‘A Christmas Story’ more muddled than magical

The latest Christmas-themed musical to puff snowflakes around the stage of the Goodspeed Opera House is “A Christmas Story,” the 2009 play based on the 1983 movie that’s broadcast about a zillion times every December and is based on the edgy nostalgic stories of Chicago-born humorist and radio host Jean Shepherd.

The musical runs through Dec. 29. It is the final show of the 2024 Goodspeed season and the last one before the theater building and its grounds undergo extensive renovations this winter.

You know the plot: Ralphie Parker wants a Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle. He really, really wants one.

This is the sort of growing-up tale that demands dogs and children and gets them. There are a fair number of kids in the audience, too, though you could argue that “A Christmas Story” is not so much a family show as it is a show about family. It’s nostalgia tinged with bitter adult regret. Some of the quaint childhood memories include the first time Ralphie’s father hears him use the F-word. (Parental alert: the actual word is not spoken onstage, but it’s clear what it is.) One of the songs by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, “When You’re a Wimp,” is a pre-teen variation on the high school anxiety anthems that propel the same songwriters’ later musical “Dear Evan Hansen.”

Pasek and Paul are the big dogs in this show, a show which features actual big dogs. Joseph Robinette’s book is a reasonable approximation of the film’s screenplay, but the songs take some of Shepherd’s whimsy to a whole new level. They sound like classic musical theater songs, which fits the show’s mid-20th century setting, but they have their own weird pop energy, kind of like Pasek and Paul’s circus songs for “The Great Showman.”

The songs are strong but not always presented with the style and fervor they deserve. Director Hunter Foster errs on the side of heartwarming and corny. He underplays the homespun scenes until they’re downright dull. There’s a sobby, sappy ending that plays it straight when it could add more of the sardonic, satirical touches that have come before. The staging has none of the snappy pep of Foster’s previous Goodspeed Opera House effort, “Christmas in Connecticut,” which had its own problems, but perkiness wasn’t one of them.

Some of the full cast dances try to look grand and vibrant, but they just seem busy. It’s also the kind of big-cast, big-joke crowdpleaser that requires a crowd. Wednesday’s audience wasn’t large enough to produce the hearty communal laughs that shows like this thrive on.

Before the show starts, “A Christmas Story” looks like a gift. The stage curtain resembles a wrapped package with striped paper and a red ribbon. It opens to reveal a heartwarming midwestern small town scene on Cleveland Street in Hohman, Indiana sometime in the 1940s.

David L. Arsenault’s set design goes for simple old-world charm but isn’t very effective. A starry night backdrop is bland and tacky and a big department store scene where kids climb up stairs to sit on Santa’s lap, then swoosh down a playground-like slide isn’t as magical as it sounds because everyone who gets on the slide seems worried about it and go down it too gingerly.

‘A Christmas Story, The Musical’ gets two-month holiday run at Goodspeed Opera House

There are some familiar faces in the cast, which adds to the musical’s homeyness. John Scherer, who also had a narrator role in the Foster-directed “The Drowsy Chaperone” at Goodspeed in 2018, plays Shepherd, who sets the scene for his own childhood memories and often leaps in and out of the story as it’s being told. Scherer takes a laid-back approach that has him hovering on the stage without ever dominating it.

Jenn Gambetese, whose prior Goodspeed credits include “All Shook Up” and “Annie Get Your Gun,” is a steady, calm presence as Ralphie’s mother, a difficult role since it’s defined by the sexist, male chauvinist stereotypes of the story’s time period.

Jim Stanek, making his Goodspeed Opera House debut though he’s done two shows (“Passing Through” and Pasek and Paul’s “James and the Giant Peach”) at Goodspeed’s Terris Theatre in Chester, plays Ralphie’s short-tempered dad “The Old Man.” Like most of the others, he’s holding back, and his anger fizzles before it can be funny.

Rashidra Scott, who recently appeared in “Christmas in Connecticut” and “Anne of Green Gables” at the theater, gets to tap dance as extravagantly as she did as Reno Sweeney at Goodspeed back in 2018. There are several fantasy sequences in “A Christmas Story” where character break out from their everyday existence, but Scott’s “You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out” is the one that works the best.

The star of “A Christmas Story,” young Ralphie Parker, is played by Christopher Riley, with the character’s movements often mirrored by Scherer as Ralphie’s older self. Riley has a strong singing voice and good timing. He doesn’t lapse into the usual cute kid theater stereotypes. In fact, all 10 child actors avoid the cloying grins you usually get. They’re all over the place style-wise — some of the kids are allowed to overact shamelessly, others fade into the background — but they never get annoying and collectively they earn some of the most genuine laughs in “A Christmas Story.”

Then there are the dogs. Gus and Jethro, from the Connecticut homestead of animal trainer Bill Berloni, play the unruly pets of the Parkers’ neighbors the Bumpuses. They not only nail their cues and keep quiet downstage, they seem to truly be enjoying themselves when gobbling down a turkey.

There are a few wonderfully absurd moments in “A Christmas Story,” especially in the second act, but not enough of them. Some comical highlights from the movie could be played bigger, including the tongue stuck to a flagpole and Ralphie wearing the bunny pajamas, but their impact is lessened here by being done too much at the back of the stage.

If “A Christmas Story” were a midwestern snowstorm it would be the kind which drifts so that there are beautiful sparkling mounds of glistening snow with some wet, muddy areas in between. “A Christmas Story” is a homespun normal folks story, and Goodspeed gets that side of it. But the movie and Shepherd’s original short stories are full of bright silliness and comic exaggeration, and this muddled rendition falls short of that level of joy and Christmas cheer.

“A Christmas Story, The Musical” runs through Dec. 29 at the Goodspeed Opera House, 6 Main St., East Haddam. Performances are Wednesdays at 2 and 7:30 p.m., Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 3 and 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 and 6:30 p.m. with added Thursday matinees at 2 p.m. on Dec. 12, 19 and 26. There are no performances on Dec. 24 or 25. goodspeed.org.