"White Christmas" is Comfort Food for the Holidays

When all else fails, you can’t go wrong with Irving Berlin.

Even when everything’s going right, a little Irving Berlin always makes it better.

Right now, it’s all good at Paper Mill Playhouse. Its September world premiere of the musical Disney’s packed the house and is going straight to Broadway. And Sunday night, the weather was delightful for its press opening of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas. A few patrons actually wore shorts and mingled among the festive crowd that sang along with a Christmas chorus spreading holiday cheer outside the front doors to New Jersey’s biggest resident stage.

Inside, the merriment continued as this colorful and charming musical put everyone in the Christmas mood—perhaps a little early for cynics, but with performances through Christmas Eve, you can set your own holiday-cheer timer.

Based on the 1954 holiday film favorite starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye, the book by David Ives and Paul Blake makes a few adjustments, but wisely avoids messing with a proven formula. World War II buddies Bob Wallace (James Clow) and Phil Davis (Tony Yazbeck) become America’s favorite song-and-dance team, touring the country with big revues that also play on the Ed Sullivan Show. Bob is the serious one. Phil worries about Bob in between offstage romps with the giggling showgirls.

Looking to recruit a sister act for their show, the boys are semi-smitten by the Haynes sisters. Judy (Meredith Patterson) quickly connects with Phil, but Bob and the similarly serious Betty (Jill Paice) have no interest in romance....or each other.

The gals are booked at a Vermont inn for Christmas, so Phil tricks Bob into following them.

“Great, an old paper mill by a babbling brook,” Bob dryly observes to the delight of the crowd.

The rustic resort, though, is struggling financially and an unseasonable warm front could be the final nail in its coffin. Bob could care less until he learns it is run by their beloved old commander, General Waverly (Edward James Hyland), so Bob and Phil summon their entire cast to head north and, in the grand tradition, put on a show.

While the ensemble delights the audience with spirited rehearsals, enlivened by Randy Skinner’s tap-heavy choreography and Carrie Robbins’ colorful costumes, Bob and Betty fall in love, fall back and regroup just as most of us have seen Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney do over and over again.

Clow, who stood tall here a few years back standing in for Jimmy Stewart in A Wonderful Life, is far more convincing as a romantic lead than Der Bingle. Crosby might have an edge as a crooner, but Clow belts out a few beauties of his own. Paice, a redheaded beauty, completes the attractive and combustible couple and does justice to her torchy showcase, “Love, You didn’t do Right by Me.”

Yazbeck and Patterson are the more energetic pair, dazzling the crowd particularly with the second-act opener, “I Love a Piano.”

Of course, it helps that they’re all singing from the songbook of America’s greatest composer. In addition to the songs featured in the film (including “The Best Things Happen While You’re Dancing” and the title tune that, for the record, made its cinematic debut in an earlier Crosby film, Holiday Inn), this stage adaptation adds a few more Berlin favorites. “Happy Holiday” opens the show, which closes with “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm.” In between, “Blue Skies” is turned into a show-stopping production number.

Cornball as the story is at times, the score borders on immortal and even the orchestra plays with uncommon inspiration.

Finally, as if we need more, there’s Lorna Luft, daughter of Judy Garland and half-sister of Liza Minelli, as Martha Watson, the inn’s noisy but loving second-in-command. She may not have the iconic profile of her relatives, but here, she’s a dynamic, larger-than-life ringer with enough of her mom’s voice and stage presence to give you the most welcome of chills.

After bringing the house down with “Let Me Sing and I’m Happy,” the general’s adorable granddaughter, Susan (Andy Mechanic), asks her, “How did you learn to do that?”

“You don’t learn that, sweetie,” she replies. “You’re born with it.”

Amen, sister. And a happy holidays to all.

Irving Berlin’s White Christmas continues through Dec. 24 at Paper Mill Playhouse, Brookside Drive, Millburn. Tickets are $25 to $97. For information, call 973-376-4343 or visit www.papermill.org.