A show to help you count your blessings -- bank on it

 

By JON POTTER, Reformer Staff

Thursday, November 27
BRATTLEBORO -- Leave it to the New England Youth Theatre to give us exactly what we need right now -- a virtuous banker.

For its annual December show, NEYT manages to meld the timeless and the timely with "It's a Wonderful Life," drawn from the 1946 Frank Capra film about stalwart banker George Bailey and the important lesson he learns about counting his blessings one distressful Christmas Eve.

The play opens Dec. 5 at NEYT, 100 Flat St., and runs through Dec. 21.

Of course, "It's a Wonderful Life" is about finance the same way "A Streetcar Named Desire" is about public transportation -- not so much. The heart of the play is about family, home and hometown; it's about the everyday good works that good people do, often with little reward; it's about measuring wealth and success by the different standards; it's about truly giving and truly getting in return; it's about appreciating the richness of life all around you. It's the story of the miraculous transformation that occurs when George Bailey comes to learn all these lessons, just in the nick of time.

It was all those qualities that drew NEYT founder and director Stephen Stearns to turn the classic film into a play -- the version NEYT is doing is lifted almost word-for-word from the film version which starred James Stewart, Lionel Barrymore, Donna Reed, was a modest success when it was released in 1946 and didn't earn a single Academy Award. It's
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popularity grew over time, and it became an iconic holiday offering, still aired today.

Unlike many of the rest of us, Stearns came to appreciate the movie later in life.

"It's one of those movies that bypassed me for many years," he said. "People kept saying that it would be a great thing to do."

Fittingly, one of the chief people encouraging him to do the show a few years ago was George Haynes, who was then president of Brattleboro Savings & Loan. With so many people urging him on, Stearns relented and watched the film. "Suddenly, I'm just swept up in it. I'm just crying, tears streaming down my cheeks. ... This is what we call an old movie, but it's new and fresh.

"It had what I require for a holiday show. ... It had to have a miracle in it," he added. "I want to get at that knife-edge choice where the best of humanity wins out."

Now on his radar, "It's a Wonderful Life" had to wait until NEYT moved into its new theater. Stearns held off another year or so after that to plan the show properly, and it's easy to see why. With a cast of 53 and a large crew as well, this is a massive undertaking, ambitious in its scale both onstage and backstage.

Onstage, NEYT will be recreating an entire village. Offstage, the goal was to have the play shift scenes as fast as in the movie. "It has to be seamless," Stearns said.

Stearns began meeting with Production Designer Larry Lawlor a year ago, as NEYT was putting together "Guys and Dolls."

"Larry was saying, 'Stephen, you know, this is crazy," Stearns recalled.

"It's hugely complex. We're following a movie script with almost 50 scenes," Lawlor said, sitting in an NEYT rehearsal room filled with chairs, tables, plates, bottles, telephones, bank equipment, a wheelchair and hundreds of other props and set pieces.

Momentum picked up over the summer when students in a class on technical theater designed the set and built a mock-up and began work on other aspects of the project.

One of those aspects involved a little research. The NEYT production will be set in Brattleboro, not the fictional town of Bedford Falls in the movie. NEYT tech students, led by Isaiah Palmeri, went to the Brattleboro Historical Society and dug up old photographs of our town. Those photos will be projected on a screen behind the set.

With the set and tech work well under way, the time to do "It's a Wonderful Life" was right.

And then it got even more right. With the financial meltdown rattling the economy, a play with a selfless kindhearted banker at its core suddenly took on more resonance, the timeless lessons took on a timely spin.

"Did I have any way of knowing that the country would be on the skids? I couldn't have planned such a horrific thing any better," Stearns said. "We will pluck our way out of this. I think pluck is what we need."

"When we first had a read-through of the script, the whole Wall Street thing had just happened," recalled Allie Bliss, who stars as Mary Bailey. There was some discussion of putting references to the current woes into the play, but cast and crew concluded that wasn't needed.

"We don't need to add anything. It's there," Bliss said. "Things really are there about sticking together and staying with our local businesses."

That sense that this is not just a good play, but the right play at the right time, is not lost on the cast.

"It would be beautiful if the values of this show were adopted by more people," said Riley Goodemote, who plays George Bailey. "It says a lot about altruism and really honorable values. The only greedy character in this show is the villain. In this show, people don't do things for personal gain."

Ahh, yes, the villain. Mean, miserly financier Henry Potter, played with delicious vigor by Lionel Barrymore in the movie, is in the hands of Andrew Mario, a 16-year-old junior at Brattleboro Union High School.

"I like (playing a villain). When I was a kid, I watched 'Star Wars,' and I thought the bad guys were so cool," he said. "One of the things I find really interesting (about Potter). In most movies, the bad guys get their comeuppance. In this play, he doesn't.

"It says the bad guy doesn't need to get his comeuppance for the good guy (to prevail)," Mario added.

That simple fact gets at much of what makes "It's a Wonderful Life" so good. It is free from vengeance; it does not seek justice. Its mind is on other things -- the simple matter of getting all of us to appreciate the good things in our lives.

There's a telling line at the beginning of the play when two angels are discussing the fitness of the guardian angel Clarence, who will be sent down to help George in his moment of crisis.

Clarence, an angel second class, still seeking his wings, has many faults, but we are reminded "He has the faith of a child." The faith of a child is very much a central message -- and links the play with the beating hearts at NEYT's core.

"This is one of those movies that always signifies new hope for people. ... I think everyone wishes they could see the world if they weren't in it. I know I do," said Taylor Patno, a 15-year-old sophomore at BUHS who plays Clarence. "I think everybody is so stressed out and so worried about the economy and gas and health care. This is one of those movies that's like an old friend coming back.

"For two-and-a-half hours, people are really going to forget their problems. ... I kind of want it to have an old-friend feeling," Patno said.

Yet for all the warm fuzzies the show delivers, "It's a Wonderful Life" holds up because it's more than just hokum. There is real pain, real life stories of suffering and distress, real meanness. George's anguish is palpable, and it bubbles over into anger that has a real darkness to it.

And then, the miracle Stearns requires. With Clarence's help, his pain is transformed into something profoundly beautiful.

"Everyone has a big dream of going off and doing a lot of good somewhere, and then they miss the little things they do. What seems like a small, insignificant thing to George is monumental, but he misses that," Bliss said.

Until the end.

You don't have to miss it, but get your tickets now. NEYT holiday shows often sell out. In anticipation of a huge demand for tickets, NEYT has extended this run for an unprecedented three weekends -- a total of thirteen performances. Dates are December 5-7, 12-14 and 19-21, with shows Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays at 3 p.m., and an extra performance at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 21. There is a special Gala Event performance on Friday, Dec. 12, at 7:30 p.m., for which there will be light fare before the show, starting at 6:30 p.m., and desserts and beverages at intermission and after the show. Ticket prices for the Gala Event are $40.

General ticket prices are $13.50 for adults and $10.50 for students. To purchase tickets, visit www.neyt.org, pay by phone Monday-Friday during business hours or in person at the theater each Wednesday from 1 to 5 p.m. Tickets may also be purchased at the box office during the hour before each performance. For information, call 802-246-6398.

The NEYT cast and crew are hoping you'll forget your troubles and be entertained, but they're hoping for something more out of this production.

"If someone said that it made them see their own lives differently, that would be great," Goodemote said.