Editor’s note: Watch a video of the event at youtu.be/IhWVG5SS8v0
Andrews – Tis the season for nostalgia with ACT2’s presentation of A WWII Radio Christmas.
Originally written as a tribute to playwright Pat Kruis Tellinghusen’s friends’ and family’s experiences during World War II, the play draws from those old-time radio shows with period ads ranging from Vaseline Hair Tonic to Ipana Toothpaste to everyone’s favorite Christmas drink, Ovaltine.
Period standards such as “I’ll Be Seeing You,” “Accentuate the Positive” and “White Christmas” are generously sprinkled throughout the production, bringing to mind those attitudes that marked those four years of war and sacrifice.
Working under the premise of a live broadcast that would be recorded and sent to troops overseas, the radio station worked with the call letters WACT in a clever nod to Andrews’ own community theatre and troupe, which performs out of the Valleytown Cultural Arts Center downtown.
In Cory Cheek’s seventh turn as director for ACT2 players, the program deftly utilizes a small but talented ensemble cast to play several differing roles during a series of one-off and connected vignettes, including Mail Call, Letter Censors and Postcards.
A particularly heart-wrenching series of performances revolving around characters “Hattie and Jess” – played by Jane Birchfield and Brychan Reynolds, respectively – details the innocence of a relationship beginning during war with their first meeting as she’s one of the first Women’s Marines, although only a “mail sorter.”
The next portion of their relationship centers upon their reading through their correspondence which was so important to soldiers in the field and then, in the finale of the trilogy of spots, there is the terrible understanding when Hattie begins to comprehend her loss as she sorts through Jess’ undeliverable mail.
Birchfield, in her return to the stage at her daughter and cast-mate Dayna Jones’ urging, also delivers the tearful soliloquy in “A Mother” about imagining her son’s hardships in the field during battle. Every eye watered during her delivery, including her own, which she said was spurred by remembering her own family’s experiences during the Great War.
Playing radio host Alfred Bell, longtime ACT2 veteran Judd Cresman engaged the audience to participate in wishing all the troops a Merry Christmas while also perfectly intoning each ad and spurred on the radio cast to reach deeply into their best period characters and pitch-perfect delivery.
In a simultaneously timeless and timely ad for Scot Tissue, Dayna Jones and Stacy Messer re-enact the ad, making much of Scot Tissue’s ability to fight contagion as Jones made a mock “mask” of two layers of the tissue across Messer’s face to supposedly protect Messer’s baby from her sniffles. In an obvious nod to the recent pandemic shortages and protocols, the audience couldn’t help but laugh bittersweetly at this presaged advice.
Veteran actor Philip Dekle and freshly returned actress Brianna Rickett, along with Shayla Dyer, completed the cast as varying characters and the radio stage manager, respectively.
Rickett’s portion in the vignette “The Adventures of Clyde Hoffstettler, Air Warden” was particularly affecting, as she portrayed a young girl offering the dog her father had left to her two years prior to be deemed fit for service.
During the examination, the Air Warden realizes that the father left the dog as a companion should he not return and when Rickett explains her father’s letters never reveal his location, the Air Warden acknowledges her eagerness by offering to keep the dog as his local guardian and companion.
Dekle and Rickett also have several particularly moving moments in the vignette “Postcard” where they read news from the home front to troops in the field. This portion focuses on what returning soldiers have to look forward to including the newly created GI Bill and housing subsidies which remind the audience of the ideals fought for and the dreams built by the Greatest Generation in post-World War II America.
A touching beginning to the season for peace and goodwill toward men, the play serves as a reminder of how we should band together through any crisis, remember those who served the nation and the world during those dark days and how history lives in the moment of this day and time from that foundation.
The next production for the Community Youth Players will be Alice in Wonderland in early 2024, with auditions scheduled for January.
Details: facebook.com/ACT2Players.