Sanders Family Christmas:More Smoke on the Mountain
Conceived by Alan Bailey. Written by Connie Ray. Directed by Alan Bailey. At Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Lowell, through December 29.
Nuncrackers:The Nunsense Christmas Musical
Created by Dan Goggins. Directed by Teri Gibson. Choreographed by Felton Smith. Musical direction by Deb Lewis. At the Lyric Stage Company of Boston through December 29.
The Xmas Files: Boston Plays 2
Directed by Curt Miller. Presented by Centastage Performance Group at the Black Box Theatre in the Boston Center for the Arts through December 22.

There is perhaps no entertainment in greater need of fresh material than the Christmas play or concert. Theater and music groups, understanding this and eager to reap the harvest of holiday ticket purchases, have applied themselves to the task of revitalizing the repertory. There are, after all, only so many Christmas Carols, Nutcrackers, and Messiahs that any one community can support.

But the mission is a tricky one. Tweak the material too much in any direction and you risk offending audiences with too much irreverence, too much sentimentality, or too much calculation. And however tired and overplayed the standard fare might be, it’s hard to surpass the genius of Handel, Tchaikovsky, Dickens, or the ancient carol composers.

Three Boston-area theater companies have, however, taken a chance on new works that they hope will attract holiday patrons. Lowell’s Merrimack Repertory Theatre is banking on the second installment of the popular Sanders Family Christmas, this one called More Smoke on the Mountain. The Lyric Stage is presenting a special Christmas edition of Nunsense called Nuncrackers. And Centastage has produced six new one-act plays by six different authors under the umbrella title The Xmas Files. Each show has its shining moments, but only one gets it right from beginning to end.

In its first incarnation, the Sanders Family Christmas has apparently been a hit across America. However, this viewer has to confess that the charms of the sequel are almost entirely resistible. Written by Connie Ray and conceived and directed by Alan Bailey, More Smoke on the Mountain takes us back to Christmas Eve 1941 at the Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church in North Carolina. The Sanctified Sanders Family Singers have returned for a homecoming appearance to make music and witness to the Lord in what may be their last concert. Young Dennis Sanders, one of 20-year-old twins, has enlisted and is about to go off to boot camp. The United States, of course, has just entered World War II after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Mt. Pleasant Baptist is a tiny wood-framed church with an active congregation of fewer than 50. The sweet little sanctuary, created by scenic designer Peter Harrison, features peaked windows, wooden pews, a spinet piano, a wooden podium, and a Christmas tree whose lights are erratically illuminated by the recently installed electricity. Pastor Mervin Oglethorpe (Robert Olsen) ministers to the small flock and supplements his income by bookkeeping at the Mt. Pleasant Pickle Factory, the town’s largest industry. Well-scrubbed, innocent, and ineffectual, the diminutive pastor clumps around in galoshes, his mittens hanging from strings around his neck. A mama’s boy, he is recently bereaved and still very much disoriented by the loss of his mother.

The Sanders Family consists of devouring mother Vera, patriarch Burl, ex-con Uncle Stanley, pretty and petted twins Dennis and Denise, put-upon spinsterish older sister June. They all play a variety of instruments and sing a mélange of traditional and recent hymns, country ditties, and gospel songs. That is, everyone sings except June, who, like the kids in school who couldn’t carry a tune, just mouths the words, signs for the deaf, and plays the rhythm instruments.

The characters all have various solo moments in which they bear witness to their faith and reveal much about themselves and the family dynamic. Denise, a perky and fatuous blonde, has given up her desire to emulate Scarlett O’Hara and decided to join the USO, over her mother’s firm disapproval. Dennis, a recent graduate of Bible college, can’t decide whether to go to war as a fighter or a preacher, but he embraces his destiny with lamblike willingness. Burl is still fixated on his battle experiences in the Great War. Stanley, having paid his debt to society, has been rehabilitated as a country singer and even appears in a movie with Gene Autry. Vera, the family’s moral compass and power center, offers a distasteful homily for children in which she demonstrates the parallels between Santa Claus and God. If Santa knows you’ve been bad, you won’t get any presents. If the Lord " knows you don’t do your chores with a good attitude, " he sends you " to everlasting Hell. "

It is June, though, who wrings the heart. In Jonah Marsh’s beautifully realized performance, the skinny, self-conscious, nervous older sister puts up with all the embarrassing stunts and tasks demanded by her family. In the end, Pastor Oglethorpe asks her to marry him and she, wondering what she has ever done to deserve such happiness, accepts him and the very imperfect life he offers.

