It’s A Wonderful Life:

Live at the Biograph

At the American Blues Theatre

By Dan Zeff

Chicago – There are now three adaptations of the motion picture “It’s a Wonderful Life” on area stages for the holidays. The show has become Chicagoland’s twenty-first century answer to “A Christmas Carol” and “The Nutcracker.”

        The American Blues Theater was the first theater company to convert the film into a drama and its version has been the role model for the other productions. The ABT adapts the story as a radio broadcast in 1946, the year the movie came out, with the theater audience serving as the studio audience. A small ensemble of actors plays dozens of characters with a shift in voice, an on-stage sound effects man providing the appropriate noises enhance the action. The result is an exercise in nostalgia in the service of one of the most affectionately remembered stories in American pop culture.

        The ABT is presenting “It’s a Wonderful Life” in the Richard Christiansen Theater at the Biograph Theater, the home of the Victory Gardens company. It’s a good venue for this intimate show, with the audience only a few feet from the performers. To engage the spectators more fully in the dramatization, the actors lead a sing-along of holiday-oriented songs and read messages from the audience, most of them ostentatiously sentimental, just like “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  To enhance the sense of immediacy, the radio broadcast includes singing commercials that advertise businesses in the neighborhood.

        But all this is just the framework for the saga of George Bailey, resident of the mid-America town of Bedford Falls, and how he finds the true meaning of Christmas. The play opens in heaven, where an angel second class named Clarence is assigned to save Bailey from suicide after the mortal finds his world collapsing around him. Clarence takes George back through his life, showing the positive impact Bailey had on his community.

        The fantasy has become an icon of American pop culture, like “The Wizard of Oz.” It’s corny and manipulative, but also irresistible. The audience may begin its viewing experience amused at the re-creation of the live radio broadcast but once the tale begins, the power of the story takes over and by the end of the evening the spectators were entranced by a narrative most of them probably knew by heart.

        The ABT staging started a little slow, at least on opening night, and the on-stage sound effects were often barely audible. The sound effects man, presiding over his assemblage of noise-making brick-a-brac, should be, but wasn’t, the chief visual amusement of the production.

        The performances are well up to the mark, with five actors and two actresses shifting from individual characters to crowds without a hitch. John Mohrlein returns as the nasty Henry Potter, in the true Lionel Barrymore incarnation of the villain. It’s a role Mohrlein was born to play and it would be fascinating to see the actor play Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol.” He would bring a new dimension to the grouchy old skinflint.

        Kevin Kelly is fine in the Jimmy Stewart role of George Bailey, rising to genuine dramatic heights toward the end of the story as Bailey hits emotional bottom before being saved by all the people he helped during a life that turns out to be well worth living. Ed Kross, a shamefully underused actor in area theater, plays the announcer among others with his usual comic buoyancy. Ashley Bishop and Gwendolyn Whiteside play all the females in the story, from little kids to a hooker and a couple of senior citizen mothers. Andrew Carter and James Joseph effectively round out the enthusiastic, versatile, and hard working ensemble. Austin Cook provides the continuous musical accompaniment from an onstage piano.

        Marty Higginbotham directed the first ABT production and he returns for 2010 and hopefully for many years in the future. He understands how to make the show work, especially for spectators with a large tolerance for touchy feely sentiment. Grant Sabin designed the set, Samantha Jones the period costumes, Katy Peterson the lighting, Higginbotham the sound, and Bobby Richards the projections, including the lyrics for the sing-along.

        “It’s a Wonderful Life” runs through December 31 at the Biograph Theater, 2433 North Lincoln Avenue. Most performances are Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m., with some additional performances added. Tickets are $32 through $40. Call 773 871 3000 or visit www.victorygardens.org . Dec. 2010

        The show gets a rating of three stars.

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