Staying in Tune With the Times

On paper, “Sanders Family Christmas,” at La Mirada Theatre, sounds like a bland holiday TV special. Yet in the theater, this show has an irrepressibly puckish quality, and it’s also surprisingly timely.

It’s Christmas Eve 1941, a few weeks after Pearl Harbor, in a Baptist Church in a small North Carolina town that’s best known for its pickle factory. The singin’ Sanders family is performing, but it may be a farewell concert--young Dennis Sanders has enlisted.

References to the new war are strewn throughout Connie Ray’s script. They sound familiar these days, though a few telling differences exist, such as when the minister asks God to bless Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Churchill and Mr. Stalin.

Those who saw this show’s prequel, “Smoke on the Mountain,” earlier this year at the same theater, know that the amusing human foibles of the characters are on display as much as their bluegrassy gospel singing.

Burl (William Mesnik) and Vera (Linda Kerns), the mom and pop of this act, are back. Their children are all young adults now, though Vera isn’t averse to treating them like kids. One of them, June (Tess Hartman), is the only member of the family who can’t sing. So she signs for the deaf, using her own brand of sign language--though there are no deaf congregants.

Denise (Emily Mikesell) has stopped dreaming of being the next Scarlett O’Hara and instead is planning new adventures in the USO. Her twin Dennis (Johnny Hawkins) isn’t certain whether he should be a chaplain or a fighter.

Burl’s brother Stan (Jason Edwards), who was last seen when he was fresh out of prison, went to Hollywood in the interim, playing a small role in a Gene Autry movie. The family’s host, pastor Mervin Oglethorpe (David Hemsley Caldwell), who just returned from burying his mother, is a little insecure, because his substitute in the pulpit proved so popular. The pastor casts a romantic eye on June when no one is looking.

The cast is almost identical to that of La Mirada’s “Smoke on the Mountain.” But Edwards, who played Burl last time, is playing Stan. The actor who previously played Stan was otherwise engaged, and Edwards knew the role. Replacing Edwards as Burl, Mesnik looks a little closer to the right age of someone with adult children.

The cast sounds swell, not only as singers but also as a country band (each plays several instruments). Some of the spoken monologues work better than others--Kern’s is again the funniest, as another of her children’s devotional sessions goes awry.

Conceived by Alan Bailey and staged by Caldwell, this show is a disarming combination of country, comedy and Christmas.

*

“Sanders Family Christmas,” La Mirada Theatre, 14900 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada. Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2:30 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Ends Dec. 16. (562) 944-9801, (714) 994-6310. $35. Running time: 2 hours.