By James V. Ruocco
In "Christmas in Connecticut," the musical version of the popular 1945 Barbara Stanwyck/Dennis Morgan movie - now enjoying a lengthy run at Goodspeed Musicals - the character of Liz Sandor, fresh from a small town in Idaho, arrives in New York City ready to conquer the world of journalism with her feminist views about life, women, independence, sexism, marriage and career choices that are very different from other females around her.
A modern, outspoken woman who refuses to stay at home, bake pies and play second fiddle to a working man or husband, Sandor is more concerned with writing columns about equality for women in marriage, in life and in the workplace.
This being the 1940s, she is forced to create a fake identity - Liz Sandor is now Liz Lane - and pen a cherry homemaker's column for a trendy women's magazine by pretending to be a happily married Connecticut housewife with a handsome husband, a newborn baby, a successful working farm and an idyllic life straight out of pages of "Good Housekeeping" and "Ladies' Home Journal."
It's a ruse, of course - concocted with the aid of her trusty editor, friend and sidekick Dudley Beecham - that spins completely out of control once her publisher Alexander Yardley insists, she entertain decorated war hero Jefferson Jones (it's a publicity stunt aimed to increase the magazine's readership) at her country home in Connecticut for Christmas.
One sight problem: there's no husband, no baby, no farm, etc.
And unlike Liz Lane, Liz Sandor doesn't know how to cook, milk a cow or much less, change a baby's diaper.
Back in the 1940s when "Christmas in Connecticut" first played movie theaters, this sort of screwball comedy nonsense was prime fodder for wartime audiences seeking frivolous, whole-hearted fluff designed solely for entertainment purposes.
It was fun.
It was silly.
It had lots of laughter.
It also came gift wrapped with a very happy ending.
The Goodspeed Musicals edition of "Christmas in Connecticut" treads merrily down the same pathway as the Warner Brothers production hoping to recreate the innocence, the nostalgia, the warmth and the silliness of the 1945 film on which it draws its inspiration. It also wisely chooses to update some of the material and add some additional characters and flourishes to shake things up plot wise and liven the proceedings with reinvented charisma, structure, arrangement and whirling cartwheel.
Penned by Patrick Pacheco and Erik Forrest Jackson, this homage to the holiday classics of yesteryear whirls and twirls with a poignant reflection and vivid remembrance that is expressed wholeheartedly for laughter's sake and amped up for today's audiences with freeform snap, ushered whimsey and finely calibrated animation. Both writers' also keep the dialogue, the characters and the various storylines firmly rooted in the 1940s, a conceit that works most advantageously here in much the same manner as the movie did without ever resorting to overkill or over exaggeration.
It all plays out in gumdrop gooey fashion - driven and fueled by a marvelous mix of mayhem, mischief, deception and conscience that adds energy and sweetness to this flavorful musical comedy.
Staging "Christmas in Connecticut" for Goodspeed Musicals, director Amy Anders Corcoran takes great delight in the silliness of the telling, its deliberate overshooting, its countryside/city life confusion, its wiggly gamboling and its attached message of yuletide fun, wartime romance and highlighted finesse. She also tries to make perfect sense out of Pacheco and Jackson's whimsical scenario by treating it with the kindness, sensibility and snowflake ping of other period Christmas musicals that find joy and a mad dash of warmth in the most improbable of situations and shenanigans.
Here, she wants you to laugh out loud, cheer the heroine, embrace the merriment and never once question the narrative's clearly projected bouts of hope and goodness or a very happy ending that chimes into view on December the 25th as the house lights fade to black and "Christmas in Connecticut" draws to a close.
Featuring music by Jason Howland and lyrics by Amanda Yesnowitz, "Christmas in Connecticut" unfolds with a holiday songbook of 18 different musical numbers. They are, in order of performance: "Tomorrow's Woman/No!" "No! (reprise), "The World of Liz Lane," "Recipe for Success," "A Capital Idea," "Christmas in Connecticut," "Home for the Holidays," "American Dream," "The World of Liz Lane (reprise), "Catch the Ornament," "Something's Fishy," "The Most Famous Jefferson," "Blame It on the Old Magoo," "Morning Chores," "Morning Chores (reprise)," "I'm Not Eleanor," "Tomorrow's Woman (reprise)" and "May You Inherit."
The score itself - a serviceable mix of period-friendly songs seamlessly placed throughout the two-act musical - comes packaged with sweet moments, velvety smoothness and comic values that swell and invigorate with remarkable ease and flourish. As envisioned by Howland and Yesnowitz, they make their decided impact. They carry the story along without hesitation. Each and every one of them are vocally right for the characters who sing them. They also fit nicely into the soundscape of the period, its setting and its musical structure.
Bringing the "Christmas in Connecticut" score to life, musical director Adam Souza ("Next to Normal," "Rags," "Kinky Boots," "Brigadoon") brings charm and vitality to the material, creating a musical arena of levity and fun that's arranged with comedic gait, expressive nuance, romantic lushness and lyrical illumination. It's all backed with affectionate tapering and lively sensibility from the orchestra and performed with well-coached bravura and sentimentalized verve by the entire cast, all of whom radiate and personify the oomph, sway and swing of a 1940s musical.
Highlights include "Tomorrow's Woman," "American Dream," "Morning Chores," "May You Inherit," "Catch the Ornament" and the title song "Christmas in Connecticut."
"Christmas in Connecticut" stars Audrey Cardwell as Liz Sandor, Raymond J. Lee as Dudley Beecham, Josh Breckenridge as Jefferson Jones, James Judy as Felix Bassenak, Tina Stafford as Norah O'Connor, Rashidra Scott as Gladys Higgenbottom, Matt Bogart as Victor Beecham and Melvin Tunstall III as Alexander Yardley.
Given the cloaked in silliness of the plot (remember, it's the 1940s), the entire cast - headed by the phenomenally talented Audrey Cardwell in a showstopping turn - tap into the material with charm, warmth and immediacy. From acting to singing to dancing, everything that they do is inspired and truthful and vital to telling of the "Christmas in Connecticut" narrative.
The intention is fun and fun they have escalating in speedy, irresistible, candy-coated performances with ever so much to enjoy.
Lively, nostalgia, sweet and sentimental, "Christmas in Connecticut" unfolds through big, bright holiday brushstrokes that add nuance and exhilaration to its inspiring message about independence, romance, feminism, homemaking and good cheer.
It's good for the soul. It tugs at the heart. It charms and cajoles. It glides and slides. It also lovingly recalls a time in America's past that no longer exists.
The cast takes charge of the lightweight material with enthusiasm and playful abandon. And director Amy Anders Corcoran fills the Goodspeed Musicals stage with enough sugary spice and red and green wrappings to last well until the New Year.
No comments:
Post a Comment