Jason Lott
Jason Lott takes a deep breath before he takes a bow in his one man Wonderful Life at the H Street Playhouse, presented by Theater Alliance. It’s as if he’s exhaling the personalities of a dozen or so characters that had inhabited him for the past 75 minutes.
Reprising a challenge he first took on at the Hub Theatre in Fairfax last Christmas, his Theater Alliance performance takes in the whole of the beloved Capra classic movie It’s a Wonderful Life and reorders it, so that it makes sense as one man taking on the entirety of its cast.
…packs its own emotional punch.
Written by Lott with Hub Artistic Director Helen Pafumi and directed by Gregg Henry, the Helen Hayes-nominated Wonderful Life begins, surprisingly, not with George Bailey, the iconic character played in the movie, by Jimmy Stewart, but with the angel who wants to help him, Clarence Odbody. Lott distinguishes the angel, a former Virginia clockmaker, with an exaggerated drawl.
Jason Lott
Lott’s Bailey has a bit of the stuttering excitement of Stewart’s character, but not so much as to make it an impersonation. As in the movie, the first half of the play is about describing what a great guy George Bailey really is, and you think maybe it’s just going to be George and Clarence trading stories. But then comes an exaggerated feminine voice and, although at first I thought it was the Bedford Falls flirt Violet, it turned out to be Bailey’s betrothed, Mary. A third female character is Ma Bailey, distinguished by turning up his collar—in the only costume adjustment made in the play, in which Lott wears a suit and tie fit for George Bailey.
Soon he’s playing everybody in a rush: Ernie the taxi driver, Bert the cop, Mr. Gower the druggist, even the owner of the local bistro Martini.
As the local villain Potter, Lott eschews the vocal sneers of the film’s Lionel Barrymore. Rather, he does a good job as he sits deadening his legs so as to indicate polio. He even adds a little backstory to Potter to make him less of a
one-dimensional big banker villain.
The actor even does a version of Nick, the gruff bar owner who runs the Potterville joint serving “hard drinks or men who want to get drunk fast” and who admonishes George and Clarence “we don’t need any characters around to give the joint ‘atmosphere.’”
He stops short of impersonating the Bailey kids, who come to life only in George’s glowing descriptions of them. Therefore the whole “everytime a bell rings” line is not something his beloved daughter Zuzu says, but something George recalls having heard once somewhere.
Jason Lott. Photo by C Stanley Photography.
There are some adjustments from the movie. There is no car crash and he never yells at his kids or even Uncle Billy, the forgetful relative whose loss of $8,000 (not attributed to Potter on stage) is the cause of Bailey’s existential crisis.
As in the movie, however, the central action—Clarence showing George what life would have been like had he not been born—goes well past the halfway point. From then (as in the movie), the action moves fast and pointedly through the desolation of Potterville, the crass and garish replacement for the charm of Bedford Falls, and the desperation of its people.
By then, Lott has succeeded in differentiating each of these different characters, such that an audience really gets the feeling of everyone pitching in and showing appreciation, once George is returned back to his real life. And the one-man version manages to pack its own emotional punch.
To an outsider, the show may look like a guy in a rubber room with multiple personality disorder. I wondered how much sense this would all make to someone who hadn’t seen It’s a Wonderful Life, but then I thought: Who hasn’t seen It’s a Wonderful Life? Indeed, it was showing on network TV again the night I saw the show.
So it’s nice that Brooke A. Robbins’ spartan set design, with work from Elizabeth Muller, features some well done signs from Bedford Falls, from Gower’s Drug store to Martini’s to that broken down Bailey Bros. Savings & Loan. Kyle Grant’s lighting design also neatly differentiates the warmth of Bedford Falls from the glare of Potterville and keeps one more Christmas surprise until the emotional end.
By then, Lott will have deserved his hard-earned exhale.
Running Time: 75 minutes with no intermission.
Advisory: Recommended for ages 10 and up.
Theater Alliance presents Wonderful Life at the H Street Playhouse, 1365 H St NE, Washington DC through Dec. 30. For tickets and information click here.
