Grown-up Ralph describes events that then unfold onstage. So we see Ralphie with his family, struggling with his homework, playing in the snow with friends, and evading the neighborhood bully. This Indiana town is a heartwarming place, with a bustling Main Street and plenty of spaces to play outdoors.
Despite what seem at first to be Rockwellian aspects, there's no corn or preciousness here, especially in the children's scenes. Under director Caitlin Lowans, the seven young actors are just regular kids, free of cutesiness. Ari Shaps brings a deadpan glee to the part of Ralphie, and Henry MacLean is adorable as his often befuddled (and snowsuit-encased) younger brother.
As the parents, Meagan Hawkes has the distractable, antic quality of a young Shelley Duvall. She's delightful in dual roles as Ralphie's mom and the rigid schoolteacher Miss Shields. As Ralphie's father, Dale Place has a winning obliviousness to what's happening around him, unless it's the offstage smoke-belching furnace.
As grown-up Ralph, Shelley Bolman narrates with a warm boyishness. Of course, it helps that the writing is mostly sublime, filled with a Proustian level of detail. Small jokes, like the barking neighborhood dogs, or the anxiety Ralphie has about buying gifts for his parents, percolate and get funnier when revisited.
Kudos go to Lowans, who plays it straight here; there's no ironic winking at white-bread '40s culture. Jenna McFarland's versatile set is also a marvel, with panels that transform the living room into the outdoors and the kitchen into a schoolroom. Molly Trainer's choice of woolly winter wear for the kids and fab '40s garb for the adults is just right.
But all the smart production values in the world wouldn't matter if ''A Christmas Story" didn't have so much heart. Real heart, not the tinsel-bedecked smarm that occasionally passes for sentiment during yuletide.
