BWW Reviews: A Lot Like Christmas: MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET at Toby's Columbia

You may know it as Here's Love. You may know it as It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas. (The show has been produced under both titles.) Currently the 1963 Meredith Willson musical based on the film Miracle on 34th Street goes under the name of its source material, the 1947 classic movie, and Toby's Columbia is presenting it in a very impressive revival.

It is hard to imagine today the extent to which, in the era when the film was made, Christmas was celebrated under the cultural supervision of department stores. And department store Santas (perhaps along with window dressers) were the cynosure of that supervision. They were hokum, of course, and that unrealness cast its shadow over the entire celebration and the entire place of department stores in it.

Miracle (the movie) seems to have been an effort to push that shadow way back, to force the suspension of disbelief. The air of unreality was itself unreal, was the message: the people who run the department stores were much more sincere than we feared, than they themselves believed themselves to be. This was a somewhat believable fantasy, even if the character of department store proprietor "R.H. Macy" (here rousingly portrayed by Lawrence B. Munsey) would be known by most members of the audience to be hokum (Mr. Macy having passed away in 1877, and the ownership at mid-century being in the hands of Federated Department Stores under the leadership of Fred Lazarus of Cincinnati).

What made or broke the movie, and does the same in the musical, was the bold stroke of having the Santa figure (whom all past an early youth "know" to be unreal) prove to be the realest of all. If he is not hokum, either, of course, then all cynicism about the holidays and everything else may also be misplaced. Like the cynicism Doris Walker (Heather Marie Beck), the store executive to whom Kris Kringle ("Robert Biederman 125") reports, entertains about men after having her husband desert her as soon as she gives birth. Like the cynicism of her daughter Susan (portrayed by Ella Boodin or Sadie Herman) about fathers. Like the cynicism of their neighbor Fred Gailey (Jeffrey Shankle) about love. If all this cynicism proves misinformed, then it's lump-in-the-throat time for sure.

It was a tall challenge, though, to show how Santa could be real. The stance the movie adopted, and Willson's musical followed, was one of studied agnosticism. Maybe Santa might be real; he certainly believes himself to be, and how can one prove a negative? Ultimately the matter of Kringle's sanity comes to a hearing before a judge, and of course the hearing is hokum too. Dramatic license is taken with elements of proof, burdens of proof, and standard of proof. Of course, the test of such a musical is not whether trials are convincingly depicted, but whether the audience can be persuaded to suspend disbelief enough so it will feel that lump in the throat. The standard of suspension of disbelief is a lot more forgiving than a legal one, but I'm not quite sure this show even clears that bar.

I guess another strike against the show is the dated sexism. One simply does not call a grown woman a "little girl," as the lyrics do repeatedly, nor devote an entire number to explaining how predicting the moment a woman will turn up depends on quantifying the time consumed with various ditsy moves like forgetting her gloves. It's not only the role of department stores that has changed since 1963.

What the show does do, if not exactly dazzle us, is give us a very good time. The production values are high - the Mad Men-era costumes (by Mr. Munsey again) seem right, the sets by David A. Hopkins (which I presume include Santa's Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade float sleigh) are more than adequate, and the sound - well, readers of my reviews will know that I have commented before that Toby's Columbia's sound design has left much to be desired. In this production, Jimmy Engelkemier has taken the reins, and it was great to be able to hear all the words for once.

The cast members, mostly Toby's veterans, deliver like the troupers they are. Mr. Biederman is an enchanting Kris Kringle, all twinkly benevolence backed by just the right degree of toughness. Ms. Beck, whom I've admired, especially for her acting, in roles as diverse as Anna in The King and I and Kira in Xanadu, gets to sing lower and more powerfully than I've heard before. A newcomer to me was Sadie Herman, playing Susan the night I saw the show. She brought a delightful cuteness to the role; one could see both the vulnerability and the intelligence of this tyke, not to mention dancing chops as she sailed behind bigger actors following their moves.

With the reservation about the sexist lyrics already mentioned, the music is also fine, the product of the same composer/lyricist (Willson again) who gave us the indelible Music Man, although there is little there up to that transcendent standard. The one song everyone will know, IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS, is not originally from this show, though Willson did write it too.

In short, this is a very satisfactory realization of a musical that certainly has a lot of holiday dazzle and sparkle but is not as good as the production it receives. If you go, you probably won't get that Christmas lump in the throat, but you'll have a fine time.

Miracle on 34th Street, The Musical, book, music and lyrics by Meredith Willson, Directed by Shawn Kettering, at Toby's Dinner Theatre of Columbia, 5900 Symphony Woods Road, Columbia, MD 21044, through January 5, 2014. Tickets $37.50 - $56.00, 410-730-8311, www.tobysdinnertheatre.com. Suitable for all ages

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