Kilty Reidy (as Bill Brewer) and Jayson Elliott (as Buddy Baker).

                                         Photos by John Vecchiolla

                                             By Ed Lieberman

What do you get when you cross Holiday Inn and White Christmas? You get Christmas Inn, this year’s holiday offering at the Westchester Broadway Theatre.  The show, based upon a Richard Stafford revision of the original book and lyrics by Kathy Keating Wheeler and Bob Fitzsimmons is a pastiche of Christmas songs and carols, held together (barely) by a paper-thin plot revolving around two feuding vaudevillian stars who have parted ways but are still reluctantly connected by their 51-49 percent interests in the faded country inn that hosted their famous holiday shows in the past.

The story begins in the Olde Sod (Ireland) in 1882, where Liam Baker (played by Jayson Elliott) and his sidekick Patrick O’Brewer (Kilty Reidy) perform their renowned “Christmas in Killarney” show. They decide to emigrate to the New Country, where they meet success and decide to invest in a country inn in Connecticut. In a moment of exuberance, Liam decides to give Patrick a 51% interest in the inn, despite the fact that he has put up most of the money. Skip ahead two generations, and their grandsons, who stayed in the family business, have broken the act up amid mutual recriminations as to who was to blame. Through the machinations of the hotel manager, Maxine, they both find their way up to the old inn, one (Liam’s grandson, Buddy) to perform the Christmas show one more time with a backup group of hoofers (played by Holly Googe, Joel Pellini, Gabriella Perez and Daniel Scott Walton), the other (Patrick’s grandson, Bill) to take one last look at the place before he sells it off.

To sweeten the pot, Buddy is accompanied by his daughter Linda (Sarah Cline), and Bill is accompanied by his son Sam (Nick Varricchio, who played the Fonz in WBT’s recent mounting of Happy Days). Linda and Sam had had a relationship that, as had the relationship between their fathers, ended under ambiguous circumstances. Given the Christmas season, and the fact that this is, after all, a musical, the reader can guess how this all will turn out!

 

The cast does well with what they are given. Although Mssrs Elliott and Reidy resemble Laurel and Hardy physically, their relationship in the show bears more resemblance to Martin and Lewis, without the physical comedy. That said, they pull off the musical song and dance numbers with talent and aplomb. Ms. Cline and Mr. Varricchio, whose characters are torn between their love for each other and attempts to bring their fathers together for one more go at it, have the heavy lifting to do and they do it well (especially Ms. Cline, who has a wonderful voice). But I have left the best for last: Ann-Ngaire Martin, who plays Maxine, the Inn’s manager, absolutely steals the show, singing “The 12 Daze of Christmas,” as she drinks herself literally under the table, calling to mind the famed Elaine Stritch singing “Here’s to the Ladies Who Lunch.” 

 

This being a Christmas offering, there are some 31 musical numbers, running the gamut from “Christmas in Killarney,” to “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,” to the traditional carols, “Silent Night,” “Oh, Holy Night” and “Angels We Have Heard on High.” Unfortunately, the latter carols were run through a bit too summarily in a concluding manger scene, as if the director wanted to cram as many carols into what little time was left in the show. Perhaps the rushed timing was the result of the fact that because of the short run of the show there was only one preview before press night, as opposed to the normal performance schedule.

As usual, the behind the scenes WBT regulars acquitted themselves well: an evocative country set by Steve Loftus, lit well by Andrew Gmoser; costumes by Claudia Stefany spanned the globe and times from 1890’s Irish vaudeville to present day rustic.  

The show concludes with a nice touch: an audience singalong, complete with a songsheet tucked into the program, so those willing can join the cast in ringing in in the holiday season!

Show schedule: December 1-23, 2016

 

Wednesday, Thursday, (some ) Friday and Sunday matinees;

Thursday – Sunday evenings, at One Broadway Plaza, Elmsford, NY 10523

Box Office: (914) 592-2222 or www.BroadwayTheatre.com

2017 Schedule:

Saturday Night Fever: December 27, 2016 - January 29, 2017

The Bikinis: February 2 - March 19, 2017

Mama Mia: March 23 – June 25, 2017

Annie: June 29 – September 10, 2017

Annie Get Your Gun: September 14 – December 3, 2017