If you happened to stand over four feet tall, the agony awaiting you at Sacred Heart Elementary began the moment you took your seat. These were mean little chairs corralled into a “theater” haunted by the lingering stench of industrial-strength lasagna. My question is not why they chose to stage the production in a poorly disguised cafeteria, but why they chose to stage it at all. “The Story of the First Christmas” is an overrated clunker of a holiday pageant, best left to those looking to cure their chronic insomnia. Although the program listed no director, the apathetic staging suggested the limp, partially paralyzed hand of Sister Mary Elizabeth Bronson, who should have been excommunicated after last season’s disastrous Thanksgiving program. Here again the first- through third-grade actors graced the stage with an enthusiasm most children reserve for a smallpox vaccination. One could hardly blame them for their lack of vitality, as the stingy, uninspired script consists, not of springy dialogue, but rather of a deadening series of pronouncements.
Mary to Joseph: “I am tired.”
Joseph to Mary: “We will rest here for the night.”
There’s no fire, no give and take, and the audience soon grows weary of this passionless relationship.
In the role of Mary, six-year-old Shannon Burke just barely manages to pass herself off as a virgin. A cloying, preening stage presence, her performance seemed based on nothing but an annoying proclivity toward lifting her skirt and, on rare occasions, opening her eyes. As Joseph, second-grade student Douglas Trazzare needed to be reminded that, although his character did not technically impregnate the virgin mother, he should behave as though he were capable of doing so. Thrown into the mix were a handful of inattentive shepherds and a trio of gift-bearing seven-year-olds who could probably give the Three Stooges a run for their money. As for the lighting, Sacred Heart Elementary chose to rely on nothing more than the flashbulbs ignited by the obnoxious stage mothers and fathers who had created those zombies staggering back and forth across the linoleum-floored dining hall. Under certain circumstances parental pride is understandable but it has no place in the theater, where it tends to encourage a child to believe in a talent that, more often than not, simply fails to exist. In order for a pageant to work, it needs to appeal to everyone, regardless of their relationship to the actors onstage. This production found me on the side of the yawning cafeteria workers.
Pointing to the oversized crate that served as a manger, one particularly insufficient wise man proclaimed, “A child is bored.”
Yes, well, so was this adult.
Ten-year-old Charles St. Claire showed great promise with last year’s “Silent Falls the Snow.” Now he’s returned to the holiday well and, finding it empty, presents us with the rusty bucket titled “A Reindeer’s Gift,” currently running at Scottsfield Elementary. The story’s sentimentality is matched only by its predictability, and the dialogue fills the auditorium like an unrefrigerated boxcar of month-old steaks. The plot, if I may use that word so loosely, involves a boy named Jeremy (Billy Squires) who waits beside the family hearth for… guess who! When Santa eventually arrives, he chows down a few cookies and presents our hero with a stack of high-tech treasures. But Jeremy doesn’t want gadgetry, he wants a reindeer. Strong-armed into submission, Santa agrees to leave behind his old warhorse Blitzen (played by a lumbering, disobedient Great Dane the program lists as “Marmaduke II”). Left alone with his rowdy charge, Jeremy struggles with his pea-sized conscience, finally realizing that “Maybe it’s wrong to keep a reindeer cooped up in the storage space above my stepfather’s den.” What follows is a tearful good-bye lasting roughly the same length of time it takes a giant redwood to grow from seed to full maturity. By the time the boy returns the reindeer to Santa’s custody, we no longer care whether the animal lives or dies. I was just happy he was hustled offstage before his digestive system could process and void the eighteen pounds of popcorn it took to keep the great beast from wandering off before his cue. At the risk of spoiling things for any of our retarded theatergoers, allow me to reveal that the entire Santa–reindeer encounter was nothing more than a dream. Our hero awakes full of Christmas spunk, a lesson is learned, blah, blah, blah.
The only bright spot in the entire evening was the presence of Kevin “Tubby” Matchwell, the eleven-year-old porker who tackled the role of Santa with a beguiling authenticity. The false beard tended to muffle his speech, but they could hear his chafing thighs all the way to the North Pole. Still, though, the overwrought production tended to mirror the typical holiday meal in that even the Butterball can’t save the day when it’s packed with too much stuffing.
