Onstage at The Crucible this year it’s a White Christmas, with a production full of energetic commitment, bright, beaming faces, a handsome array of costumes, set, props and lighting, some fine choreography, particularly superb orchestration and brilliant musicianship. Full of sunny, smiling niceness throughout, it’s also dotted with bursts of invigorating, engaging performance.
First staged in 2000 in the US, the musical is closely based on the 1954 Paramount film with Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen, though it’s the magic of catchy, cheery, evergreen Irving Berlin songs like Let Yourself Go, Blue Skies, I Love A Piano, Sisters and White Christmas that keeps White Christmas forever bobbing along.
The film has heaps of singing and dancing with minimal plot, mild romance, mild comedy, chunks of sentimentality (touching or cheesy according to taste) and portions of blandness, so it does go on a bit. Onstage all this converts into heaps of energetic singing and dancing, minimal plot, mild romance, mild comedy, smaller portions of cheese and some touching (Count Your Blessings) moments.
The era is nicely evoked via props, set and costume, starting in wartime Europe where uniformed performer privates, Bob and Phil, entertain US troops inside a giant, black and white TV set at the back of the stage, while at the front, a young girl visits a fat, bulky US refrigerator before curling up on a couch in front of a fuzzy, old TV and modest Christmas tree. The bulk of the story takes place once entertainers Bob and Phil are back in the US and link up with singing sisters, Judy and Betty. This leads to various romantic hitches and misunderstandings but primarily to the rehearsing and putting on of a big show (while praying for ski-able snow) to help out courageous, former general Waverly, who’s struggling to keep his hotel business afloat.
George Blagden and Stuart Neal are worthy performers as singing, dancing, quipping Bob and Phil, but it’s Sandra Marvin who really steals the show as Waverly’s hotel receptionist Martha. Her big, fab voice, warm, commanding stage presence and sparkling charisma bring to life a vibrant, endearing character, her comic timing and expressive acting and delivery making everyone else’s appear the more underwhelming. As the stern, snappy, yet warm-round-the-edges General, with whom Martha banters beautifully, Ewen Cummins does a sterling job, too, while Ava Rothwell gives her confident all as his granddaughter, earning ample applause – though ten-year-olds talking and singing in high-pitched American accents are not everyone’s cup of Marmite. In fact, putting on US accents generally seems to narrow throats and take voices up in pitch, which doesn’t always result in the most beautiful singing.
Sturdy performances on the acting, singing and highly vigorous dance fronts come from Grace Mouat as Betty and Natasha Mould as Judy, whether with feathery fans, elegant gowns or frantic tap shoes. Nice comic touches come from the neurotic, panicking stage manager, from Craig Armstrong as Ezekiel the hairy mountain man and from D’Mia Lindsay Walker and Megan Armstrong as Rhoda and Rita, the Oxydol girls who turn up anywhere and everywhere and, as we travel on a magnificently choreographed train to night-clubs, hotel and theatre-barn, the Crucible’s revolving parts and magnificent ensemble keep movement busy, involving and interesting.
The more showbissy the story becomes the grander and glitzier set, costumes and choreography grow, a gold piano and stage-wide, lit stairway with branching wings providing ideal surfaces for impressive, energetic, large-scale dance routines that ramp up those sparkly feel-good factors. All that’s needed then is the snow!
Eileen Caiger Gray
White Christmas plays until Jan 13th, for more information and tickets follow this link.
