Now that snowfall has arrived and the semester is over, perhaps you’re in the mood for some holiday decadence at the theater. If so, head south for the Ogunquit Playhouse’s lavish, flawlessly performed return production of White Christmas (based on the 1954 Bing Crosby/Danny Kaye film), performed, under the direction of Jayme McDaniel, in Portsmouth’s historic and opulently restored Music Hall. You can preface the show with a couple dozen oysters across town, hit the Music Hall’s psychedelic steam-punk bar for a pre-show something, and then head upstairs for the White Christmas spectacle of singing, dancing, and post-war yuletide nostalgia — and you’ll be in for a sumptuous, escapist fantasy of a Christmas outing, all glitter and champagne, stylized Vermont charm and synchronized tap shoes.
The story involves the male singing-dancing duo of former army buddies Bob (David Elder) and Phil (Jacob ben Widmar). At the show’s open, we jump forward in time, from Bob and Phil’s lo-fi wartime holiday show in army drab to their entrance into post-war America out of a huge gift box, dressed in green suits and pink ties, and backed by entourage of dancers and a froth of petticoats. Romantic travails arise when Bob and Phil meet the singing-dancing sister act of Betty and Judy Haynes (Kate Loprest and Vanessa Sonon, both reprising roles from the 2015 production). And soon the foursome is putting on a show in Vermont, in order to save an inn owned by their wartime leader General Waverly (David Johnson) from a season problematically absent of snow, aided and abetted by concierge (and former Broadway hoofer) Martha — a role played by Ogunquit Playhouse favorite Sally Struthers.
We watch this kind of show less for the plot than for the song, dance, and production design — and all of this is extravagantly good. Sets are easy eye-candy, from the red lights, smoke, and Art Deco tiling of Jimmy’s Back Room, to the shiny train compartment that takes the foursome to Vermont, to the quaint New England inn itself. And the song and dance is technically superb and rich in brio. Phil and Judy perform a lovely, chiffon-light “The Best Things Happen While You’re Dancing,” and the cast’s synchronized call-and-response tapping in “I Love a Piano” is stellar and archly performed. Bob sings a velvety “Count Your Blessings” as lullaby to anxious young Susan (Bunny Baldwin, alternating with Katie Wylie), the General’s precocious granddaughter; and the ensemble nails the cool, slinky number “Blue Skies,” smooth with muted trumpet, everyone dressed in heaven-white suits and fedoras.
And for the principals, Widmar’s fast-talking energy and agility as Phil pairs nicely against Elder’s softer-edged persona and liquid-velvet voice. Sonon’s Judy is deliciously puckish and a gorgeous dancer, fluid and effervescent, while Loprest navigates well between uptight comedy and classic, statuesque grace — and she performs with effortless, porcelain-and-black-velvet glamour in her solo “Love, You Didn’t Do Right By Me”.
