alt=Lottie Elizabeth JohnsonSALT LAKE CITY — It’s inevitable: For better or worse, every classic Christmas story will get turned into a musical.
Let’s start with “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Forty years after the Jimmy Stewart tearjerker premiered, Bedford Falls became a small town big on song and dance. And then the film became a musical for the second time in 1998. And earlier this year, Paul McCartney announced he’s got his sights on Broadway with yet another musical rendition of the beloved Christmas tale that teaches us that “no man is a failure who has friends.”
Every time a bell rings, a musical gets made.
“Miracle on 34th Street” — which was released not long after “It’s a Wonderful Life” — had a quicker journey to becoming a musical, thanks to “Music Man” composer Meredith Willson. Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch became musical stars in 1994. Buddy the Elf went from singing in a store to singing on Broadway in 2010. Two years later, it took a full-on tap routine for Miss Shields to tell Ralphie he’d shoot his eye out if he got that Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas.
It’s no surprise songwriters are capitalizing on known quantities. These are stories people return to every year, stories that have become family traditions. These are stories that don’t get old — for 22 years, the 24-hour marathon of “A Christmas Story” has reached millions of viewers, after all.
Familiarity can be a double-edged sword, though. It gets people in the theaters, but those people are entering with preconceived notions. It’s hard to imagine anyone watching the musical “It’s a Wonderful Life” without wistfully thinking of Stewart’s performance. It’s a comparison as inevitable as every classic Christmas story turning into a musical.
I thought it’d be the same for “A Christmas Story.” But Pasek and Paul’s (“Dear Evan Hansen,” “La La Land”) Tony-nominated musical, which runs at the Eccles Theater through Dec. 8, stays loyal to the film without simply regurgitating it. All of the classic moments are there (well, except for Ralphie’s obsession with a Little Orphan Annie decoder ring; “be sure to drink your Ovaltine!”) but the musical also manages to bring something new to the table — something that significantly separates it from the movie and makes it worth seeing.
As a holiday movie, “A Christmas Story” is different. It’s been praised and criticized for that. It’s more cynical than heartwarming — Ralphie’s fixated on a BB gun, and his Old Man is obsessed with the fragile leg lamp. Santa grumpily shuts down Ralphie’s dream of shooting that Red Ryder BB gun. The Old Man is perpetually irritated, facing the daily battles of a broken furnace and the neighbor’s annoying dogs. Ralphie and his brother, Randy, fight. Ralphie beats up the school bully Scott Farkus. And, worst of all, the cursed Bumpus hounds devour the family’s turkey dinner on Christmas Day.
It’s funny because it’s so realistic. It flips the grand “life is worth living” premise of films like “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “A Christmas Carol” on their heads. But in its own subtle way, “A Christmas Story” does reach that premise.
Because Ralphie does get that BB gun, from his father of all people — the one person he never dared to ask. And even though the family ends up eating a nontraditional Christmas dinner at a Chinese restaurant, they’re together. And in the end, that’s all that matters.
It’s not a tearjerker. In fact, Jean Shepherd — whose short stories inspired “A Christmas Story” — has described his work as “anti-sentimental.”
Which makes you wonder how he would feel about the musical. Because as a musical, “A Christmas Story” is much more heartwarming.
For starters, the Old Man isn’t nearly as grumpy as he is in the film. It’s hard to be intimidating when you’re simultaneously finishing up a crossword puzzle and singing a jazzy number about being “The Genius on Cleveland Street” (Not to mention the leg lamp chorus line the Old Man takes part in later on.) Ralphie’s mother, who is a rare spot of warmth in the film, is even more selfless and loving in the musical, with tender songs that give her character more depth.
And in an entirely new scene, after his mother breaks the treasured leg lamp, Ralphie tries to fix it — and not just because he thinks it’ll get him closer to that BB gun. He even helps out his mother, encouraging his brother Randy — who is incapable of eating his food unless he’s imitating a pig — to finish his meal. The Old Man and Mother make up after the leg lamp incident. And, in the biggest surprise of all, the narrator gives a closing, emotional monologue about the love of parents and families that could very well make you cry.
It’s an implied message in the film, but the musical really drives it home, wrapping up the story with a sentimental bow. If he’d had a say in the musical, Shepherd, who died in 1999, likely wouldn’t have been a fan of this move.
But it’s another way of telling the beloved story that has become a Christmas tradition for families throughout the country.
“I’m not trying to copy Jean Shepherd; I don’t think that’s the point, really, to do an impression of Jean Shepherd,” Chris Carsten, who plays Shepherd in the production, told the Deseret News. “It’s just to tell this wonderful story that so many people identify with and ... have come to love over the years.”
You’ll have the chance to watch the cynical classic 12 times between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. But first, give the musical and all of its overt sentimentality a chance. I triple-dog dare you.