O.C. THEATER : ‘Christmas Memory’ Remains as Vivid and Touching as Ever

The first time the Alternative Repertory Theatre presented its free annual holiday show--a staged reading of Yuletide stories highlighted by Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory”--it seemed a paradoxical breakthrough for this ambitious storefront troupe.

ART productions had managed to conjure an evocative atmosphere of make-believe through clever manipulation of technical resources that often overcame the limitations of the 61-seat theater’s small playing space, only to fall short in terms of overall artistic achievement.

But the relatively unadorned Christmas show--presented on a bare stage and dependent on heartfelt emotions rather than design magic--succeeded where many of the troupe’s more elaborate productions had failed.

Now, two years later, the breakthrough has been confirmed and the paradox has all but disappeared.

ART has not only learned to apply deceptive simplicity to detailed and sophisticated offerings--a revival of “The Glass Menagerie” earlier this season is the most recent case in point--but its current reprise of “A Christmas Memory,” which opened this weekend, remains as graceful, vivid and touching as ever.

Indeed, the show as a whole is more entertaining than the previous version because of a largely new selection of a dozen swiftly paced Yuletide stories presented as a 30-minute prelude to the main event. They are lighter, funnier and more imaginatively done than before.

All are freshly staged by director Patricia L. Terry and brightly executed by a company of ART regulars: Ted Escobar, Tracy Merrifield, Gary Christensen, Irene Turner and Lee Clark.

Among the selections are Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Bells”; Orange County playwright Jerry Gordon’s hipster poem “Wear’n a Tomato-Colored Santa Claus Headband”; an excerpt from Betty Smith’s “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”; and George Bernard Shaw’s pithy diatribe, “An Atrocious Institution,” about the commercialization of Christmas.

Following intermission, Clark teams up with Barbara Sorenson for the evening’s main attraction: a 40-minute script-in-hand staging of Capote’s “A Christmas Memory.” It is a nostalgic autobiographical reminiscence about the pleasure and solace the author found as a young boy in his friendship with an elderly cousin during her preparations for the Christmas season (“fruitcake weather,” as she called it).

This is the third consecutive year that Clark and Sorenson have animated Capote’s tale under Joel T. Cotter’s direction, and I see no reason to change what I said the first time around: Theirs is make-believe of a high order, which, I might add, is not unlike the whimsical holiday conspiracy of the two black sheep they portray.

The duo’s performance of the narrative remains so richly textured you can almost taste the cousin’s whiskey-laced fruitcakes and feel both the tug of the gifts they have made each other and Capote’s metaphor for them: a “lost pair of kites hurrying toward heaven.”

Regarding the free admission, ART suggests a donation of non-perishable food or a new unwrapped toy as the price of a ticket. These items will be contributed by the theater to Holiday Hope, a charitable organization in Santa Ana.

‘A Christmas Memory’

Lee Clark: Buddy

Barbara Sorenson: Buddy’s cousin

An Alternative Repertory Theatre presentation directed by Joel T. Cotter from the story by Truman Capote, with other holiday tales directed by Patricia L. Terry. Also with Gary Christensen, Irene Turner, Ted Escobar and Tracy Merrifield. Through Dec. 24 at ART, 1636 S. Grand Ave., Santa Ana. Performances are Thursday to Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 5 and 8 p.m.; additional shows Monday at 8 p.m; Tuesday at 5 p.m. Tickets: Free, with suggested donation of non-perishable food or new unwrapped toy. Information: (714) 836-7929.