Just entering the performance space for Griffin Theatre’s The House without a Christmas Tree is a mini-journey in itself. Now onstage in the new Bramble Arts Loft in Andersonville, the show takes the audience from the facility’s stylish urban renovation into a rural past inside the Berry Theater. There, nostalgic holiday posters line the walls, hinting at the soft-focus performance ahead.
In the 1946 world of Clear River, Nebraska, a grandmother pulls packages through town in a red wagon and teenagers address adults with polite honorifics, especially their beloved schoolteacher Miss Thompson (Nicole Laurenzi). Based on Gail Rock’s novel and a 1972 television movie adaptation, George Howe (lyrics and music) and William Massolia (book) have created a musical about a landmark Christmas for young Addie Mills (Julia Limoncelli).
Addie struggles with her widowed father (Scott Danielson) who refuses to buy a Christmas tree, ostensibly for practical reasons. Why spend money on something that’s going to die? Beneath the frugality, Mr. Mills continues to grieve his wife’s untimely death 15 years earlier. His mother—the red wagon-pulling Grandma (Darrelyn Marx) who helps to raise Addie—tells her son that he has let his life turn sour.
Directed with smooth simplicity by Dorothy Milne, the story moves from Mr. Mills’ strident joylessness to a loving connection with his daughter. Alongside the father-daughter conflict runs Addie’s infatuation with Billy Wild (Andrew Greiche), whose cowboy boots capture Addie’s imagination almost as much as the boy himself. Of the Gene Autry-wannabe, Addie’s friend Carla Mae (Molly Clemente) notes, “His ego weighs a ton.”
Charm abounds in The House without a Christmas Tree. Discomfort, surprise and nuance, however, are in short supply. In one number, the girls in Miss Thompson’s class go to a local shop to buy their teacher “an elegant” Christmas present. When they finally land upon just the right item, they discover that it’s beyond their small budget. The shopkeeper (also played by Scott Danielson) immediately decides that it’s now on sale for exactly the amount they have to spend. With no dramatic obstacle, the scene doesn’t rise above serviceable.
Much of the plot involves Addie’s classmates who are well into adolescence. But their flirtations and squabbles seem very young, more junior high than high school. In their benign naivete, it’s hard to believe these teenagers came of age during the Great Depression and World War II. The script references hardship—Mr. Mills works at a physically grueling job and another girl in Addie’s class (Annalie Ciolino) lacks a Christmas tree because of poverty—but nothing seriously challenges the flow of good will. Neither Billy Wild’s vanity nor the cowboy boots that Addie covets interfere with the budding attraction between them. Similarly, Addie’s intentional purchase of ugly brown gloves for a girl she dislikes (Hannah Efsists) doesn’t seem to do much harm.
A predictably happy ending is no crime for a holiday show. But how the characters get to that ending should provide some suspense for the audience. Only late in the show does a song offer a curve ball: A Christmas pageant called “Nebraska Nativity” turns into a tongue-in-cheek romp with clever lyrics.
The quest for understanding between Addie and her father is worthy, as is the closeness of their small Midwestern town. But the path of the mini-journey—from Bramble Arts Loft’s sleek lobby, where the bar offers mango-chili cider, to Clear River where caroling kids are invited inside for hot chocolate—needs to be a lot rougher to make it as worthwhile as it is worthy.
The House without a Christmas Tree continues through December 29 at Bramble Arts Loft, 5545 N. Clark St. Running time is 90 minutes with no intermission. Tickets are $43 with senior and student discounts available.
For more information on this and other productions, see theatreinchicago.com.
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