"My Three Angels" delights audience, delivers Christmas message

Scene on Stage, by Steve Kadel

If you're looking for a Christmas story with the season's good feelings but you just can't watch "It's a Wonderful Life" another time, head to the Machetanz Theatre in the next couple of weeks.

Valley Performing Arts opened "My Three Angels" on Friday to ringing applause from an appreciative audience. The actors were on their game for opening night, provoking lots of hearty laughter as well as some thought-provoking moments.

It's an adaptation of a French comedy in which three lovable convicts on work release are sent to patch the roof of a less-than-successful general store owned by well-meaning but inept Felix Ducotel (Bill Siedler) and his wife (Genie Seidler). Convicts Alfred (Ted Carney), Joseph (Grant Olson) and Jules (Scott Sterling) match wits with Scrooge-like Henri (Tom Jacobs), who arrives without a whit of Christmas spirit to investigate the Ducotels' woeful financial situation.

Meanwhile, family daughter Marie Louise Ducotel (Jennifer Martin) orbits in her own romantic world. Just like her parents, she can't quite get things together, and her beau arrives with Henri after having fallen for another woman from a well-to-do family. The convicts commence to fix this problem, too.

The acting on Friday was excellent from top to bottom. The rag-tag convicts, particularly Sterling, get most of the laughs and move the plot crisply. But even those with lesser parts make big contributions. For instance, Madame Parole (Christine Lloyd) flutters in now and then to add her own touch of levity to the already off-beat atmosphere.

"My Three Angels" isn't your typical Christmas tale. Still, the play set in French Guiana in 1910, where the temperature hovers just above 100 degrees from Christmas Eve in the first act to Christmas morning in the third act, convincingly shows the value of a loving heart and concern for others.

The play is directed by Rod Mehrtens, who also designed the set. Brian Mead handled sound design and Genie Siedler was particularly successful with costume design.

It will be presented at 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, as well as at 2 p.m. on Sundays, through Dec. 21.

Bundle up and head for this enjoyable VPA production before it ends. It may be cold outside, but you'll feel warm leaving the theater.

Steve Kadel is a Frontiersman reporter.