IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE – ON AIR!

A ragtag bunch of inadvertent thespians find themselves forced to step in for a dozen snowstorm-stranded 1940s Hollywood A-listers in It’s A Wonderful Life – ON AIR!, a clever concept given an entertaining if overlong (and at times overplayed) execution at the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center.

Cast member Kyle Cooknick opens the show, reminding AARPers in the audience of the days when families would gather round their TV sets to watch the latest annual screening of the 1946 Frank Capra-Jimmy Stewart holiday classic, then proceeds to give younger folks a brief history lesson in life before streaming, before television even, back when radio broadcasts ruled the airwaves with live performances like Lux Radio Theater’s 1947 presentation of It’s A Wonderful Life.

Adapter-director Fred Helsel imagines what might have happened the following year had a snowstorm kept stage and screen stars from making it to the NBC studios to retell The George Bailey Story, one of despair and redemption, the former because of a missing $8000 (about 100K in today’s currency), the latter because of the intervention of a wingless angel named Clarence.

And so, with only minutes to go until air time, producer Gordon Fitzgerald (Cooknick) finds himself tasked with recruiting enough “talent” in and around the studio to fill in for a hospitalized announcer and a trainload of stranded stars.

Sent out on a search for volunteer performers, all that inveterate stutterer Arthur Randolph (Kyle Sanderson) can come up with is has-been Broadway lush Virginia Darwell (Kathleen Silverman), which means that assorted studio employees will have to grab scripts and wing it.

Resident klutz Eugene Wallace (Philip McBride) seems perfect for underdog angel Clarence, senior staffer Franklin Cummings (John Dantona) can play all the older male characters, the lovely Betty Parker (Jen Ridgeway) will be George’s girlfriend-turned-wife Mary, perky Maggie Jenkins (Lauren Josephs) will be George and Mary’s childhood friend Violet, staffers Gladys Murphy (Sharon Gibson) and Buddy Marshall (Michael German) will play multiple supporting roles in addition to their previously assigned duties, and Sister Mary Benedict (Amanda Greig), a miraculous last-minute arrival, will help Buddy with sound effects in addition to voicing cameo roles.

As for George Bailey himself, it will be up to weatherman Arthur to overcome his nervous stammer and bring It’s A Wonderful Life’s leading man to life.

Still, try as they might, these unprepared subs can’t help but reveal their rank amateur status throughout the broadcast.

One cast member reads stage directions as if they were lines in the script, pages from other scripts (A Christmas Carol for one) get read by accident, and local lush Virginia’s state of inebriation increases minute by minute, presumably an after effect of earlier tippling.

It’s an intriguing concept, though by the time Act One ends an hour after it started, it’s clear that at least ten minutes of judicious cuts could have and should have been made.

And Act Two is just as long.

The trouble is too, that as the mayhem gets wilder and wilder and performances get broader and broader, much of It’s A Wonderful Life’s emotional impact gets lost in the madness, no matter how amusing it can be to watch.

That’s not to say that there’s no fun to be had up Simi Valley way. There definitely is, at least early on in the show, and the cast definitely give it their all.

I certainly can’t quibble with It’s A Wonderful Life – ON AIR!’s production design, from Orlando Montes’s nostalgic studio set to Seth Kamenow’s expert lighting to Ethan Strubble’s inventive sound design to Ariella Salinas Fiore’s period-evoking costumes to Luis Ramirez’s wigs, whether on or inadvertently off characters’ heads.

Helsel is executive producer and McBride is associate producer. Kimberly Kiley is production stage manager and Catilyn Rose Masey is assistant stage manager. Fiore and Massey are understudies.

Trimmed down and reined in, It’s A Wonderful Life – ON AIR! might be the heart-filled holiday treat I was hoping to see. At the very least, it has its moments.

Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center, 3050 Los Angeles Avenue, Simi Valley.
www.simi-arts.org

–Steven Stanley
December 2, 2023
Photos: Neftali Photography

 

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