Short North Stage ushers in the holiday season with an overflowing cup of vintage warmth, joy and cheer with a razzle-dazzle production of the 2004 adaptation (book by David Ives and Paul Blake, music and lyrics by Irving Berlin) of the 1954 family classic White Christmas, directed and choreographed by Edward Carignan.
The familiar story of two WWII veterans, Bob Wallace (Thom Christopher Warren) and Phil Davis (Chaz Coffin), lighting up America as song and dance men 10 years later, who fall for the Haynes sisters, Betty (Dionysia Williams) and Judy (Keeley Anne McCormick), and follow them up to a Vermont inn falling on hard times that happens to be owned by their former general, Henry Waverly (Doug Joseph), still checks all the boxes.
The consistently hilarious supporting cast here includes J’Quay Gibbs as harried stage manager Mike Nulty; Vera Ryan Cremeans as Tessie, the perpetually overworked secretary to Wallace and Davis; Nick Lingnofski as their fellow Army veteran turned Ed Sullivan producer Ralph Sheldrake; Luke Bovenizer as a Vermont native maintaining the inn; and Christeen Stridsberg and Rachel Courtney as Rita and Rhoda, chorus girls and competitors with Judy for Davis’ attention.
Carignan and his cast understand the well-oiled machinery of setting up a show and the potential for hilarity when things go wrong getting a show to that place. To a person, everyone understands the comedy in White Christmas is based on everyone trying their best to do the right thing and being misunderstood, thwarted by vanity or suspicion, or mild personal flaws. The jokes here land with the satisfying click of a chamber falling into place with enough of that sense of people trying to amuse each other to keep the rhythm from getting stodgy.
The genuine affection of the two couples here is the beating heart of the show, and the actors work beautifully together. Warren and Coffin exude a brotherly warmth that doesn’t preclude giving each other a hard time. You believe they’re friends who got out of a war and still, a decade later, want to work together; their chemistry in the bits of the act – rich harmonies and big grins on “Happy Holidays” – recalls a million variety/nightclub acts of the era without feeling like an imitation.
Warren hits the smoother ballad material out of the park. I’ve probably heard “Blue Skies” live 50 times in my life, in various formats and arrangements, but the first act-closing take he does knocked them all out of my mind. he brings a keen self-awareness where we see the character not quite putting what he just went through out of his mind, all those emotions fueling the stormy undercurrent of the song and on his face, but still out there, like a pro.
His take on one of my favorite standards, “How Deep is the Ocean,” also stands high in the pantheon of renditions I’ve heard, especially the stunning reprise as a duet with Williams. His tenderness with the general’s granddaughter (Lucy Robinson, who steals almost every scene she appears in) and the softness he plumbs on “Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep),” again reprised with the entrance and warmth of Williams, is another wonder.
Coffin shines on “The Best Things Happen When You’re Dancing,” pouring a smooth croon over the ensemble’s harmonies and moving between styles of dance, and on the showcase “I Love a Piano,” referred to by Berlin as one of the best songs he ever wrote, with hand-in-glove harmonies with McCormick.
Williams and McCormick have a similar camaraderie and voices that feel like they’ve been singing together and charming unruly audiences and hearts for years. The lighter, swinging duets like “Sisters” and the trio adding Linda Kinneson Roth’s perpetually hilarious innkeeper Martha Watson, “Falling Out of Love Can Be Fun,” have a rippling, boisterous energy. Those couple of duets with Warren I mentioned earlier are highlights from Williams’ performance, but other highlights included “Love and the Weather,” where she and Warren’s Bob aren’t singing to one another, but commenting on the world in the same song, and a smoldering take on “Love, You Didn’t Do Right By Me.”
Front to back, there’s a lot of excellent dancing in this White Christmas. Carignan indulges his love of tap and his love of the classic, contemporary dancers – who worked on a lot of the Berlin pieces these songs originally appeared in, like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers – in a series of breathtaking set pieces. Music director Jonathan Collura should also be commended. The jazzy cabaret sequences here hit with the same power but a rightfully different intensity from the tender ballads. I didn’t see any listing of the musicians in the program, or I’d credit them – if they’re working from tracks, they’re the best tracks I’ve ever heard in a stage musical.
White Christmas is comforting for many of us; it’s a known quantity. Short North Stage gives us as good a version of the chestnut as I can imagine.
Irving Berlin’s White Christmas runs through January 1. Visit shortnorthstage.org/white-christmas for showtimes, tickets, and more information.