O.C. STAGE REVIEW : ‘Trouble’ Has None Giving Yule Message

Last week, the guest on a radio talk show was explaining how most childhood traumas and resentments toward parents very well might begin with Santa Claus. The point he was driving home, while we were driving home, was that the people you trust the most commit the ultimate betrayal when they reveal the Truth About Santa. It can, he went on, have bad side effects. Mark David Chapman, for instance, had a Santa fixation before he shot John Lennon.

Terence Alaric and Christopher Campbell’s musical “The Trouble With Christmas,” at the Backstage Theatre in Costa Mesa, is a gentle rebuttal to the anti-Santa contingent. The mix of elements sometimes is as stiff and halting as Hal Ralston’s direction, but it’s all pulled along by a dogged belief in the spirit of Christmas.

And Hanukkah. Not only does Campbell’s book borrow the living Santa theme of “Miracle on 34th Street” and the riches-to-rags-to-riches theme of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” but, with the appearance in the Roberts’ family household of Alison, the Jewish girl down the street (Rachel Eckerling), the eight days of Hanukkah are explained.

Alison’s tutorial to Wendy Roberts (Gloria Jenson) and her daughter, Melissa (Andreana Weiner) will be educational for non-Jewish kids but it’s quickly dropped in lieu of the main story here, which is about how Tony Roberts (Campbell) gets out of his Christmas blues. (It’s just as well: As most Jewish parents know, the mixing of Hanukkah and Christmas is likely to produce confusion in the family.)

Even though the Robertses are eagerly awaiting Christmas the next morning, and Tony Roberts is bubbling with the prospect of selling his screenplay to a studio, he dismisses Melissa’s vision of her “invisible friend,” Nicky (Alaric). Wendy Roberts,

ever the cheery sort, goes along with her precocious daughter, which is a good move, since skeptics get their comeuppance in this show.

Not only does Tony Roberts forget his script for his studio meeting, but his truck for his day job is stolen. It gets worse: He gets fired. It gets even worse: Tony and Wendy Roberts have avoided buying presents until Christmas Eve, and now that he is out of a job, all the money has to go toward paying the bills. As Tony Roberts informs Melissa, “Honey, Christmas has been canceled.”

Of course, Nicky has been watching this all along, mostly sitting at the living room piano to accompany on some deceptively sophisticated original songs (the too-brief “Merry Christmas Day” should get included in the Christmas pop repertoire). Once he gives Tony Roberts a guitar, Nicky isn’t invisible anymore; in fact, he’s an oddly individual St. Nick, without a beard (the wife had him shave it off), and more like your understanding uncle than your jolly grandfather. Tony Roberts regains his innocence, and Rudolph helps get a bag of gifts down the chimney. Oh, and there’s that call from the studio. . . .

“The Trouble With Christmas” plays reasonably well to both kids and their parents (Saturday night’s audience, curiously, was almost kid-free), though director Ralston and company could go further in injecting a more fanciful sense of magic. Sometimes, the actors seem as if they just memorized their lines, but everyone warms up audibly when given a chance to sing (Campbell, for instance, is a wooden actor with a richly mellow voice). It may not send a knockout punch to Santa’s detractors, but this kindly show insists that you still can believe--even in the middle of a recession.

‘The Trouble With Christmas’

A Backstage Theatre production of a musical by Terence Alaric and Christopher Campbell, directed by Hal Ralston. With Christopher Campbell, Gloria Jenson, Andreana Weiner, Rachel Eckerling, Terence Alaric. Set design: Larry Livingston. Lighting design: Jeremy Pierson and Lea Russo. Continues through Wednesday at the Backstage Theatre, 1599 Superior Ave., Costa Mesa. Curtain times: 4 and 7 p.m. daily. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes. $10 to $15. The theater is accepting new unwrapped gift donations for Toys For Tots through Tuesday. (714) 646-0333.