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THEATER REVIEW: Kentucky Center's White Christmas
• Final performances of “White Christmas” will be at l p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Sunday. For ticket information and other performance times phone (502) 584-7777.)
• • •
Here’s a gladly received holiday package arriving at the Kentucky Center a few days after the day itself, but only a curmudgeon would hold that against this sparkling version of “Irving Berlin’s White Christmas.”
This magical recreation of the classic 1954 film starring Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney comes with Stephen Bogardus (the Crosby part) and Kerry O’Malley (the Clooney part) in the roles they created in the Broadway original cast.
And as an extra added attraction there’s Lorna Luft, Judy Garland’s other daughter, taking the Kentucky Center stage on which Liza Minnelli did her pre-Broadway show not many months ago.
Luft is a perfect fit for the sardonic Martha Watson, concierge at the Vermont inn owned by the gruff much-loved general (Barry Flatman) of World War II veterans Bob Wallace (Bogardus) and Phil Davis (David Elder), now song-and-dance headliners on the Ed Sullivan Show.
The guys meet and match up with Betty (O’Malley) and Judy Haynes (Megan Sikora), who have a sister act, and wind up with them at the inn at a time when snow hasn’t fallen and no one else is checking in.
Misunderstandings keep romance on tenterhooks, and the general is in danger of losing his inn. But the day gets saved in typical musical comedy fashion.
Snow (or a reasonable facsimile) falls on the Kentucky Center stage and even on the audience in this slick, good-looking production with flashily costumed singers and dancers cavorting to the title song and “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm.”
There are spectacular ensemble dances to “I Love a Piano” (led by Elder and Sikora) and “Let Yourself Go” (led by Bogardus and Elder). Bogardus and ensemble also offer a showstopping “Blue Skies.” routine.
“Sisters,” sung first by O’Malley and Sikora, gets an amusingly camp reprise by Bogardus and Elder.
Luft’s big number is “Let Me Sing and I’m Happy” with some of her top hat and cane moves being reminiscent of her mother. She’s also terrific in “Falling Out of Love Can Be Fun” in a trio with O’Malley and Sikora.
In her soulful “Love, You Didn’t Do Right By Me” solo set in a swanky Manhattan nightclub (the show’s sets and costumes are gorgeous) O’Malley sounds at times like Clooney, for whom Irving Berlin wrote the special song.
A charmed audience didn’t hesitate when invited at curtain’s end to join in a “White Christmas” singalong with the cast of this nostalgic PNC Broadway Across America show.
Charles Whaley is a longtime theater reviewer in the Louisville metro area. He has reviewed stage productions for The Courier-Journal, totaltheater.com, CurtainUp.com, San Francisco Bay Times and The Sondheim Review.
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