‘Miracle' offers evening of laughs, music

I'm not much of a gambler. But I certainly felt like one last Friday when I headed up the pass for the opening of Thin Air Theatre Company's "Miracle on Bennett Avenue" at the historic Butte Opera House in Cripple Creek. After all, this was a melodrama, a form of entertainment noted more for lusty cheering and booing than cerebral analysis.

I shouldn't have worried. No, it isn't Shakespeare. But then, it isn't meant to be.

What it is is a fun, heartwarming evening of family-friendly comedy and songs. And if you're feeling saturated with the abundance of Scrooges and Claras this Christmas, you might want to check out this original holiday production.

The story, penned by Chris Sorenson, transports the classic "Miracle on 34th Street" to turn-of-the-last-century Cripple Creek. In it, the newly elected Vice President Teddy Roosevelt loses his memory in a mining accident and ends up working as a store Santa for villainous shopkeeper Wanda Wylie.

Standard melodrama hijinks ensue, with a second, even more dastardly villain - Roosevelt's personal secretary Drayton Kreager - disguising himself as a bearded German psychiatrist to have the "bully blowhard" committed.

Mel Moser, veteran of the old Imperial Players, dominates the stage as the swaggering, bombastic Teddy, while relative newcomer Morgan Gengo nearly matches him bluster for bluster as the money-grubbing Wylie. Michael Heath's Kreager was also a treat to watch as a more subtle, less sneering version of the classic melodrama villain.

Sorenson's script is predictable but fun, combining zippy one-liners ("Things have been a little fuzzy since I stopped drinking," laments the town drunk) with sly references to other Colorado locales as well as the real Roosevelt himself ("This Santa speaks softly and carries a big stick," rails Teddy as he fends off Kreager with a giant candy cane).

Unfortunately, Sorenson relies too often on cheap laughs, deriving much of the humor in this play from the way Wylie pronounces her r's as w's. Sorenson shows in other places that he's a much better playwright than that.

The melodrama includes five original and reasonably catchy songs. I especially enjoyed the would-be romantic duet between the two villains, "I'll Soon Make an Angel of You," and the surprisingly touching solo by the still-amnesiac Roosevelt wondering whether "They Miss Me at Home."

The costumes were appealing, lending a homey Currier and Ives atmosphere to the production. The sets, on the other hand, seemed rather flimsy and often displayed a mind of their own. This led to one of the bigger laughs of the evening when Heath ad-libbed an exaggerated double take while he checked to make sure the door he'd just closed was still closed.

The 30-minute olio that followed the play was entertaining as well. With a theme of "Christmas Around the World," this mini-show featured a lively singalong version of "Feliz Navidad," crowd favorite "Mele Kalikimaka" and a performance by the entire ensemble of "Christmas on Bennett Again," a cleverly written tune celebrating the joys of Christmas as viewed by a troupe of - cough - struggling actors.

If you're planning to drop some of your hard-earned cash into the slots in Cripple Creek this holiday season, you really ought to set aside $40 of it and take your family to see this breezy, big-hearted show while you're up there.

I guarantee you won't lose.

DETAILS

"Miracle on Bennett Avenue" by the Thin Air Theatre Company
When: 7 p.m. Thursdays-Fridays, 1 and 7 p.m. Saturdays, 1 p.m. Sundays through Dec. 31
Where: Butte Opera House, Cripple Creek
Tickets: $7.75-$11.75; www.butteoperahouse.com or 1-719-235-8944