Forget about streaming it on Netflix for the umpteen December or pulling out your much viewed DVD for another annual look-see. Instead, run, don’t walk to Beverly Hills for The Wallis & For The Record’s Love Actually Live.

A spendiferous addition to executive producer/co-creator Shane Scheel’s For The Record franchise, there’s probably no other holiday movie classic to match Richard Curtis’s fifteen-year-old favorite for its blend of romance, comedy, joy, heartbreak, and song after song after song.

 Scheel and adapter-director Anderson Davis have confectioned a seamless mix of filmed scenes from the 2003 Golden Globe Best Picture nominee and live performances by as sensational a cast as any pop music lover could wish for, all of the above underscored by musical supervisor-arranger-orchestrator Jesse Vargas and the 13-piece Love Actually Live orchestra.

The onscreen/onstage characters are the same ones that movie fans have lovingly embraced these past fifteen years, including:

 Jamie (Steve Kazee), who upon learning that his wife and brother are more than just in-laws, heads south to a French village where his Portuguese housekeeper Aurelia (Olivia Kuper Harris) does more than just keep things spic-and-span.

Newly elected Prime Minister David (Sean Yves Lessard), who finds in Natalie (Carrie Manolakos) more than simply an efficient new member of the household staff at 10 Downing Street.

 Mark (Justin Matthew Sargent), whose secret love for his best mate Peter’s (B. Slade) new bride Juliet (Rumer Willis) inspires one of the movie’s most imitated scenes.

Business exec Harry (Doug Kreeger), whose longtime marriage to Karen (Tomasina Abate) is put in jeopardy by his sultry, seductive office assistant Mia (Willis) as Mia’s coworker Sarah (Kelley Jakle) finds her dream-come-true romance with a hunky work colleague jeopardized by the needs of a mentally ill brother.

Sam (Cairo Mcgee), the preteen son of recently widowed Daniel (Zak Resnick), hopelessly in love in love with a classmate named Joanna (Glory Curda).

 Billy Mack (Rex Smith), an aging rocker hoping that lighting will strike twice with a holiday remake of one of his all-time Greatest Hits.

Movie stand-ins John and Judy (Tom Zmuda and Megan Shung), whose latest gig has them stripping down to their birthday suits for some steamy simulated sex.

Colin (Alex Csillag), who heads off to Milwaukee convinced that his British accent will score him success with the opposite sex that he can’t seem to find in the U.K.

Instead of simply alternating filmed scenes with live songs, director Davis finds ever more ingenious ways to integrate the live and the prerecorded.

 Filmed snippets of Peter and Juliet’s wedding take turns with a live ceremony down below with the entire horn section popping in for a sing-along-ready “All You Need Is Love,” stage Billy performs “Christmas Is All Around” as screen Billy does the same above him, an exuberant “Jump (For My Love)” has the PM’s stage persona dancing into his screen incarnation and back, and more than a few songs connect multiple plot lines as characters interact stage left, right, and center.

Featuring all but one of the tunes that made the movie soundtrack a top-40 hit (“Wherever You Will Go,” “White Christmas,” “River,” and “The Trouble With Love Is,” and “God Only Knows” among them), Love Actually Live bookends the production with a particularly gorgeous “Love Actually Is All Around” that adds Audra Mae’s lyrics to one of composer Craig Armstrong’s exquisite love themes.

 On the minus side, audiences expecting to swoon over Joanna’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” will have to settle for the not-nearly-so-memorable “All Alone On Christmas.”

There’s no settling whatsoever where performances are concerned, with Abate, Curda, Harris, Carson Higgins, Jakle, Kazee, Kreeger, Lessard, Emily Lopez, Manolakos, McGee, Resnick, Sargent, Slade, Smith, and Willis delivering the vocal goods and then some, in addition to showing off acting gifts, some razor-sharp syncing of live scenes with their filmed counterparts, and dance chops to Sumié Maeda’s choreographed moves. (A particularly inventive twist is having Tom, Judy, and Colin played wordlessly by woodwindist Zmuda, violinist Shung, and trombonist Csillag.)

 Aaron Rhyne deserves major snaps for a brilliant video/projection design and scenic designer Matthew Steinbrenner for an endlessly morphing set featuring multiple screens of various sizes and configurations.

Costumer Steve Mazurek has done a terrific job of designing outfits to resemble their screen counterparts, and thanks to hair-wig-makeup designer Cassie Russek the transformation for the women is quite remarkable.

 Michael Berger’s lighting is as dazzling as lighting designs get (kudos shared with lighting director/programmer Ryan Tanker), properties designer Carissa Huizenga adds Christmas presents and home and office paraphernalia galore, and vocal designer AnnMarie Milazzo and sound designer Benjamin Soldate help make the production sound as good as it looks.

Rick V. Moreno is production stage manager and Christina Bryan is assistant stage manager. Casting is by Stewart/Whitley Casting

 No matter how many times you’ve streamed Love Actually or gotten out that decade-old DVD for another annual holiday viewing, you won’t want to miss Love Actually Live at the Wallis. It’s the season’s most spectacular holiday treat.

Bram Goldsmith Theater, Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd, Beverly Hills.
www.thewallis.org

–Steven Stanley
December 12, 2018
Photos: Lily Lim, except photos 1, 5, and 7 by Lawrence H. Ko

Tags: For The Record, Los Angeles Theater Review, The Wallis Annenberg Center For The Arts