It's a pleasure to watch It's a Wonderful Life

There’s an odd assortment of goodies and coal in this Christmas stocking.

There’s an odd assortment of goodies and coal in this Christmas stocking.

Philip Grecian’s stage adaptation of director Frank Capra’s 1946 movie tells the story of George Bailey. Because of misplaced funds, George’s family business, the Bailey Building and Loan Association, is about to collapse. George decides that his life-insurance policy makes him worth more dead than alive, and he wishes that he’d never been born. But just as George is about to commit suicide by jumping into an icy river on Christmas Eve, an angel named Clarence Odbody interrupts him and shows George what his hometown of Bedford Falls would have been like without him.

This story is moving partly because it’s so politically relevant. Bailey Building and Loan makes a difference in Bedford Falls because it enables poor people to afford decent housing. Unfortunately, Grecian underplays George’s activism. We hear about Bailey Park, George’s affordable-housing project, but we don’t see it, and we never meet Mr. Martini, the Italian immigrant who, in the movie, most clearly embodies the benefits of having a respectable place to live.

On the other hand, Grecian’s adaptation creatively combines film footage with live action. For instance, in a sequence from the movie, we see George’s sweetheart, Mary, who will later become his wife, running toward her front door. When actor Kirsten Robek, who plays Mary in this stage production, comes through a door on-stage wearing the same dress that Mary’s wearing in the movie, it’s magical—and it’s all beautifully realized in Jamie Nesbitt’s production design.

Under Dean Paul Gibson’s direction, performances are mostly strong. Bernard Cuffling is in his element, charmingly bumbling as Clarence. And there’s strong character work from Beatrice Zeilinger (George’s receptionist, Tilly), Brian Linds (George’s Uncle Billy), Sasa Brown (Violet, a young woman on shaky moral ground), and Alec Willows (the evil capitalist Mr. Potter).

Robek struggles as Mary, however. Aiming for innocence, she ends up in a treacly falseness. It feels like she’s trying to illustrate iconic niceness, as opposed to responding as a multifaceted nice person. Bob Frazer, who plays George, has a similar problem off the top. Stage lighting loves the planes of this actor’s chiselled face and, in the early going, his George looks like he could have stepped out of a war-bonds poster, as he strikes poses of noble simplicity. There’s little subtlety, though, until George starts to have trouble. That’s when Frazer’s immense skill as an actor allows this production to really take off. Once Frazer has found his groove, George’s frustration, anger, sorrow—and love—make his story of redemption a pleasure to watch.