You’ll shoot your eyes out

By Theresa Curry
For The News Virginian
It’s a frigid winter day in Indiana, but the Parker kitchen is warm, at least until the furnace starts smoking. There’s a refrigerator with a rounded top, a red-and-white tile floor, an aluminum and plastic dinette set, a stove with legs, a percolator and an oatmeal tin, all fitting for a working-class family of the 1940s.
This is the world of “A Christmas Story,” presented by the Waynesboro Players Nov. 13, 14 and 15, the nostalgic world familiar to almost everyone because of the wildly popular movie by the same name.
Actually, says Producer Craig Cavanaugh, the play is even funnier than the movie. Cavanaugh found out that the movie was written for the big screen, but its continued success inspired the play, written by Philip Grecian. Grecian had loved the short stories of Jean Shepherd’s childhood in Indiana, and was thrilled to see them woven together in a movie.
“A Christmas Story” was written in 1983 and became a Christmas classic in no time. Grecian jumped at the chance to write a version for live theater.
The playwright elaborated on some of the movie’s jokes, Cavanaugh said, so there are themes running throughout: meat loaf and cabbage, the smoking furnace, the question, “Where’s Randy?”
“In the movie, they’re one-liners,” Cavanaugh said, “but they’re exaggerated in the play.”
A great deal of synchronicity went into the selection of this play for the Players’ Christmas production and its casting. Cavanaugh, a Players veteran, had produced “Clue” and was curious to see how a community theater group in New Jersey had staged that play.
“I found out they had also done ‘A Christmas Story,’ Cavanaugh said. “I didn’t know until then that there was a play version.”
Once the play was selected, Cavanaugh’s luck held. He had hoped David Witt would read for the part of Ralphie’s father, and he did. He also hoped Matt Coiner, 35, a veteran actor, would audition for the grown-up Ralph, a demanding role that tells Ralphie’s story from an adult perspective, interspersed with dramatizations by other actors playing family and friends speaking from the past.
Coiner was at the audition by chance, delivering a young relative to audition for one of the juvenile parts, but he agreed to read for part of the adult Ralph. He ended up with the role.
“With the grown-ups, it’s possible to anticipate the chemistry, especially if you’ve seen them act before,” Cavanaugh said.
It’s harder to cast children, said Cavanaugh,whose wife, Cindy, is the director. More than 30 children tried out for the half-dozen or so childhood parts, all familiar from the movie: the bully, the fall guy, the goody-goody, the pest.
“You don’t know until you’ve worked with them for a while how they will interact,” he said.
Even those extremely familiar with the movie will find an extra dimension with a live cast. Scenes from family life seem more real, and the cast has achieved a rhythm that gives the scenes in the Parker home a warmth, with the lovable bungling of the father (David Witt), the flashes of brilliance of the mother (Wendi Shorkey), the alternating determination and confusion of young Ralphie (Michael Griffith) and the persistent little-kid eccentricity of the younger brother, Randy (Luke McKinney).
Linda Witt is so real as Mrs. Shields (Ralph’s teacher) that you’ll be tempted to raise your hand when she tries to find out where Flick is, says Cavanaugh.
There’s a certain irony involved in remembering your point of view as a child once you’re years away from childhood. Matt Coiner somehow manages to convey the contrast between what seems real to Ralphie and what is a more realistic perspective while still respecting the difference.
Says Cavanaugh, it’s also clear that the young actors have experience with the same forces, although in different forms, in their lives today and know exactly how to portray a mean coward or a hapless victim or a boy who passionately believes his very future and happiness depends on one item.

If you go

n “A Christmas Story” will be presented Nov. 13, 14 and 15 at Waynesboro High School at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10 for adults, $6 for students. For more information and tickets, visit http://www.waynesboroplayers.org.