Donna Reed and James Stewart are hard to beat as the stars of Frank Capra’s classic 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life.
But onstage in Madison this month, Tiffany Topol manages to outdo Reed. In addition to playing Reed’s character Mary, she plays Mary’s adorable little girl, Zuzu. Which is pretty entertaining. How many moms get to be their own daughters?
And Tony Roach (Broadway: Flying Over Sunset, My Fair Lady, Bright Star), who portrays Stewart’s character, George Bailey, outshines Jimmy in at least one category: Jingles.
Roach & Company croon hilariously about the wonders of Dux Toilet Soap during make-believe commercial breaks in the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey production of Joe Landry’s It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play.
Running through Dec. 28, 2025, this holiday treat dispenses with the fourth wall entirely. The real crowd becomes a pretend New York studio audience for a Christmas Eve 1946 radio presentation of It’s a Wonderful Life.
STNJ did the same show in 2017. It was funny then, and it’s funny now.
Paul Mullins directs this time. His excellent six-member cast includes two actors from the prior go-round: Andy Paterson as Clarence, the miracle-challenged angel sent to save George Bailey in his darkest hour, and Tina Stafford, whose quick changes from floozy Violet to mustachioed, accordion-playing barkeep Giuseppe Martini steal the show.
RJ Foster (Broadway: Home and Fat Ham) doubles as radio narrator and the scurrilous Mr. Potter, eternally hell-bent on destroying the Bailey Savings & Loan. This Potter has an unctuous veneer that’s more Silicon Valley than Bedford Falls. Paul Henry is George Bailey’s hapless Uncle Billy — when he’s not busy as the fictional WBFR’s “Foley artist,” conjuring whimsical sound effects from whistles, chimes and ukuleles.
Roach is appropriately earnest and restless as George Bailey. One dare not stray too far from the iconic screen version in what presumably is a radio re-creation of a movie already familiar to this ersatz post-World War II audience.
Topol, a newcomer to STNJ who has played Carole King in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical near Chicago and appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live, has the requisite girl-next-door charm and persistence to overcome George Bailey’s cluelessness.
The pace is brisk — much more so than the movie, even with an intermission — and the payoff is rewarding, even though you and everyone else on Planet Earth know exactly what’s coming. No kid tires of hearing a well worn bedtime story with a happy ending, after all. (Titanic never would cut it as a children’s book; the evil iceberg wins every time.)
Keeping track of each actor’s multiple characters is a challenge. (Who the heck are Jake Laurents, Lana Sherwood and Sally Applewhite, listed in the program? Oh, wait a minute, those are the radio characters playing the Wonderful characters…I think.)
But that’s a minor matter thanks to a lifetime of Christmas viewings of the original, which has seared the basics into memory. What would happen if you never happened? Things aren’t really so bad, are they? In fact, they really could be a whole lot worse!
Holiday cheer may seem on the brink of extinction. But it’s waiting for you at the Shakespeare Theatre, like a giant mug of hot cocoa with an extra dollop of whipped cream.
The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey presents It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, through Dec. 28, 2025. Tickets: $54–$92. On the Drew University campus, 36 Madison Ave., Madison.
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