Once again, the sadists at the Jane Snow- Hernandez Middle School have taken up their burning pokers in an attempt to prod A Christmas Carol into some form of submission. I might have overlooked the shoddy production values and dry, leaden pacing, but these are sixth-graders we’re talking about and they should have known better. There’s really no point in adapting this Dickensian stinker unless you’re capable of looking beyond the novel’s dime-store morality and getting to what little theatrical meat the story has to offer. The point is to eviscerate the gooey center but here it’s served up as the entrée, and a foul pudding it is. Most of the blame goes to the director, eleven-year-old Becky Michaels, who seems to have picked up her staging secrets from the school’s crossing guard. She tends to clump her actors, moving them only in groups of five or more. A strong proponent of trendy, racially mixed casting, Michaels gives us a black Tiny Tim, leaving the audience to wonder, “What, is this kid supposed to be adopted?” It’s a distracting move, wrongheaded and pointless. The role was played by young Lamar Williams, who, if nothing else, managed to sustain a decent limp. The program notes that he recently lost his right foot to diabetes, but was that reason enough to cast him? As Tiny Tim, the boy spends his stage time essentially trawling for sympathy, stealing focus from even the brightly lit Exit sign. Bob Cratchit, played here by the aptly named Benjamin Trite, seems to have picked up his Cockney accent from watching a few videotaped episodes of “Hee-Haw,” and Hershel Fleishman’s Scrooge was almost as lame as Tiny Tim.
The set was not without its charm but Jodi Lennon’s abysmal costumes should hopefully mark the end of a short and unremarkable career. I was gagging from the smell of spray-painted sneakers and if I see one more top hat made from an oatmeal canister, I swear I’m going to pull out a gun.
The problem with all of these shows stems partially from their maddening eagerness to please. With smiles stretched tight as bungee cords, these hopeless amateurs pranced and gamboled across our local stages, hiding behind their youth and begging, practically demanding, we forgive their egregious mistakes. The English language was chewed into a paste, missed opportunities came and went, and the sets were changed so slowly you’d think the stagehands were encumbered by full-body casts. While billing themselves as holiday entertainment, none of these productions came close to capturing the spirit of Christmas. This glaring irony seemed to escape the throngs of ticketholders, who ate these undercooked turkeys right down to the bone. Here were audiences that chuckled at every technical snafu and applauded riotously each time a new character wandered out onto the stage. With the close of every curtain they leapt to their feet in one ovation after another, leaving me wedged into my doll-sized chair and wondering, “Is it just them, or am I missing something?”
Based Upon a True Story
Good morning, People, and Merry Christmas. Seeing as your minister, Brother Phil Becky, is running a bit late, I thought I’d take this opportunity to say a few words before he wheels himself in to begin the traditional holiday service.
So here I am, Folks, filling in for Phil! (Pause for laughs.) “Who is this guy with his hand-tailored Savile Row suit?” you’re asking yourselves. Those of you with little or no education are no doubt scratching your heads thinking, “We ain’t never seed him before. How you reckon he keeps his shoes so clean?”
Now, Friends, don’t get me wrong. I’m not criticizing the way yo
u talk. In fact, I kind of like it. As a people you so-called hill billies have made a remarkable contribution to the entertainment industry and I, for one, thank you for that.
So who am I? For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Jim Timothy and, as you’ve probably gathered by my full set of God-given teeth, I’m not from around these parts. Now, Brothers and Sisters, I’m not going to stand up on this pulpit and lie to you. The fact is that I’ve never preached a sermon in my life, haven’t even set foot inside a church since I married my third wife, a blue-eyed Gila monster named Stephanie Concord. Seeing as most of you either can’t or don’t read the papers, allow me to inform you that Stephanie Concord and I are no longer an item, a fact for which I regularly get down on my hands and knees and, as you people would say, “praise the Lord.” What troubles me, what strikes me as grossly unfair, is that the divorce granted that man-eating reptile one half of the money I’d earned during our brief and unrewarding union. I don’t want to appear ostentatious, but her settlement amounted to a pretty big chunk of change, seeing as I draw an annual salary that would make your heads spin. You see, Folks, I work in the television industry. No, I’m not a repairman (ha ha) but what you call an executive producer. I guess you could call me the guy who makes it all happen.
