Theatre in Review: A Christmas Story (Lunt-Fontanne Theatre)I often complain about musicals based on beloved films, which, in their slavish devotion to their sources, all too often result in lumbering, relentlessly unamusing entertainments that fail to take advantage of what the theatre can do best. Once in a while, however, a show comes along that really does the work of reimagining a popular film in theatrical terms. That's the case with A Christmas Story, which largely dispenses with tinseled sentimentality and false cheer in favor of giving audiences a raucous, rollicking good time. Drawn from the 1983 cult-classic film, which in turn is based on a fictionalized memoir by the famed humorist Jean Shepherd, A Christmas Story has a narrative thread that is perilously slender even by the standards of light musical comedy: Will Ralphie, an anxious nine-year-old in small-town Indiana, circa 1940, get the Christmas present of his dreams, a BB gun? The action follows him over the days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, as he repeatedly tries to plant the idea in his parents' minds -- an effort that is repeatedly thwarted by a series of mishaps. Joseph Robinette's libretto is largely content to replay the film's greatest hits -- the bullies who make Ralphie's trip home from school a living hell; the tongue-on-the flagpole incident; and the "major award" from a crossword puzzle contest, a lamp shaped like a woman's leg, sheathed in a fishnet stocking. (The latter is won by Ralphie's father, who instantly places it in the living room window, mortifying Ralphie's mother to no end.) It's a small collection of episodes -- anecdotes, really -- that by all rights shouldn't be enough for a full-length evening. But, clearly, the members of the creative team -- especially John Rando, the director, and Warren Carlyle, who choreographed -- have thought long and hard about what the theatre can bring to this material, and A Christmas Story benefits from two major decisions. Just as the film is narrated by Shepherd himself, the musical features Dan Lauria, as the author, detailing the events of the story in a radio broadcast. This convention preserves Shepherd's unique voice and allows the always warm and likable Lauria to wander around, offering wry commentary; it's a strategy that helps us to forge a connection with the characters. And, in its best moments, A Christmas Story delves into its characters' often feverish fantasy lives, with uproarious results. "Ralphie to the Rescue" is a dream sequence in which the boy, outfitted in a cowboy hat and feathered chaps, dispatches an array of kidnappers, bank robbers, and other miscreants. In "Major Award," which follows the arrival of that lamp, each member of a kick line carries a replica of the monstrosity, thus increasing the number of extended limbs by half. A gangster fantasy sequence, "You'll Shoot Your Eye Out," barely makes any sense, but, since it allows the delightful Caroline O'Connor, as Ralphie's disciplinarian schoolteacher, to cut loose as a speakeasy floozie, taking part in a challenge tap with an amazingly gifted little tyke named Luke Spring, you'll probably be having too much fun to complain. The show benefits mightily from a score -- by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul -- that spikes its holiday cheer with plenty of contagious hilarity and just the right amount of real feeling. The opener, "It All Comes Down to Christmas," cleverly, catchily introduces the characters and strikes just the right note of pre-holiday panic. "Red Ryder Carbine Action BB Gun" is a showstopping comic ode to the present of Ralphie's dreams. "Somewhere Hovering Over Indiana" is a charmer, delivered by a legion of sleepless kids on Christmas Eve, wondering about the whereabouts of the man in the sleigh. A pair of domestic-themed ballads, "What a Mother Does" and "Just Like That," lightly reminds us exactly why this family is worth caring about. In addition to Lauria, who makes an affable and amusing narrator, the evening is driven by little Johnny Rabe, whose Ralphie, eyeing a treacherous world through a pair of enormous round spectacles, is thoroughly believable as the kind of underweight, overimaginative kid who is inevitably a magnet for trouble. As his irascible father, on the run from the neighbors' bellicose basset hounds and infuriated by the constantly exploding basement furnace, John Bolton amusingly converts life's daily frustrations into dreams of glory as he struts, after a fashion, through a number titled "The Genius of Cleveland Street." Erin Dilly, as Ralphie's mother, earns laughter when trying to stuff Ralphie's brother, Randy (Zac Ballard), into one of those children's snowsuits that are only slightly less confining than an iron maiden; she also sings with a lovely delicacy. O'Connor, a star of the Australian and West End stages, scores heavily as the teacher who rules the classroom with an iron hand and secretly yearns for a life with a little romance in it. Walt Spangler's setting places a cutaway view of the family's gabled house -- a Norman Rockwell vision of domesticity -- inside a surround of curved, snowy white portals; the effect has the proper holiday mood, but the portals would be better off without the bits of white cloth -- suggestive of snow -- that are stuck to them. Other locations, including the school and places inside Ralphie's head, are more lightly sketched in. There's an amusing visit to a department-store Santa (a fed-up, bibulous Eddie Korbich) that features the old man sitting at the top of a slide that he uses to dispatch each child. Howell Binkley's lighting maintains a cozy atmosphere and expertly adds excitement to the big numbers. Elizabeth Hope Clancy's costumes are fine examples of middle-class everyday wear just before World War II. Ken Travis delivers a big, bright sound design that is, nevertheless, thoroughly intelligible. By the time Ralphie and his family end up, after yet another disaster, at a Chinese restaurant on Christmas Day -- an exotic treat for these midcentury Midwesterners -- you may be ready to forever give up on more traditional Yuletide entertainments. A Christmas Story comes with a built-in audience of those whose love the film, but this is a musical that even Jean Shepherd neophytes should include in their holiday plans. After all, the best gifts are the unexpected ones.--David Barbour 
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