Public Radio for the Central Kenai Peninsula
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Carhartts and Xtratufs Ball — get tickets here!

Family, nostalgia and crass commercialism meet in stage version of A Christmast Story

Shaylon Cochran
/
KDLL

 

Triumvirate Theatre opens its annual Christmas show this weekend. While the venerable holiday classic A Christmas Story may have taken its popularity from the big screen, the story of young Ralphie, and his deep desire for a special Christmas present, translates to the stage in a way that gives an even closer look at the struggles of a young boy trying to get through the holiday season.

 

I didn’t really appreciate A Christmas Story when I was a kid. It was then and still is on every December 25th, a full 24 hour marathon. But while all the versions of the story, especially the original book, move along above undertones of modern commercialism, there’s a nostalgia that goes along with it that, I think, can only be appreciated with the passage of time and the appearance of a few gray hairs.

 

Leading the cast for this production is Kincaid Jenness, playing young Ralphie Parker.

“Ralphie is a kid in grade school and Christmas time is coming up and the whole play is about him trying to get his BB gun that he wants.”

 

But all the adults in his world are against him in his quest, despite his numerous and varied appeals.

“He tries to write about it, write how he wants this BB gun in a theme that his teacher, Ms. Shields, has assigned to him as a loophole. He tries to ask Santa for it, but the mall Santa tells him ‘you’ll shoot your eye out."

A Christmas Story is, at its heart, a family story, and so it is with this production. Playing Ralphie’s parents are Carla and Chris Jenness. Carla is also directing.

“You could think of it as this story of crass commercialism and the greed of this small child for this BB gun, but there’s really a lot of nice moments. Dad just works so hard and he’s just a working guy and they don’t have a lot of money and drive used cars, but they’re all together and the eat dinner every night, together. It does have a nice family feeling.”

She says that although the stage and movie versions are a bit different, fans of the 1983 classic will still get their favorite scenes, and a set that's been made to look as close to the movie as possible.

“We even added some of the lines back into the play that weren’t in it because I love the movie so much. It’s nice, because Chris is doing the dad, but he has his own tone, it’s not a straight impression.”

Ralphie gets his gun, but does he get more than he bargained for? Find out this weekend and next at Triumvirate Theatre.