Due to my highly advanced sense of humor, I spent the first ten years of my career developing situation comedies, or what we in the business like to refer to as “sit-coms.” It was me who helped create such programs as “Eight on a Raft,” “Darn Those Fleishmans,” “The Dating Cave,” and “Crackers ’n’ Company,” a show you are probably familiar with about a group of ignorant rednecks such as yourself, and I mean that in a good way. According to Old Man Webster, ignorant means “lacking in knowledge and experience,” which, let me tell you, can be something of a blessing. There’s not a day that passes when I don’t spend a few moments wondering if some of us aren’t just a little too smart for our own good. You people, with your simple, unremarkable lives, know nothing about production schedules or the sky-high salaries demanded by certain so-called entertainers who could give the Arabs themselves a few pointers on terrorism. I, on the other hand, know nothing about scabies, so maybe we’re even.
You don’t climb to the top of the sit-com ladder without knowing how to understand people and what makes them tick. I’m not talking about the production assistant tying up the phone lines to weep about her latest abortion. I’m talking about real people with weatherbeaten faces and just a little bit of dirt beneath their nails. You have to be able to relate to the little guy because that’s what makes a television program take off and fly. You can have all the gags in the world, but without that little kernel of understanding you might as well take your project and throw it up on the stage where nobody will ever see it.
A wise man once said that in order to communicate, you have to be able to speak in someone else’s language. Take me, for instance. Here I’ve been rattling off terms such as “Folks” and “Brothers and Sisters” when I would never, and I mean never, use such language in a more sophisticated setting. But I use it here, in this run-down church, because, in order to communicate, I need to speak your language. I did the same during a recent visit to London, where, within the course of a single weekend, I found myself using the words “bloody” and “tuppence.” In short, I’m a communicator.
Due in large part to my extraordinary interpersonal relationship skills, I was eventually snatched up by a rival network and put in charge of dramatic programming. No, I’m not talking about the vapid soap operas people like you tend to enjoy. I’m referring to the hard-hitting, socially relevant, and meaningful programs that reflect what’s really going on in this country of ours. Without a laugh track or a standard twenty-two-minute time frame, these are the shows that touch your heart rather than tickle your funny bone. Maybe they cause you to shed a tear or two, but at least you’ll walk away feeling a sense of pride in our shared heritage. These are the programs in which good-looking people attempt to cope with a life which, as many of you obviously know, isn’t always as pretty as you’d like it to be. Sometimes these good-looking people are forced to visit poorly decorated homes or even trailers. Every now and then they come into contact with people who aren’t so good-looking, but still they’re forced to cope. Just as we all do. I’m talking about such award-winning programs as “Coping with the Cavanaughs,” “Cynthia Chinn: Oriental Wet Nurse,” “Hal’s Tumor,” and “White Like Me.” (Hold for applause.)
Stand in any one place for too long and a person is bound to get itchy feet. I found my voice with situation comedies, proved myself with dramas, and felt it was time to move on to the ratings boosters we like to call the “mini-series.” I’m sure at least a few of you are familiar with the concept. They’re called “mini” when, in fact, they tend to be much longer than a standard movie you’d see at the local theater. Part of this is due to the commercials, but it’s also our chance to dig in our heels and get to the real meat of the story. Sometimes these programs are based upon the novels written by many of your favorite authors, such as James Chutney and Jocelyn Hershey-Guest. I like to think we did real justice to Olivia Hightop’s “Midnight’s Cousin,” and E. Thomas Wallop’s searing historical saga “The Business End of the Stick.” As I said, often these mini-series are based upon works of fiction, but just as frequently we can find equally compelling material simply by opening our daily newspapers, contacting the survivors or perpetrators, and buying their stories, which are then adapted by any number of our skilled writers. This was the case with “The Boiling of Sister Katherine,” a tragic event which I think we explored with a great deal of dignity. Seeing as the nun in question was no longer with us, we bought the rights from the McCracken twins, who, regardless of their guilt or innocence, were an invaluable help to our writers, whose motto is “It’s always important to present at least one side of the story.” We recently aired another heartbreaking true-life drama, this one based upon a single mother forced to drown her own children, driving them into a lake in a desperate attempt to hold on to her handsome new boyfriend. “Sun Roof Optional” touched a lot of nerves and I was proud to be a part of it.
