Review: Mercury's CHRISTMAS SCHOONER is Readily, Wonderfully Shipshape

There is some pressure in being introduced into a tradition, especially a holiday tradition, especially a theatrical holiday tradition. Mounted every year with tender loving care and exuberance, and warmly received by their respective folds, it would not be a little heartbreaking for a critic to have to report that they found the experience lacking. Not to mention their balancing their argument with enough kindness to not come off a total Grinch. (We are charitable.)

It was this nervousness that met me at the doors of the Mercury Theatre and their seasonal musical, The Christmas Schooner.

I am pleased to say it melted away long before the finale.

Like the titular schooner, John Reeger and Julie Shannon's musical is a modest construction that overflows with good tidings, and it is apparent even to a newcomer that it is still shipshape after twenty-some years, a clear labor of love for director L. Walter Stearns and choreographer Brenda Didier. And in light of recent discussion on just how high Lady Liberty can lift her lamp for the tired, poor, and huddled masses, this latest mounting feels particularly serendipitous.

How could it not? It is a story, as a lyric puts it, of "the best of the old and the new," of firm Old World groundedness and plucky New World opportunity, immortal themes in an art form that was formed by immigrants. It is a matter of specificity, then, to make the story unique. (Which, paradoxically, would highlight its universality). So here, though as jolly as the season calls for, Reeger colors everything with the sobering respect afforded Lake Michigan, a body of water as volatile as the ocean that his characters crossed. But Captain Peter Stossel (Stef Tovar) seems to sail in the face of sense one winter to deliver tannenbaums from evergreen Michigan to muddy Chicago. Or so thinks his wife Alma (Brianna Borger), who struggles to see why Peter and his own father Gustav (James Wilson Sherman) would risk their lives to provide something as esoteric as a tannenbaum in a cultural melting pot like America. Her struggle intensifies when the men announce they will make the perilous voyage every winter in the years to come, eventually with her son Karl (Peyton Owen, who grows into Christian Libonati).

Indeed, though Stef Tovar commands the stage with a sailor's derring-do, a seller's brain, and a father's love, Reeger firmly places the journey on Alma's shoulders. Brianna Borger keeps her footing firm and her head high (and her voice clear and ringing) as her family weathers the passing of the years and gales, as a footing in both the Old and the New becomes increasingly visible to her. Aiding her on her journey, Owen charms as her eager-to-please son tugging at her apron; Libonati is sympathetic as he asserts his adulthood; and Sherman keeps a firm hand on whiskey-dry humor and Old World sentiment.

Julie Shannon's music and lyrics possess the breadth and depth of Lake Michigan: churning at one moment ("What Is It About the Water"), rousing at another ("Winterfest Polka"), and placid the next ("The Blessing of the Branch"). Deftly combining traditional carols and Germanic and American folk, simple songforms and extended sequences, Shannon's score puts a bittersweet wind in the sails. It was all the more bittersweet to learn of her passing three years ago. Though the Mercury will mount her final musical this season - The Man Who Murdered Sherlock Holmes - this score's annual presentation is an ample tribute to a sensitively Chicagoan artist.

And artistry abounds and overflows in the intimate space. (Literally; the stage pokes into the first row.) Jacqueline and Richard Penrod's set is utilitarian and well-trod in the best way. Carol J. Blanchard's provide the color, and her handiwork twirls and billows handsomely during Didier's polkas and waltzes. Jason Epperson's lights and Mike Ross's sounds are appropriately inviting or tempestuous.

If there is such a thing as a regrettable holiday tradition, it would probably be busyness, which breeds hollow obligation. Say, find a tree, get it up, get it out of the way, perhaps forgetting why exactly we do so. But the final moments of The Christmas Schooner call on a more enriching obligation. Not only is the tannenbaum's significance explained, but by show's end, the tannenbaum belongs to all Chicago cultures, not just the Germans. The blessings of the branch are passed on with open arms and hearts, the best of all possible cultural exchanges.

The cast even extend a branch to the audience to pass on, seat by seat. Though a humble twig in shape and size, by the time it reached my seat, it weighed heavily with years of love and tradition. I gladly took it and passed it on.

The Christmas Schooner plays through December 27th, 2015 at Mercury Theatre Chicago, 3745 N. Southport Avenue. The performance schedule ia Wednesdays at 8 pm; Thursdays at 3 pm and 8 pm; Fridays at 8 pm; Saturdays at 3 pm and 8 pm; and Sundays at 3 pm. There are additional holiday performances on Sunday, December 20th at 8 pm; Tuesday, Deceber 22nd at 8 pm; and Wednesday, December 23rd at 3 pm.

Individual tickets range from $25-69, and are available online at www.mercurytheaterchicago.com, over the phone at (773) 325-1700, or in person at 3745 N. Southport Avenue, Chicago.

Photo Credit: Time Stops Photography

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