The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

At Havana Theatre until December 16, 2018
Tickets from $18 at nakedgoddessproductions.com

Posted December 14, 2018

This may not be the best Christmas pageant ever but it sure is the rowdiest. Presented by Naked Goddess Productions under the direction of Tamara McCarthy, fourteen kids, one doll and four adults re-enact the Nativity as you’ve never seen it before. Or maybe, if you’re a Sunday School teacher, perhaps you have experienced it, in which case you may still be recovering.

Written by Barbara Robinson, it’s a Christmas pageant that goes off the rails when the highly organized but unpopular Mrs. Armstrong (Maria J. Cruz), who has always directed the Sunday School pageant, takes a tumble, breaks some bones and ends up unable to carry on.

But things go from bad to worse when Charlie Bradley (Milan Gill), inadvertently tempts the six Herdman kids – “the worst kids in the history of the world” – to participate in the pageant. Known bullies, they’re seriously bad-ass kids who steal other kids lunches and persist in beating up their schoolmates. They’ve never been to Sunday school before and bedlam breaks out when the sextet from Hades turn up to audition.

Coerced into taking over from the draconian Mrs. Armstrong is Charlie’s mother Mrs. Bradley (Melissa Oei) who is determined to make it the best Christmas pageant ever – if only to spite Mrs. Slocum (Cruz again) and Mrs. McCarthy (Sandra Medeiros) who don’t think she’s up to the task.

Intimidated by the Herdman bunch, none of the other kids dares to audition so nose-ringed tomboy Imogene Herdman (Amelie Love) ends up being Mary and Ralph Herdman (Pavel Piddocke) is Joseph. The other four Herdmans are all given roles, too. With chaos breaking out all over, Mrs. Bradley wonders how she is going to pull off the pageant at all.

This is all pretty lightweight but it raises some interesting issues especially given our multi-cultural environment. We can’t assume all kids these days know the story of how Joseph and Mary made their way to Bethlehem. The Biblical language is confusing: what does “great with child” mean to youngsters? “Swaddling clothes”? “Manger”? Even adults have trouble with “frankincense and myrrh”. The Herdman kids ask all the right questions.

Apart from all the fun these young performers have racing all over the set and enjoying complete chaos, there is a sweetness to The Best Christmas Pageant Ever that touches the heart: firstly, the beauty of the story finally sinks in to Imogene who tenderly holds the baby Jesus doll with which she had previously had been playing tug-of-war. And secondly, the gift one of the Herdman kids offers to the Christ child is a ham – obviously, for a family down on its luck, a very precious item. Sure, maybe the kids stole it from the family fridge but, in the spirit of Christmas, I like to think that Ma and Pa Herdman offered it up.

For everyone involved in this show, this is a labour of love. It’s a good play for kids to see as they will relate to the actors who appear to range in age from about five to fifteen. They will love the over-the-top performance of little Olivia A (as Gladys, youngest of the Herdman tribe); you may not understand one word she shrieks – but you will understand that she is confusing her role as the Angel of the Lord with something out of a Marvel comic book.

Amazingly, the story of the Nativity emerges out of all the pandemonium and once again, with the help of Christmas carols sung by the young ensemble, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever asks us to pause and reflect.