A Christmas Story review

City Circle - I’m going to hazard a guess that you’ve seen A Christmas Story. When one of the co-directors polled the audience at the beginning of the show, 99 percent of the audience had. Anyone who comes to see their favorite highlights of the classic will not be disappointed; every one of them is represented—even some you would expect the limits of live theater would force a scriptwriter to leave out, such as the family’s car trip (in which Ralphie utters the ultimate swear word).

A Christmas Story is a moment in time of one family in frozen Indiana in the 1940s. It is the story of Ralphie, his friends, his enemy, and his quest for the perfect Christmas gift: “a legendary Red Rider carbine air pistol with a compass and this thing which tells time built right into the stock,” a phrase repeated so often throughout the show that the entire cast is able to parrot it at the curtain call.

City Circle is presenting this show in the convention center of the Marriott Hotel in Coralville. Iowa City area theatre is a history of found spaces, with plays performed anywhere from the back of pickup trucks, to church basements, back rooms of paint stores, and on to the grandeur of the Englert. The convention center is fine as a make-do space, and offers the wonderful amenities of parking and wine available for purchase. The lack of a truly raised stage did present some sight line issues, as your reviewer is of a somewhat smaller stature and had to occasionally crane around the head of the person in front of her.

The story is told in narration from the future, with a grown man Ralph telling the story of that Christmas for young Ralphie. Tim Barnes adequately filled the role. The script of this play relies somewhat heavily on narration—a conceit which may work better for more static film than it does for a play, in which live actors need to stand by while the narrator describes the scene. Kudos are due to the actors portraying Mother, Father, Ralphie, and Randy, as they managed to look just busy enough without being distracting while Ralph the Elder spoke.

The set for this play was spectacular. The split-level stage conveyed just the right level of shabbiness and homeyness, and its form fit well—stairs for Ralphie to climb to sit in his room, plotting ways to suggest to his parents the perfect gift, and a cupboard under the sink where his brother Randy likes to hide. Portions of the set slid away quietly to reveal a schoolhouse, which was then tucked away again when the scene changed. The pine trees behind the house and the icicles hanging from the eaves of the house and garage were especially nice touches. When the furnace got “a clinker,” smoke would rise from the back of the house in such a convincing manner that one at first wondered if that was supposed to happen at all. And again in a “I can’t believe they could do that” maneuver, there was even a slide from Santa Claus' perch for the kids to be thrown down at the beginning of Act Two.

This is a story of childhood, and the child actors often took center stage. When directing one dozen children, the challenge is to make them all look purposeful, without having them seem to be either milling about aimlessly, or standing in straight lines. Directors Rod McCrea and Rick Crooks undertook this challenge and handled it well. The classroom scenes are depicted with little set—chairs, a blackboard—but are so evocative that one can practically smell the Big Chief tablets. When the children are called upon to stand in a straight line, one knows that they are doing so on purpose, not out of a lack of direction. The chase scenes which took place with the school bully, Scut Farkus (Grant Forsythe) and Ralphie and company were highlighted and enhanced by a musical score of a rousing classical tune.

Emmett Adamson portrays Ralphie, the young boy at the heart of the play. He is present in nearly every scene, and the play is so “his” that I only realized at the end of the play that not only do his friends only have last names; his parents have no name at all.

Unfortunately, the Friday night performance I saw experienced some technical difficulties. Fantasy scenes, in which Ralphie imagines all the good he could do with his legendary Red Rider air pistol, took longer to commence than was comfortable for the crowd, but the payoff when they did happen was certainly worth the wait. In one particularly memorable scene he offed a few bad guys, and the young men of the play got to participate in one of the great rituals of childhood—playing dead.

David Hale as “The Old Man,” Ralphie’s father, is a wonderful character actor who stood out as the perfect embodiment of henpecked, loving but gruff family man. His every movement is informed as a working-class man, from the way he shrugs on his shabby coat to the inventive string of profanities he shouts throughout the house. (Parents, fear not: the script is the verbal equivalent of *@!?, with the worst invective being “Goat dandruff!”) He is complemented well by Eve Adamson as “Mother,” (and who is actually the real-life mother of Emmett Adamson, “Ralphie.”)

It is the kids, however, who steal the show—Ralphie’s friend “Flick” (Colin Sexton), who spends a whole scene with his tongue stuck to a flagpole, is particularly notable. Schoolmates “Helen” (Aspen Miller) and “Esther Jane” (Brittany Bigley) are just the right combination of sassy and sweet, with Esther Jane’s crush on Ralphie showcased in a funny but familiar way. Ralphie’s little brother, Randy, (Phil Gillette) did an excellent job of being a little brother—somewhat annoying, somewhat endearing, and just convincing enough with his claims of “I gotta go wee wee!” that he made this mother of three somewhat uncomfortable herself. His lines were few but oft-repeated, and he tendered them with precise timing.

If you enjoy the movie A Christmas Story, and want to support live theatre, I encourage you to attend this production. None of your favorite scenes will be missed, and you’ll be able to witness the next generation of actors who will take over the Iowa City area theatre scene in the next few years.

That one percent of the audience who hadn't seen the movie on TV, by the way, was the only one genuinely surprised when The Old Man won his “major award”—and his peals of laughter carried over the whole audience.

--Sharon Falduto

Sharon Falduto has been involved with theatre for many years. Notable roles include Corrie in Barefoot in the Park with Dreamwell and Myra in Hay Fever with ICCT. She has directed God for the now defunct student group, West Side Players, and Of Mice and Men for Dreamwell. She is currently out of the theatre scene, as she is busy directing the lives of Rachel, Samantha, and Piper at her home in Coralville. She still enjoys the stage, however, and hopes to trod the boards again in the future.

(Pictured are Eve Adamson, Phil Gillette and David Hale.)