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Canwest News Service
WHITE CHRISTMAS
On the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage, Granville at 12th, to Jan. 7
Tickets $25 to $84, go to artsclub.com or call 604-687-1644
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With every Christmas card I write, I’ll put in a plug for the Arts Club’s new production of White Christmas. This warm bath of nostalgia is positioned so perfectly in the past that it rings like sleighbells in the snow with a rich reminder of why the holiday spirit is truly timeless.
There couldn’t be a better venue than the Stanley, that old moviehouse brought beautifully back to life, for a new musical based on the 1954 film. The theatre’s broad but narrow stage seems especially cinematic as director Bill Millerd’s creative team crafts a time machine to take us back half a century.
Millerd keeps his cast true to the gee-whiz gestures of an era when, pre-Mad Men, men and women were still bound by the strict social code of their parents’ generation. Naughty broads got flirty and a guy’s eyes roved, but at the end of the day it was the good girl who landed herself a handsome lad.
Musical director Bruce Kellett, who gets to lead his small band from an actual orchestra pit crammed in at the stage’s apron, is in smooth synch with Millerd. Kellett demands that his singers stick to shaping their phrases the way it used to be done, and the effect is a harmonious reminder of the days of “Der Bingle.”
Not that Jeffrey Victor is trying to mimic Bing Crosby in his portrayal of showman Bob Wallace. As with Todd Talbot in the Danny Kaye role of Wallace’s sidekick Phil Davis, Victor brings his own ample talents to evoking the broad vocal qualities of big-band singers.
The same is true of Monique Lund and Sara-Jeanne Hosie as the Haynes sisters. Hosie has an especially compelling presence as Betty, singing with gusto to make even the sappiest scenes between Bob and the haughty Haynes sister more than mere treacle, and Lund lights up the stage with her bright eyes and boffo dance moves.
Choreographer Valerie Easton is just as true to the times of big, Broadway-size dance gestures, especially in exuberant tap numbers such as a yowza second-act opener to I Love a Piano. Talbot and Lund are especially attuned to the times in a heartfelt fantasy sequence twirled to The Best Things Happen When You’re Dancing.
Sheila White likewise looks to big skirts and sharp suits in a constant parade of ’50s fashion, with detailed attention to such delights as a sexy black vamp gown for Hosie when she sings Love, You Didn’t Do Right By Me.
Kudos to stage manager Caryn Fehr and her team for weaving endless quick costume changes in and around the simple elements of Alison Green’s old-fashioned scrims and small setpieces.
Some of the sweetest treats are to be found in smaller roles — literally, in the case of young Rachael Withers, as this pint-size dynamo steals the show by reprising Let Me Sing and I’m Happy. That’s after veteran Susan Anderson has already taken that tune and gleefully belted it to the back of the house.
Réjean Cournoyer weighs in with a good sense of the gravity in General Waverly, and Mark Weatherley has fun hamming it up as an impossibly crusty old caretaker.
Across about two hours of gentle fun taking us from the Second World War to the Ed Sullivan Show, with Irving Berlin obscurities such as Falling Out of Love Can Be Fun given a great new lease on life (Hosie, Anderson and Lund nail the harmonies of that chestnut), my only complaint is about the trademark snow falling at the finale.
Don’t scrimp, Mr. Millerd. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
pbirnie@vancouversun.com
