‘Christmas Story’ A Classic
FSLT PLAY TAKES FAMILIES BACK TO SIMPLER TIME
Posted: November 20, 2009 at 6:04 a.m.
Maybe we all didn’t want a BB gun for Christmas, but I remember when I wanted mine,” says Jim Moody. “The story is about wanting that Christmas present so bad, you thought you couldn’t go on without it.”
That, says Moody, makes “A Christmas Story,” which concludes this weekend at Fort Smith Little Theatre, a universal tale perfect to kick off the holiday season.
The Story
Set in the 1940s during a bitter-cold winter, the story of Ralphie and the coveted Red Ryder BB gun dates to the 1960s, when Jean Shepherd’s book “In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash” was published.
Filmmaker Bob Clark first heard the story when he happened upon a broadcast of radio personality and writerShepherd’s recollections of growing up in Indiana in the late 1930s and early ’40s.
However, it wasn’t until Clark directed the unabashedly crude teen comedy “Porky’s” in 1981 that he was able to fund the film.
After a short theatrical run, “A Christmas Story” moved on to television and video and has since become a perennial holiday favorite.
At FSLT
“Somehow, Jean Shepherd captured the wonderment of what Christmas is for a kid,” FSLT director Moody says.
“Christmas, to this day, is still the hub of all young people’s year.”
Moody says the family in Shepherd’s tale is as all-American as the story itself.
“They look like the regular mother, father and two sons, but they all are idiosyncratic,” he says. “The dad is the oldman who fights furnaces and is the object of 700 hungry snow dogs; the younger brother won’t eat unless he’s tricked into it; and the mother also is unique.”
Adding to the Little Theatre’s version will be the onstage appearance of a reallife family, the Ledbetters, Moody says. FSLT actor Rob Ledbetter portrays the father, while his wife, Jill, plays the mother; daughter Logan is Heather, one of Ralphie’s studious classmates; and Logan’s brother, Landon, is charming as Santa, Moody says.
Drew Smith portrays Ralphie, and other cast members include Freddy Ward as Ralphie’s younger brother Randy and Duff Taylor as Ralph, Ralphie’s grown-up self.
The show concludes this weekend with performances at 8 p.m. today and Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $10 by calling 783-2966.
Entertainment, Pages 18 on 11/20/2009
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