REVIEW: ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ is stretched but stuffed with great performances

How do you turn a half-hour TV special into a 90-minute stage show? With creative choreography and a healthy dose of Christmas carols.

That’s “A Charlie Brown Christmas: Live on Stage,” a sprightly holiday show that includes the 1965 original inside a sandwich of dances.

Performed at the Orpheum Theatre Tuesday night and choreographed by Charlotte Bydwell, the bookends suggest other shows (“A Chorus Line,” “Chicago” and “Wicked” among them) set to a familiar beat. While Vince Guaraldi’s music is stretched a little too thin, there are fine adaptations of “Jingle Bells,” “Silent Night” and “Joy to the World.”

Depressed by the commercialization of the holiday, Charlie Brown (Connor Barr) laments the season and relies on his friends to pull him up. His dog Snoopy (a very good Alexander Polzun), meanwhile, is all in on garish light displays. He tumbles and cartwheels while dressing up his house, much to his owner’s dismay.

Lucy (Megan Mistretta) tries to give Charlie Brown 5-cent advice, but he resists. Appointing him director of the Christmas pageant, she decides, will get him in the right mood. And that’s where even more dancing comes into play. Bydwell uses the “Chorus Line” reference with show auditions and gets the “Wicked” moment with just a ladder and a green spotlight. There are Fosse jazz hands here and there, too, and enough movement for swing Carson Zoch to stand out in every dance number he’s in.

While director Robbie Simpson could have used more of a script, he knows how to highlight the TV show’s hallmarks. When Linus (Arturo Guadalupe Hernandez) recites the Christmas story, you can feel the chills.

Interestingly, Schroeder (James Appleton Woods) and Pigpen (Calvin Wakefield Kaleel) are two-thirds of the orchestra (Matt Rapiejko is on drums). They have a big sound and a nice way of interacting with the rest of the cast. Simpson should have put them in the heat of the action (they’re off to the sides of the stage – way off) and made this a little less of a spectacle. When Charlie Brown’s sad Christmas tree transforms into a glittering wonder, it’s not as powerful as it could be. Other trees move around too much (becoming extender in a show that’s already stretched to its limit), while some of the secondary characters get lost in the shuffle.

Mistretta is just as bossy as you’d expect and Barr is the Charlie Browniest of Charlie Browns.

But it’s Polzun who knows how to help a show without making it feel like it’s near the breaking point.

Turning the classic TV show into a stage production is a great idea and “Live on Stage” is a good start. Now, if someone goes back to the drawing board, he or she might find a show that’s worthy of the talent that performs it.