Kaine Riggan, manager of the Royal Palace Theatre, all but pulled off a Christmas miracle, assembling a cast of local actors to accompany Joyce DeWitt of Three’s Company fame in a touching, yet Southern Gothic Christmas musical.
The production, A Scattered, Smothered & Covered Christmas, plays at the theatre again Friday night and could be held over for an encore performance next week.
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It is a musical worth seeing because it combines the tried and true formulas of some of the greatest Christmas productions made with wit, compassion and Southern-flavored humor.
Skeptical of musicals, this reviewer believes Riggan put together a production that combines the elements of A Christmas Carol, It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street set on Christmas Eve in a Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Waffle House as the forecast calls for snow.
Striking about this production is the local cast assembled to act and sing with DeWitt, who plays Rita, a spirit in a Waffle House uniform who must make things right with the people she encounters, including helping her widowed husband, played by local Brady Martin, reignite love with an aspiring Nashville songwriter played by Renee Huff.
The performance flows well and at one minute leaves you laughing in your seat while the next leaves you wishing you had brought tissues or a handkerchief.
Bedwell
Riggan’s original play doesn’t stop with the single theme of Rita. It intertwines a love story between trucker Danny Wayne played by Danny Proctor and hardboiled Waffle House server Peggy, played by Kay Gobbell.
Riggan finds humor in a group of orphans stranded at the diner with their nun, played by Jaime Forbes. Local children play the orphans and they rattle the nerves of Punch Cardwell, played by Jonathan O’Geary, who is perhaps the richest man in Murfreesboro but is touched by the children’s plight.
It is a production that will certainly help you get in the spirit of the season, homing in on a Frank Capra theme that one person’s life touches another and in the Dickens theme that Christmas is about more than the commercial aspect and is a holiday whose spirit commands us to help others.
The impact of the local actors in this production is a thrilling part of its success, from Proctor’s humorous ditties to win Peggy’s heart to the nostalgic All the Good Ones are Gone, delivered with powerful beauty by Tia Bedwell.
Menfee
Perhaps the two greatest performances of the show come from CharMeka Menefee who belts out the near-spiritual Packed Up, Prayed Up and Ready to Go and Melvin Poythress, playing defrocked minister Willie Wainwright, who delivers the sobering Wine into Water as he comes to grips with his alcoholism.
There are so many other great performances in this show, from the comic styling of Will Cox and Lisa Brusca to the deadpan acting of Gobbell, who reminds us hauntingly of Flo in Alice but is actually more quick-witted and funnier.
Anyone wanting to get in the holiday spirit should add this to their list of productions to see because it was a satisfying experience. Go Friday and perhaps they’ll add another date to the calendar. It’s worth it — Lance Martin