Review - White Christmas: Berlin Songs

While there isn't anything terribly wrong with the new Broadway adaptation of the 1954 movie musical smash, White Christmas, hitting New York after four years of holiday season engagements across the country, there's also quite a bit that isn't especially right about it either. Yes, it's got those glorious Irving Berlin songs like "Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep", "Let Me Sing and I'm Happy" and "Blue Skies" - the kind of stuff that turns wearing your heart on your sleeve into a hip fashion statement - and Larry Blank's swing orchestrations provide choreographer Randy Skinner's dancers with a red carpet of sizzle, but too much of director Walter Bobbie's perfectly pleasant production settles snugly into a groove of innocuous entertainment that is swift, professional and rarely exciting.

Bookwriters David Ives and Paul Blake have made relatively few tweaks to Norman Panama, Norman Krasna and Melvin Frank's original screenplay, cutting the minstrel medley and providing cues for such welcome ear-caressers as "I Love A Piano," "How Deep Is The Ocean," and "Let Yourself Go." Stephen Bogardus and Jeffrey Denman play Bob Wallace and Phil Davis, a pair of World War II vets who become big time Broadway song and dance stars, back in the days when being a Broadway star meant you were famous around the country. On the evening before they're to leave for Florida to begin rehearsing their next production, the boys catch Betty and Judy Haynes (Kerry O'Malley and Meredith Patterson), performing "Sisters" at a nightclub and, with both professional and romantic possibilities brewing, follow them to their next gig; a holiday engagement at a Vermont inn. But an unexpected heat wave has forced the financially struggling place to forego its entertainment plans after every reservation cancels, until it turns out the owner is Bob and Phil's beloved General Henry Waverly (Charles Dean) from their army days, so they offer to move out of town tryouts for their next Broadway bound show to the general's barn. In the meantime a few wrenches and misunderstandings get in the way of true love, but that's all straightened out by the time the chorus is tap dancing through the eventual snowfall. (Darn, did I just give away the ending?)

Though the material is played with admirably sincerity, it's only the breeziness of Bobbie's production that keeps the jokes from landing with harsh thuds. You know there's a problem when the film's most famous comic moment, the boys filling in for a reprise of "Sisters" with rolled up trousers and oversized feathered fans, barely registers.

Yet the leading players are all sturdy and likeable, with Bogardus' mellow baritone providing hot cocoa warmth to "Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep" and O'Malley bringing some much needed torchy elegance to "Love, You Didn't Do Right By Me." As the primary dancing half of the quartet, Denman and Patterson show some appealing flash, particularly in a well-imagined production number set to "I Love A Piano," but Skinner's routines tend to stay on the same cheery level without providing much build and Denman, who is originating his first starring Broadway role, doesn't get a chance to display the kind of elegant and complex hoofing he's used to dazzle audiences at his many Town Hall concert appearances. Dean is quite endearing as the noble general who inspires loyalty and honor in his men, but Susan Mansur, in a role that's meant to be a showstopper, lacks the authoritative brassiness and comic finesse needed to play a former Broadway star turned wise-cracking inn receptionist.

Rob Berman conducts a 20-piece orchestra that is blessedly placed in a traditional pit and Anna Louizos (sets), Carrie Robbins (costumes) and Ken Billington (lights) dress the proceedings with showbizzy Eisenhower-era sophistication. But no matter what the packaging, Irving Berlin is on Broadway in a show that serves up his music and lyrics as a deliciously festive banquet, and for musical theatre lovers, that might be enough to ensure two and a half hours of "Happy Holidays."

Photos by Joan Marcus: Top: Jeffrey Denman, Stephen Bogardus and company; Bottom: Kerry O'Malley and Meredith Patterson

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Playgoers who enjoy having the Dickens scared out of them should find it worthwhile to make their way out to Hoboken this holiday season for the historic DeBaun Center for Performing Arts' production of A Christmas Carol. Adapter/director Clara Barton Green has taken great care to see that her text is accurate to both the spirit and letter of the great Charles Dickens novel and that includes an appreciation for its appeal as a good ol' fashioned ghost story.

But that doesn't mean it's not appropriate family entertainment and, quite frankly, with the way things are going these days ticket prices of $20 for adults, $15 for students & seniors and $10 for children seems pretty family friendly, too.

I've enjoyed DeBaun productions in the past, including last year's A Christmas Carol, so if you plan on taking that mere 15 minute bus ride from Port Authority to the theatre keep an eye out for me making a return trip. Just don't tell the driver my coffee cup is really filled with smoking bishop.

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