While the mini-series based upon novels generate a good deal of interest, it’s these real-life dramas that tend to draw a larger audience. Why? I chalk it up to five simple words we use in every print or televised promotion. Five words: “Based Upon a True Story.” Not made up in the mind of some typist, but true. Some say that truth is stranger than fiction, and I usually take that to mean they’ve spent a few hours with one of my former wives! (Hold for laughs.) Seriously though, nothing touches the heart and mind better than a well-timed dramatization of a real-life event. There also happens to be a fair amount of money in it for the savvy criminal or unfortunate victim who wants to turn his or her grief into something with a lot more buying power than a tearstained pillow! For this reason, we receive hundreds, sometimes thousands, of letters a day from people wanting to sell their true-life experiences. Our network alone has got a basement full of talented college graduates whose job it is to sit on their duffs and evaluate these typed and handwritten tales of woe. We get so many submissions, they’re no longer bothering to open any envelope unless the return address includes the name of one of our more notorious state or federal prisons. That’s not to say that the other stories aren’t compelling in their own way, but we feel these vague accounts of self-doubt and garden-variety adultery are best left to public TV, which has built its reputation on satisfying the needs of a less demanding audience.
“Yes, Mr. Timothy, that’s all very interesting, but what does it have to do with Christmas and where the H. E. Double Toothpicks is Brother Phil Becky?” I’m getting to that.
As I’ve explained, we’ve got our dramas and our mini-series and then, ever mindful of the calendar, we’ve also got our holiday specials. You’ve no doubt seen or heard of them: “Vince Flatwood’s Christmas in Cambodia,” or “Kristmus Rappin’ with Extraneous B.V.D. and the S
keleton Crew.” I could go on and on. Then there are the time-honored animated classics we’ll continue to broadcast as long as the toy manufacturers feel a need to advertise the latest video game or lifelike doll that defecates edible figs. I’m not putting these programs down because they all fill their niche. But every now and then — and it’s rare — once every blue moon we come upon a marriage of the true-life mini-series and the holiday special and that is what we in the television industry like to call “Art.”
Our viewers saw Art last Easter with the two-part “Somebody’s on My Cross” and they saw it again in “A Wishbone for Li’l Sleepy,” in which a hardened gang member carjacks two Dutch tourists so that he can spend Thanksgiving on his grandfather’s turkey farm. Both these programs won Emmy Awards on the basis of their hard-hitting portrayal of typical American life. They showed a different side of the coin from your standard “I call the drumstick” or “Santa needs a hand and I’m just the guy to help out” type of thing. This creature we call Art is just as special as the day we call Christmas and you people wouldn’t be sitting here if you didn’t agree with me. Because Christmas isn’t some meaningless postal holiday devoted to the memory of this African American or that guy who got a few boats together and accidentally discovered America. Christmas is about sharing. We take what we have and we portion it out to the people who matter in our lives, be they a family member or just some second-string joke writer we drew as a secret Santa. The point is that we give and we take. It’s the oldest story in the book. And that’s what brings me here to you very special people on this frigid Christmas morning. I could be with my two stepchildren in San Tocino Del Rey. Or with my natural child at her treatment center at an undisclosed location, or visiting any of the “Two Cents for Hope” kids I foster down in Central America. I could be with my elderly mother in her nursing home or my only brother in wherever he happens to be. But instead I’m here in Jasper’s Breath, Kentucky, because, Goddamn it, this is where I want to be! (Pound table, reading stand, whatever they happen to have. Pound forehead if no other options.)