Ralphie, played by Evan Harma, is seen during a rehearsal of “A Christmas Story” at Northern Michigan University. (Courtesy photo) 

By DAVID WOOD

Northern Michigan

University Professor

of English

Special to the Journal

MARQUETTE – The leg lamp takes the stage this week at NMU’s Forest Roberts Theater, in the NMU holiday production of Jean Shepherd’s film classic, “A Christmas Story” (1983), based in part on his memoir: “In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash” (1966). All your favorites from the film come to life on stage by means of a crew of fantastic young actors: Ralphie (Evan Harma) and Randy (Jack Johnson); Flick (Nate Wood) and Schwartz (Sevi Voight); and Grover (Christian Leonard) and the notorious bully, Scut Farkas (Winston Leonard). Terrific new additions to this production, however, are some key female roles, including the sweet Esther Jean (Avonlea Kuhlman) and the savvy Helen (Marin Johnson).

To cut to the chase: regardless of how busy you are at this busiest time of year, drop everything and head to the FRT to catch this production.

Directed by Teagan Sturmer, and dedicated to the memory of her grandmother, the play reverently captures much of the film’s nostalgic meditation on Shepherd’s childhood in 1940 northern Indiana. This production maintains a genuinely idyllic presentation of that past by depicting the film’s voice-over as a staged adult actor, the capable Ralph (Dusten Golden). Ralph serves as our guide while 9-year-old Ralphie negotiates the Christmas season with his friends and family in a familiar series of coming-of-age incidents.

Played with relish, his mother (Sara Parks) and his Old Man (Jason Parks) engage in the stormy banter that serves as the heart of the film. Jason Parks stands out in his famous battles both with his neighbor Bumpus’ dogs and with his own furnace. Sara Parks stands out in her maternal forbearance and preternatural trivia knowledge.

The sweet sting of the 1983 film, of course, centers not so much on the idyllic, but rather on the semi-idyllic– on the wry understatement, dramatic irony, and even the cynicism that Shepherd elicits from his boyhood. Platitudes like “Peace on Earth” and “Joy to All” will have to wait, as Ralphie will literally do anything his feverish mind can devise to get his hands on his own “legendary, official, Red-Rider carbine action 200-shot range model air rifle with a compass and this thing which tells time built right into the stock.”

In the play, however, Director Sturmer largely eschews Shepherd’s irony, and plumbs Ralphie’s boyhood for its sweetness and close family bonds. That’s fine, even advisable, in this stage production. While Sturmer retains Ralphie’s painful recognition that the Little Orphan Annie decoder ring he so desperately pined for produces only a cynical crass commercial (“Be sure to drink Ovaltine!”), she also evokes in Ralph’s performance by play’s end a humane wistfulness that places his childhood on a pedestal in an explicit testament to family togetherness, family love, and family joy.

Along the way, of course, many performances stand out. Winston and Christian Leonard’s roles as Scut Farkas and his toady Grover shrewdly portray a melodramatic, villainous zeal. Nate Wood’s Flick hilariously suffers the indignity that comes from accepting Sevi Voight’s (Schwartz’s) notorious “triple-dog-dare.” Evan Harma’s Ralphie hams up his role with a winning impishness, and Marin Johnson embodies the role of Helen with an assured confidence suitable both to her smarts and her self-confidence. Ian McCullough’s Black Bart, too, shines in a dream sequence in which Ralphie protects his family with his Red Rider gun, while Riley Fields (who plays Ralphie’s teacher, Miss Shields) excels in another dream sequence in which Ralphie imagines her rapturous encounter with his Red Rider BB gun Christmas essay: Fields gasps as she holds the paper to her chest, celebrating it as “the theme I have been waiting for all my life!”

Special kudos to scene designer Lex van Blommstein for bringing vibrantly to life a 1940 middle class Midwestern home; to sound designer Dan Zini for the play’s jazzy, period Christmas music; to costume designer Shelley Russell for the play’s apt period costuming (including a perfect pink bunny suit); and to Hannah Carey and Keli Crawford-Truckey, property masters, for their skillful choices, as well (including the famous leg lamp).

In her Director’s Notes, Director Sturmer identifies the core of her version of “A Christmas Story” in the “hope” and “peace” she perceives in the season more broadly. Surely, that’s apt. But it bears noting, too, that another reason to stage a play like this one centers on the many, many phrases this film has contributed to our current holiday lexicon. Indeed, those lucky enough to attend this performance will likely share in a series of joyful moments of recognition including classic lines like these:

“I can’t put my arms down!”; “Fra-jee-lay: that must be Italian”; “So help me God, he had yellow eyes”; “It’s a major award!”; “I triple dog dare you!”; “Daddy’s gonna kill Ralphie”; “It was, it was … soap poisoning”; “I can’t get up! I can’t get up!”; “Show me how the piggies eat!”; “He looks like a deranged Easter Bunny”; “Be sure to drink Ovaltine!” “That’s my sore arm”; “Thtuck! Thtuck!”; “Randy lay there like a slug, it was his only defense”; “You’ll shoot your eye out!” “Oh, fudge. Only I didn’t say fudge….”

So head to NMU this week for a dose of holiday cheer!

All performances at NMU’s Forest Roberts Theater, and run from Wednesday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m. with a Saturday matinee at 4 p.m. and a Sunday matinee at 1 p.m.