Theater Review: New Lowkey ‘Its A Wonderful Life Not As Shiny And Snappy But Adds Human Warmth And Drama
This is the second year of A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play on the Hartford Stage. The experience may not be as fresh as the first trip. Still, this adaptation of Frank Capra's underground Christmas classic could be great.
It can kindle a fire in your heart and a lump in your throat as you re-enact the life story of the morally clean and patient leader of Bedford Buildings and Loan Company who (in his own words) became. "A frustrated young man who contemplates suicide until an apprentice guardian angel named Clarence shows him life is worth living."
A Wonderful Life comes from a different theater space than A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story of Christmas (which theaters still hope to one day revive). Yes, there are strong similarities. Both have heroes who lose control of their lives and emotions, are guided by a supernatural visitor and see each other in a new light just in time for Christmas.
But in Hartford Stage terms, "Christmas Center" is a multi-layered stage show with flying ghosts and giant Christmas trees (and Christmas geese) and endless special effects. "It's a Wonderful Life", on the other hand, is a slightly flatter attempt, with special effects that are more verbal than physical, more audible than visual. It's like we're watching a 1940's radio station showing a live play called It's a Wonderful Life.
The set consisted of several carpets, microphones, a sign announcing Hartford radio station WBFR, several "Applause" signs to attract a live audience, and a table full of bells backstage, pins showing the foley artist on the Stage Stand (Liam Bellman – Sharp ) is needed to create sound effects during a performance. phones and other things.
A Wonderful Life was a community need, but only five actors (other than artist Foley) created the vision, playing everything from children and teenagers to taxi drivers and grumpy old men. "A Christmas Carol" features a community of dozens of performers, many of whom are real children. It's a Wonderful Life shows the actors telling a story by following a script, helping each other and taking commercial breaks. A Christmas Carol has flying, glittering characters who never stop to explain how they do it.
"It's a Wonderful Life: The Radio Play" is very similar to the film version. (It's a Wonderful Life began as a short story several years before the film and took other forms, including an actual radio play, the diary reminds us. The scene in which hundreds of people dance the Charleston before jumping into a pool doesn't come before here, but you wouldn't expect it.(Some adventurous theater companies sometimes have to try to show this.)
Most conversations are the same, and if things aren't over, you get a little extra attention. However, the original film was much sharper than this stage adaptation, which was very family-friendly, though young children are known to get tired of radio theater's limited dialogue and movement. There are plenty of great lines in both that act as a cheer when the show gets too cheesy, from "Oh my! My spleen!" to "He Fucked Me Hard Mom!" "Sorry! I messed it up!"
The whole show changes dramatically when George Bailey's life story is told from "the desire that was never born" to the point where he wants to kill himself. The radio station trappings were removed - no scripts, no microphones, no carpets - and some theatrical magic was unleashed. Like the film itself, this sudden change in story and style happens a little more slowly than you'd like, and it's both very welcome and a little chilling when it does.
About half the standard cast from last year. Luckily two of the best actors in last year's cast, Jennifer Bareilly, who speaks the dialect of 1940s Hollywood movies, and Evan Zeiss, who mainly plays Clarence the Angel in Waiting and can pull off some cool tricks with his baseball cap. . Price Waldman, last seen on stage in The Flamingo Kid in Hartford and a multi-season veteran reading new plays at the O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, radio host Mr. Potter and a million other residents. Bedford Falls. Nicole Shalhoub (2012's An American Night: The Ballad of Juan José at Yale Rep) now plays Mary Bailey and various townsfolk. Liam Bellman Sharp, a graduate of the Theater Sound Design program at Yale's David Geffen School of Drama, takes on the cast of last year's Bellman's Table Control - Sharp Noise. She's less Lear-Leary than her voice, and her humbleness hints at a spark , which she can use.
The best replacement was Godfrey L. Simmons Jr. Playing with George Bailey. Simmons is the artistic director of the Heartbeat Ensemble, a political theater company. As Simmons makes political speeches, he tells you how much politically impassioned speech was in "A Very Wonderful Life," including speeches about economic injustice, abuse of power, compassion for the downtrodden, and community activism. Simmons plays the romantic scenes and the comedy scenes with humor. He is amazing in front of his guardian angel, but making noise is his specialty.
The director has changed again this year. Hartford Stage Artistic Associate Zoe Golub-Sass recreated the same production by Melia Bensuson (Theatrical Arts Director) and Rachel Alderman (who left her Hartford producing position to become Associate Artistic Director this year) at last year's Long Wharf Theatre.
It's a Wonderful Life: Live Radio Play looks and works the same, albeit with less polish. It's not all glitz and glamor, but what Gillies lacks is made up for in human warmth and drama. This small cast brings to life a simple movie where you see the hard workers of Bedford Falls sweat, hug, cry, argue with each other and exude joy in what they do.
For some, it might be more uplifting in the holiday spirit than a range of Victorian spirits.
It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, directed by Joe Landry and directed by Zoe Golub-Sass, runs Wednesday through Saturday through December 24 at The Hartford Stage, 50 Church St., Hartford at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2:00 p.m. and additional games on December 3, 10, 17 and 23 at 2:00 p.m. and on December 18 at 7:30 p.m. $30-$100 . hartfordstage.org/its-a-wonderful-life
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