Review: ‘The Best Christmas Pageant Ever’ lives up to name

By Steve Van Kooten

The Elkader Opera House Players’ newest production, “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever: the Musical,” debuted this past week, with shows on December 5, 6 and 7. Much like their rendition of “The Play That Goes Wrong” a few months ago, the story focuses on the foibles and calamity surrounding a theatrical production, in this case a small-town church’s version of the nativity.

Despite the preoccupation with haphazard plays, the Players’ holiday musical worked flawlessly. From the opening curtain, when the audience is greeted by a rousing musical number, to the final bow in front of a standing ovation, the show lived up to its name.

The cast, which put forth uniformly excellent performances across the board, is led by Perry Leffler, a music teacher at Wauzeka-Steuben School, who is taking the stage with the Players for the fourth time.

Leffler plays Grace Bradley, a mother who is tasked to direct the church’s Christmas pageant. It’s a difficult enough job on its own, but she also has to deal with the troublesome Herdman children, five siblings who decide they want to take part in the pageant.

Nobody is enthused about the Herdmans’ participation at first, including Reverend Hopkins and local shrew Helen Armstrong. Conflicts collide, lessons are learned and the story wraps up on the night of the pageant.

Along with Leffler, several other cast members get a chance to stand out, especially in the play’s frequent humorous asides.

In one short scene, Armstrong (played deftly by Hannah Evans) lies in a hospital bed, telling Hopkins (Andrew Lange) that allowing the Herdman kids into the show may give her a heart attack.

Hopkins replies, “Good thing you’re in a hospital.”

Other actors, including Taryn Moser, Gretel Moser and Brooke Mitchell — too many to name them all — get a chance to display their acting and musical talents throughout the two hour run time.

Julia Grau, who plays Grace’s teenage daughter Beth, does especially well in a supporting role. In many scenes, she successfully conveys the anxiety, awkwardness and elation of adolescence in her rigid body language and facial expressions, even when the lights are on other people and the action is elsewhere on the stage.

Mariah Moser gives an aggravating condescension and domineering personality to the town’s queen bee, Alice Wendelken. At several points in Saturday night’s performance, the audience laughed watching her stomp off stage in a huff. Clearly, many of us are familiar with a petulant child not getting their way.

Near the midpoint of the show, there’s a scene where Armstrong and her posse of churchgoing gossips compete with the Bradley family for Hopkins’ sympathies. Both sides tell him that if the pageant goes on, “it will be the talk of the town.”

The double meaning is evident, with the church group acting as a guard against an undesirable encroachment on their idyllic domain, while the Bradleys try to give the Herdmans a chance to find acceptance. By the end of the story, everyone has learned a lesson and come together for a final musical number that implores people to hold out their hand to others in kindness.

In Director/Choreographer Cheri Moser’s notes for the show, she wrote, “At its core, this is a story about differences — about learning to look beyond first impressions to understand someone else’s story before passing judgment and to see kindness that can emerge when we do.”

Considering that people seemed to be at each other’s throats more than ever this past year, a simple message of kindness is just what we need this holiday season.

Future shows will take place on December 13 and 14 at 7 p.m., and the show will take its bow at a December 15 matinee at 2 p.m.

The Elkader Opera House is located at 207 N. Main St., Elkader, IA.