Arts Review

It's a Wonderful Life, 70s Christmas Special, Starring the Fonz

The Vortex, through Dec. 31

Running time: 1 hr, 15 min

There are many blanket assumptions surrounding Christmas, and one is that everyone is familiar with Frank Capra's holiday classic It's a Wonderful Life. But I'm willing to bet that most people are only vaguely familiar with this film. Maybe they've seen parts of it, maybe caught the ending a couple of times, possibly seen some parodies of it, but few are actually intimately familiar with the old black-and-white Jimmy Stewart saga from beginning to end. Most parodies of it focus on a distillation of the story (what the world would be like if George Bailey had never been born). Rob Nash's one-man show It's a Wonderful Life, 70s Christmas Special, Starring the Fonz deals with the entire story, down to its most minor characters. That alone might challenge an audience, but Nash adds one more catch to take this show from concept to high-concept: Every character in It's a Wonderful Life is portrayed as a character or personality from the era of Seventies television.

Here is a glimpse of the 39-person-long cast list that becomes a legend to the map of Nash's show: Fonzie as George Bailey, Charo as Mary Bailey, Archie Bunker as Mr. Potter, Vinnie Barbarino as Harry Bailey, Tattoo as Joseph, Mr. Roarke as Franklin, Paul Lynde as Gower, Flo as Violet, Geraldo as the newsman, Duane as Charlie, Nipsey Russell as Eustace, Howard Cosell as Sam Wainwright, and so on and so on. It's a masterful melding of Seventies television and Capra's classic movie, but unfortunately, unless one has studied either subject in depth, the meeting proves perplexing. Nash himself has trouble keeping up. Certainly throughout the run of the show, his performance will tighten. But on opening night, he was still uncertain of the material and would periodically go blank as he searched through plotlines and impersonations, trying to recall what was next.

Nash is intelligent enough to recognize that this setup isn't exactly user-friendly, so he does three things to help the audience out: provides the cast list, gives a voiceover introduction for each character the first time someone appears, and changes the names of the original characters to their new Seventies personas, e.g., George is now referred to as Fonzie. Ironically, having the Fonz as the main character adds to the confusion because the Fonz didn't like to use names; he liked to use initials ("Sit on it, Mr. B!").

During the first act, the audience remained pretty quiet, and the silence seemed to fluster Nash. The second half of opening night was the show's saving grace. It's the part of It's a Wonderful Life when Clarence the angel is trying to get his wings – or in this case, Mork the alien is trying to get his rainbow suspenders – and the story gets simpler as it barrels toward its conclusion. The audience had grown more accustomed to the format. Nash was picking up the pace and energy. By the end, when Fonzie is returning to his life and hugging his children (Jan Brady, Arnold Drummond, Mushmouth, and Sigmund the sea monster), Nash had the audience sold on his wacky wonderful life.

Rob Nash has an incredible gift for impersonations. Rob Nash has created a hugely complex vehicle for those impersonations. Rob Nash needs a director. He nails the essence of all 39 personas, but somehow the show lacks energy. Nash goes from brief impersonation to brief impersonation casually, as if each one has had a little shot of the Fonz injected into it. There are only a few glimpses of his agility as a performer – at a dance or during a rendition of "Rubber Ducky" – when he leaps and bounds between characters. The trouble with It's a Wonderful Life, 70s Christmas Special, Starring the Fonz is that there is not much more to the show than its fundamental gimmick. One thing, however, is made abundantly clear: how totally awesome Seventies TV was. If someone tried to make an It's a Wonderful Life TV Christmas special today, most of the characters would be practically indistinguishable, all whining and self-involved. These Seventies characters are bizarre and endearing and wacky! And even if you don't have any clue who Paul Lynde is, you will enjoy his antics as channeled by Rob Nash.