SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Dec. 7, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — Pioneer Theatre Company is unwrapping a new gift for audiences this holiday season. It’s the new musical “Christmas in Connecticut,” previously fully staged just one time before, last Christmas season in Connecticut.
The production is set in the 1940s, just like the Barbara Stanwyck film of the same name. But the themes are timeless, and the script offers an additional character or two and some modern sensibilities.
It stars “Liz.” Imagine a strong, independent young woman eager to break into the highly competitive field of journalism and to change the world with her progressive insights.
But in “Christmas in Connecticut,” the only way to get a foot in the door is to pose as someone she is not: a happily domestic wife, mother and country girl brimming with homespun talents and ideas.
Aspiring writer Liz is a single, apartment-dwelling New Yorker who has none of the aforementioned talents or values. She eats restaurant food and lives in a rickety building. But she does have a good imagination and a way with words. And her rent is overdue.
So maybe Liz could be a fraud temporarily, writing under a pen name for just a year, banking some cash, then returning to writing about reforms she believes in.
But one year in, Liz didn’t count on being a huge success and building a persona so beloved that even troops in the trenches would hang on her every word, aching for the feeling of being home with loved ones, indulging in a home-cooked meal.
Liz is considering her exit when her publisher demands a meeting and briefs her on a scheduled publicity stunt: Liz will cook a traditional Christmas dinner at the Connecticut farm where, she has said, she lives with her loving husband and baby. All of this is fiction, of course, unbeknownst to her boss and her readers.
But the publisher’s adviser, who helped Liz land the remote job, just happens to own a Connecticut farm, where his brother resides. And Liz’s New York restaurant friend agrees to make the trip and do the cooking. And certainly, a baby can be easily borrowed, can’t it?
And with that development, a simple musical comedy evolves into a musical screwball comedy.
Act 2
Broadway’s Alyse Alan Louis is great as Liz Sandor (aka Liz Laine), the spirited young woman with a can-do attitude and feminist leanings. It’s fun to watch her spar with Victor, an equally feisty character played by Eric William Morris, also a Broadway veteran. Liz and Victor, a character who does not exist in the earlier film version, meet on the New York streets as he is trying to unionize Santas. Both actors have strong singing voices and convincingly play people full of passion and anything-but-ordinary values for their time.
Restaurant owner Feliz Basenak, played by Broadway actor David Girolmo, keeps Liz alive with leftover food, motivates her with his positive attitude, and ends up helping her make a connection with socially awkward patron Dudley, New York actor R.J. Vaillancourt, who works at the magazine hiring a housewife columnist. Girolmo adds an easy comedy to the mix, along with playful flirtiness.
Broadway actor Gerry McIntyre plays publisher Alexander Yardley, prone to barking orders and having way too much fun at a party. He is highly entertaining to watch, especially his loosey-goosey movements once he starts really enjoying himself. And Linda Mugleston is fun as flustered housekeeper Linda O’Connor, trying hard to roll with the punches and never quite keeping up.
The visiting war hero, Jefferson Jones, played by actor Christian Magby, convincingly plays the most earnest character on the stage, and we also have Tiffany Denise Hobbs as late arrival Gladys Higgenbottom, a magazine fact checker, the one person who may be able to put the puzzle pieces together and blow everyone’s cover.
Some of the best fun in this script comes from book writers Patrick Pacheco and Erik Forrest Jackson, who find unlikely and comical solutions to cover up for faux pas, such as when Liz doesn’t know where to look for anything in “her” house, or when a “blissfully married” character is spotted throwing an ornament at a “spouse” behaving badly. The “improvised” explanations add a lot of action and levity to the show.
The music by Jason Howland, with lyrics by Amanda Yesnowitz, is beautiful and helps move the action along, even if you don’t leave the theater singing any showstopper tunes. Some songs, like “The American Dream,” are truly moving. In other songs, the lyrics are helpful in explaining what characters are struggling through, although it takes a second to understand that other characters on stage allegedly are oblivious to the expository lyrics being belted out.
It’s an entertaining update on a holiday classic, with a story that still holds up.
New musicals tend to evolve the more they are produced and refined, and there are spots where a song could lose a verse or action could be tighter. It’s also a production that keeps getting more entertaining as it progresses. It’s performed on a beautiful set by a talented group of actor/singers.
The show continues at Pioneer Theatre Company through Dec. 16, and could give you lifetime bragging rights on being one of the first audience members to see a new Christmas classic.
For ticket and theater information, click here.
