It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play is a triumph at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. Combining such uproarious comedy and moving drama in a single evening is an extraordinary achievement.
The idea of performing It’s a Wonderful Life as a play for radio is inspired. Many memorable scenes from Frank Capra’s 1946 film would be difficult to reproduce onstage. Joe Landry’s adaption eliminates the difficulty by drawing its visual interest from what happens in the studio rather than what happens in the movie. The Rep’s staging is based on the 2022 production at Alabama Shakespeare Festival.
The first thing the audience sees at The Rep is the An-Lin Dauber’s imposing set, which depicts the studio of radio station KSTL in St. Louis. The studio is grand and roomy, and the space is put to great use. The actors do not simply take a stance behind a single microphone. They continually move from one mic to another. They passionately embrace each character they play and interact with one another as energetically as they would if they were visible to everyone hearing them.
The superb company includes (in alphabetical order) Deante Bryant, J. Samuel Davis, Carmen Garcia, Jailyn Genyse, Melissa Harlow, Daisy Held, Aria Maholchic, Michael James Reed, TJ Staten, Jr., and Eric Dean White. Their ability to switch from one part to another at lightning speed is source of nonstop wonder.
Reed and Davis adopt different but equally compelling approaches to the story’s principal adversaries, George Bailey and Henry Potter. Reed’s performance calls to mind the cadences and sound quality of the first George, Jimmy Stewart, but Reed’s masterly work rises far above impersonation. Reed could not be more charming when George is being himself, more inspiring when he staves off the run on the Bedford Falls building and loan, more devastated when everything he has worked for is crumbling, or more euphoric when he has another chance at life.
Steering clear of the mannerisms of Lionel Barrymore (the original Potter), Davis presents his own fascinating take on the story’s villain. It is a chilling portrait of stony-hearted greed. Davis’s ability to feign a kindly façade makes Potter’s callousness even more menacing.
The company produces all the sound effects onstage. Watching them is as much fun as hearing them. The sound and Foley designer is Michael Costagliola. An-Lin Dauber’s costumes and Dennis Milam Bensie wigs strongly evoke the radio drama’s setting in the 1940s.
Kate Bergstrom’s direction is visually arresting throughout. Bergstrom pulls off a stroke of genius when George learns what the world would be like if he had never been born. His dark night of the soul unfolds in near-total darkness under Christina Watanabe’s lighting.
A friend who doesn’t wish to be quoted by name commented after the show, “No static in this radio play.” I wish I’d thought of that line.
—Gerry Kowarsky
Photo by Jon Gitchoff
