllis on the right

Yet there was nothing in the wintertime until the party that inspired the Dickens Fair. Kevin explained, “that party was a Victorian themed party that involved Victorian parlor games, a particular book that I still have of parlor games, and some of which we engage the audience to play at the Dickens fair to this day. [My parent’s] guests were so delighted by the concept that they encouraged my parents to have a Dickens fair or a Victorian themed fair as well. And it took a year for them to put all that together.”

Victorian Street Fair

So it was that a Victorian street fair event was created. At this point it was still held in Los Angeles where the Patterson family lived. Actors became the Victorian street folk and were able to interact with guests. Characters from books like Oliver Twist, and Alice in Wonderland roamed around blending fiction with the accuracy of the streets. In a very real way, the Pattersons were celebrating how incredible the common man could be. Without the characters wandering in Victorian markets or Elizabethan markets, it wouldn’t be as special because it wouldn’t feel as real.

Support for Art & Theater

These fairs had an unintended ripple effect for acting and trade communities. During the late 1960s and early 1970s America was becoming increasingly reliant on machine assembly lines. Handmade items were becoming out of fashion, since it was cheaper and easier to buy things from a manufactured source. The Pattersons felt that handmade efforts such as metal work, clothes making, jewelry making, and art in general were dying. As part of their efforts to keep art and theater alive, they created a space for individuals dedicated to a craft to sell their wares. Pre-internet this was a fantastic opportunity for artists and people in trade to advertise themselves, and make money to support their families.

Performers at The Dickens Christmas Fair

“There weren't street fairs back in the 1960s. The street fair is something that came after the Renaissance fair. So people didn't make crafts. My parents had a very hard time finding people, professional artists, who were making any quantity of anything. They were hobbyists, but there weren't a lot of working crafts people. So the crafts movement was largely started by the Renaissance fairs, and then it became very popular in a lot of different ways,” (Kevin Patterson).

Acting troupes also had opportunities for employment year round. While both the Renaissance Fair and the Dickens Fair have many volunteers, they have always been based on performance and theater. Through these venues, actors are able to pursue their dreams and also have enough to eat at the end of the day. Not to mention, they spread cheer with them. According to Patterson, “we train all 350 of the performers at the Dickens Christmas fair, and then some, because many of the people that are in the booths and all of the shopkeepers have to be in costume and in character, too. So we teach them the language, we teach them the dance. We teach them some of the superstitions or otherwise just the way that they would have thought in Victorian England, and we have wonderful teachers that put them through these classes. It's about a three week process every year, and some of the groups actually meet all year.”

People love these events so much, that even through the pandemic this tradition was preserved. “We don't feel like COVID really interrupted the fair that much, We had one year when we had Dickens fair at home, where we did all of the videos and we did all of the recipes that were able to help people to bring the joys of the Dickens Christmas fair into their own parlors. So, for instance, we had Father Christmas sitting by a fireside, reading the night before Christmas, and people could play that in their homes. So in a sense, we made the pandemic situation where we all had to be separate, maybe a little more special, because we did some things we couldn't do otherwise at the live event.” Even in a time of hopelessness and fear, actors and people from youtube got together to spread joy.

Even today Kevin Patterson is not worried about lack of attendees due to more children being on screens. “The Renaissance fairs and the Dickens fairs and any other forms of creative arts give people the ability to generate their own imagination and their own sort of creative inspirations. And children that don't have that, that are just responding to what they see on a screen...it just isn't the same as the experience that you get when you have the ability to stand on a stage. It is unpredictable, and it is always more fun and more playful than if you're one on one with a screen, watching something passively.” In a world where the concern with children being on screens too much is growing, it might be events like the Dickens fair that socialize children of the next generation. Maybe it will allow more kids to become artists and actors, knowing there is a place they can go to for employment. Perhaps these children won’t be actors, but they will still support these efforts to add a little sparkle to everyday life when they grow up.

Luckily no matter how often they go to the fair, those children will never get bored. The Dickens Fair is a constantly changing experience where no two days are the same. Actors change up their skits, new vendors come in, shows add something amazing and fresh. If some people aren’t able to perform a skit like they used to, another group can pick it up years later, and the cycle continues. “There's nothing that we really can dream up that we have not actually produced at the fair to bring to life this total world of the Victorian version of Dickensian London as Charles Dickens would have dreamed it.” It’s hard to believe an event as beloved as the Dickens Christmas Fair started as just a dinner party in someone’s home. If anything, it shows the effort people are willing to go to for joy, theater, and art.