There is something queasy about Connie Ray’s drama in the way it makes fun of the characters, their fundamentalist faith, and their cornpone lifestyle and then asks us to take them seriously. What, for example, is one to make of the women’s mock breakdown over Dennis’s imminent departure? The treatment of some of the music is similarly disturbing. Chirpy and unmusical Denise burlesques the beautiful traditional carol " I Wonder As I Wander. " The " War Medley, " including " Onward, Christian Soldiers, " becomes something joky.

I don’t know — except for June, I’d like to consign the entire Sanders clan to Bre’r Rabbit’s bramble bush, where they might be entangled for every Christmas in the foreseeable future.

Dan Goggins’s Nuncrackers revisits the Little Sisters of Hoboken and some of their students at Mt. St. Helen’s School. Sister Mary Paul (a/k/a Amnesia) has, with the luck of the simple-minded, won the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. The prize money has been used to create a television studio and network, WCON-TV, and the sisters, assisted by Father Virgil Manly Trott and four students, are trying to videotape their Christmas special. Things go wrong from the beginning. Sister Mary Leo sprains her ankle and cannot dance in the Nutcracker excerpt. Irrepressible Amnesia (Nessa Hill), who’s also prone to malapropisms, keeps getting mixed up and coaching the kids in confused carols ( " Here We Come a-Waffling, " " The Holly and the Ivory " ). There are predictable bits about fruitcake baking, with Father Virgil (Dan Bolton) doing a Julia Child–like turn and sampling the rum at every opportunity.

Although some of the humor is labored, the show, directed by Teri Gibson, gets better as the evening goes on. The Nutcracker parody, with the Reverend Mother (Sarah deLima) and Father Virgil (he on pointe) in a pas de deux, is very funny — and perfectly coordinated to the Tchaikovsky music. And there are several new songs that touch the heart or raise the spirit, including " Jesus Was Born in Brooklyn, " which is poignantly sung by Sister Robert Anne (Mary Callanan), and " It’s Better To Give, " a rousing gospel tour de force sung by Sister Hubert (Leigh Barrett).

For sheer exuberance, playfulness, and good humor, though, one could hardly imagine a more beguiling holiday evening in the theater than The Xmas Files, which is directed by Curt Miller for Centastage. The six one-act plays — by Josh White, Jan Davidson, Dean O’Donnell, George Sauer, Patrick Gabridge, and Russell Lees — range from five minutes to a half-hour. Their humor ranges from the whimsical to the outrageous. And all are performed with panache by Brian Abascal, Helen McElwain, Richard LaFrance, Nathaniel McIntyre, Jan Davidson, and Dennis Paton.

George Sauer’s The Fruitcakes Are Coming to Town considers what can happen when a hapless Christmas shopper tries to order a fruitcake from an emotionally manipulative telemarketer. Patrick Gabridge’s Christmas Breaks presents a young woman, her jerk of a boyfriend, and the replacement suitor he orders her for a Christmas gift. Jan Davidson’s Interview with a Virgin is a one-woman bravura turn in which the Virgin Mary (played hilariously by Davidson herself) interviews a prospective nanny for the new baby and then is reunited with the nanny 33 years later when she is sitting shivah for her (briefly) deceased son. About the many intrusive visitors bearing gifts after the birth, Mary remarks that, of course, she was gracious — " I’m full of grace. " Always in competition with her cousin Elizabeth and the accomplishments of their children, she bickers about which death, crucifixion, or " head on a platter " is the more terrible.

Russell Lees’s The Shepherd’s Play, the longest of the one-acters, revisits the herdsmen of Bethlehem for its modern retelling of The Second Shepherds’ Play from the Wakefield mystery cycle. Rustics à la Shakespeare, these nincompoops speak in rhyme, pursue a fellow shepherd who steals a lamb, and then are awestruck by the appearance of an angel, a shining star, and a baby in a manger. There is a lot of physical humor and silly doggerel as well as a conclusion that touches with its innocence and tenderness. Dennis Paton, Brian Abascal, Richard LaFrance, and Nathaniel McIntyre are note-perfect as the bumpkins.

Issue Date: December 13-20, 2001

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