Those of you out there like me who grew up with pre-cable syndicated television can relate to the weird nostalgia we feel for bygone eras we never lived through. Having seen so many old musicals, cartoons and comedies on WTOG-Ch. 44 — The Three Stooges, The Little Rascals, Abbott and Costello, the Marx Brothers and Shirley Temple — we went retro as a matter of necessity, not choice. So, when the 1983 film A Christmas Story began its siege of reruns on basic cable, I questioned it at first, but its spot-on portrayal of a 1940s Midwestern boyhood eventually won me over. I gave into the "You'll shoot your eye out" fever and watched and watched and watched … and watched.
The film, with its radio-days voiceover and camera tricks — closeups of the mean elves and the wide-angle shot of the family singing carols with waiters in the Chinese restaurant — suggested the smart-aleck, tongue-in-cheek "fricka-fracka-Why-I-oughtta" sass that we lovingly attribute to the era.
It's the sort of classic American nostalgia that revivalists bank on, and A Christmas Story is yet another holiday favorite being churned through the glitzy-musical machine.
Yet it's a fairly ironic undertaking if you think about it. A Christmas Story was one of the first non-sappy holiday tales, inspiring a rash of cynical seasonal favorites, and now it's getting the high-fructose stage treatment. The $5 million A Christmas Story: The Musical, stopping at the Straz during a national tour, hopes to lure families seeking laughs and uplifting entertainment. Its songs were composed by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, 26-year-olds who met as freshmen at the University of Michigan.
According to a recent story in The New York Times, the composers are shooting for Broadway, where productions like Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical, Elf and Irving Berlin’s White Christmas have had lucrative seasonal runs. The Times reported that several theater veterans, including the book writer Joseph Robinette, the director John Rando (Urinetown) and the choreographer Warren Carlyle (Hugh Jackman: Back on Broadway), are behind the show. Peter Billingsley, who at 12 played Ralphie in the film, is one of the producers.
So, how does the stage production hold up, especially considering that the film's magic lies mostly in its edgy avoidance of over-the-top sentiment and sappy cheese?
This article appears in Dec 8-14, 2011.