A New Angel Sings a Holiday Tale

This may seem a tad early for a Christmas story, but then Faye Gottschalk’s actually began last summer. That was when this unemployed, twice-divorced 43-year-old woman heard a voice in her heart telling her it was time to move from Palo Alto.

“The City of Angels, the City of Angels,” it said.

Faye says she’s heard that voice before. Often.

“It felt providential,” she recalls. “I had said to the Lord, ‘Why did someone name this the City of Angels?’ . . . I just knew there was something very special here. I knew he was calling me to come here.”

Faye now feels that maybe it’s no accident that she would join Glendale Presbyterian Church and wind up with the pivotal role in the church’s traditionally untraditional holiday program. This year, it’s “Christmas at the Governor’s Mansion,” an original musical by Barry Pintar. As First Lady Susan Bracket, Faye sings a song of sad yearning:

Miracles are made of dreams that never do come true

Empty hopes and wishes that turn old and gray and blue. . . .

*

This Christmas, you see, Susan has a problem. Worried about his sagging public approval ratings, Gov. Bracket has bought into a PR consultant’s plan to promote “family values” through a televised Christmas program from the governor’s mansion. The idea is to show what a happy, loving family the Brackets are, even though she and her husband know this is a sham. Grudgingly, Susan accedes, allowing the two older Bracket children to perform, while being careful to protect little Ashley, age 5.

There’s a deep, dark secret about Ashley. The little girl hasn’t spoken in the two years since she survived a car crash in which her brother Brad died.

This being a Christmas tale, you’ve probably already figured out the dramatic, tear-jerking climax. What matters more, however, is how the story gets there. And what matters at Glendale Presbyterian Church is finding new ways to tell the Christmas story.

“This is an incredibly creative congregation,” explains the Rev. Darrell Johnson. “I don’t know how many people we have that are in the TV and movie business.”

Last year, Glendale Presbyterian raised eyebrows with its comic presentation of the Nativity story, by member Dean Batali, a TV sitcom writer. After a newspaper described the play as “irreverent,” Johnson had to reassure congregants who worried that adding humor to the sacred would result in blasphemy. At the same time, church leaders figure the comedy piqued interest in people who would have otherwise stayed away.

This year, church member Pintar says his aim was to create a “Broadway-style musical” in the tradition of “Oklahoma!” and “Carousel.” A veteran performer and television producer, Pintar penned three original songs to go with an array of traditional tunes woven into “Christmas at the Governor’s Mansion.” He also directs and plays the cynical PR consultant. Despite its setting, there is no conventional political content to the play. Rather, Pintar says his aim is to deliver the Christmas message without getting preachy about it. He does this by satirizing the secular exploitation of the occasion.

Early on, the handler draws the governor into a jaunty duet:

The image of Christmas is what sells

Make them feel good, it never fails

Manipulate

The Yuletide date

That’s what Christmas has become

*

This wasn’t like the Presbyterian church my mother lured her kids to more than 30 years ago, promising doughnuts on the way home, but it may not be like any other either.

“Presbyterians have a reputation for being cerebral in our worship,” Johnson says. “We’re called ‘the Frozen Chosen.’ ” The Glendale church, however, “is on the cutting edge of a different kind of worship. The worship is very alive, and largely because of the input of these creative people.”

And into this church came Faye Gottschalk, singing like the proverbial angel. After years of voice training, she is now set to play her first lead role in performances Saturday, Sunday, Dec. 8 and 9.

“Intense” is how Johnson describes her, and so too is the role she plays. More than once the First Lady is moved to tears.

Faye Gottschalk figures she draws from a range of experience, from the abortion she had at age 18 and the troubled marriages and suicidal moods that came later. “I made a lot of bad choices in my life and came to some very low points in my life.”

As the First Lady, she sings:

Can you understand the way my life is here today?

Or do you sit on some big cloud so very far away?

Are you just a longtime myth that wasn’t really real?

Just a story long ago that people like to feel?