Photo By George F. Lee, Star-Bulletin
Randy Hubbard is George Bailey in the Diamond Head
Theatre musical production of "It's a Wonderful Life."
DHT puts yule
By Burl Burlingame
favorite on stage
Star-BulletinThe problem with holiday traditions is that you end up repeating yourself. For Christmas, let's see -- "The Nutcracker." "A Christmas Carol." "It's a Wonderful Life."
Same old, same old.
Everyone and his brother is doing "Nutcracker." The deal with "A Christmas Carol" is stunt-casting the Scrooge character. And the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" will be airing somewhere every possible minute of December.
The trick is to cross-pollinate, and that's just what Diamond Head Theatre is doing with a stage version of "Life." To top it off, it's a musical. The book and lyrics are by Sheldon Harnick, music by Joe Raposo. "The good thing about doing it on stage is, it's a story everyone knows, but no one has seen," said director and choreographer John Rampage.
"Everyone's memories of the movie are primarily visual, so we're following the 'look' of the movie, and it has the same characters and story, but it's entirely different otherwise."
The production was created about a decade ago in Seattle, and has been continually fine-tuned by the authors. "It's been done very successfully, and also because it really is an alternative to the standard Christmas productions," Rampage said.
The only editing that needed to be done for the DHT production was in some of the musical numbers.
Photo By George F. Lee, Star-Bulletin
Candace Yoshioka and John Tigerson hoof it in
Diamond Head Theatre's holiday production.
"It's not a typical Broadway show, in which everyone stops so a character can do a big number," said Rampage. "The score supports the story -- some of the dialogue is actually used a lyrics."The cast includes Randy Hubbard, Kathleen Stuart, Bruce Hale and Lauren Ashley Filius.
While public memory of the film will help sell it to the audience, it also works against "Life," precisely because it's so well known.
"People ask, is the gym floor sequence in it? The fall into the pool? No -- it's not in our budget!" said Rampage. "And the suicide attempt won't take place off a bridge. But many parts of it are exactly like the movie, word for word.
"It's a tribute to Jimmy Stewart. Not in the way the Bailey character looks or acts or sounds, it's the spirit that counts. It was the first role Stewart did after his experiences in World War II, which really changed him."
Accordingly, the design of the production is set firmly in the 1940s, because anything else, frankly, would be heresy. The cast is large, about 30, although many double up, creating about 40 characters.
"Visually, we're going for the warm, focused look of 1940s black and white movies," said Rampage. "The colors are muted, except for those in heaven, which are blue and gold."
Wonderful
What: "It's a Wonderful Life"
