Review: Keeton Theatre's 1940s RADIO CHRISTMAS CAROL

There is nothing so transportive nor transformative than the power of live theater, particularly during this season of remembrance and reflection that encompasses the end-of-year holidays in which we celebrate the transformative power of love and redemption, replete with our wishes for peace, prosperity and the difficult-to-achieve, yet oh-so-easy to imagine reunions with those we hold close to our hearts.

It's that thematic power of hope and reconciliation that plays out so evocatively on theater stages throughout the world at this time of year, urging each of us on to our revelry during this hectic, oftentimes trying and crazy time of the year. Nashville's Larry Keeton Theatre presents just such an evocative story of Christmastime during wartime with A 1940s Radio Christmas Carol, the sequel to The 1940s Radio Hour, one of regional theater's most-often performed musical revues.

Set, as its precursor was, in a radio station studio in the years of WWII, A 1940s Radio Christmas Carol offers up a dramatic radio performance of Charles Dickens' timeless A Christmas Carol amid the recreation of commercials and the performance of holiday tunes and a smattering of original songs written expressly for this show. Set against the backdrop of a nation at war, the play has plenty of heart-tugging moments to give audiences all the emotional "feels" of the period, while resonating perhaps more heartrendingly during these uncertain times in which we live.

Ginger Newman, the 2014 First Night Honoree who is both director and musical director of A 1940s Radio Christmas Carol, brings together a talented cast of performers to bring the show to life - with book by Walton Jones, music composed and arranged by David Wohl, with lyrics by Faye Greenberg - including such Nashville theater stalwarts as Elliott Robinson, Kevin Driver, Crystal Kurek, Donna Driver, Melissa Silengo Husebo and Bryan Lelak, and newcomers Riley Bolton, Jason Scott, Austin Reeves and Ava Leigh Troy, with Dann Childers on the console of the Hammond (or the keyboard...I was momentarily transported back to an earlier time). The show's opening offers up an evocative portrait of radio drama during the 1940s, as the disparate members of the ensemble gather together prior to showtime, with a flurry of activity abounding inside while snow falls and temperatures drop outside and the news from overseas offers dire prospects for the world at war.

It's easy to forget your own life's mundane and pedestrian drama and to be caught up in the onstage hijinks of the show, particularly when the spectacularly talented and period-perfect beauties Melissa Silengo Husebo and Crystal Kurek are performing their hearts out, with the generous support and derring-do of their castmates, particularly Jason Scott (in an effective Keeton Theatre debut) and veteran Elliott Robinson, who leads the on-radio cast as program major domo Clifton Feddington.

Unfortunately, for me at least, the real world reared its ugly head at the beginning of intermission when I received discouraging and very upsetting news via my ever-present iPhone which keeps me tethered to the 21st century despite my attempts to allow myself to be whisked away to an earlier, far more innocent time (before I was even born). Thus, I was forced to leave prior to the beginning of Act Two, not unlike the worried and harried people of the 1940s who were forced to leave whatever divertissement they sought to take them away from the realities of the real world.

Truth be told, times have never been completely innocent and people have always been beset by the harshness of life surrounding them at all times, always left hungering for more time spent with loved ones and a fleeting sense of peace and contentment which seems, somehow, to remain out of reach despite all the best efforts to hold onto them forever.

So, I can't tell you if A 1940s Radio Christmas Carol is as successful as its predecessor nor can I tell you how the myriad musical offerings sounded in the show's second stanza, nor can I offer a summary of the play's action that unfolded during that second act. However, under Newman's stylish direction, I have no doubt the show leaves its audiences on a high note, one festooned with the sense of hope that pervades our holiday season.

A 1940s Radio Christmas Carol continues through this Sunday (December 20), complete with a delicious holiday meal served beforehand (although show-only tickets are also available) and it should help to envelop you in the warmth of the Christmas season. Just remember my advice: turn off your phone and leave it off until the final curtain (and then some, for further effect).

• A 1940s Radio Christmas Carol. Book by Walton Jones. Music composed and arranged by David Wohl. Lyrics by Faye Greenberg. Directed and musical directed by Ginger Newman. Presented by The Larry Keeton Theatre, Donelson. Through December 20. For details, go to www.thelarrykeetontheatre.org or call (615) 883-8375.

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