"Meet Me in St Louis": A Review

Meet Me In St. Louis is an unabashed song of praise for American normality, happiness, and family love.

The film, produced in 1944, included a classic score and a radiant performance by 22-year-old Judy Garland.

It’s been called one of the greatest movie musicals ever made.

Like similar productions that appeared during WWII, like Oklahoma and Holiday Inn( ?), Meet Me In St. Louis pictures a wholesome, stable, forward-looking America, a place anyone would long to come home to.

Its many familiar numbers – “The Boy Next Door”, “Under the Bamboo Tree”, “The Trolley Song” – are staples of the American songbook.

The stage version of Meet Me In St. Louis didn’t appear until 1989, but it’s faithful to the movie.

Seacoast Repertory’s energetic new production embraces its irony-free nostalgia wholeheartedly.

It’s a fast-paced, charming, and skillfully-staged evening of old-fashioned musical theatre.

It’s also slightly strange.

For some reason, the professional Seacoast Repertory has cast the show almost entirely with non-professionals.

Nearly half are theatre students from UNH.

That’s understandable because the director, Matthew Nesmith, teaches there.

Most of the rest are local residents, and only a few of these are old enough to have any substantial theatrical experience.

The predictable result is a production that looks like community theatre – pretty good community theatre, to be sure, but community theatre nonetheless.

Mr. Nesmith’s brisk, clean staging, some effectively understated choreography by Jason Hair-Wynn, and Janie Howland’s intelligent set design contribute a great deal.

The unshakeable enthusiasm of the ensemble, as well as strong individual performances from Ed Batchelder and Christine DuLong, help hold things together.

Meet Me In St. Louis moves along so well, and with such good cheer, that you almost don’t notice the canned music, atrocious wigs, missed steps, missed notes, or the fact that outside of the Smith family, this St. Louis appears to be populated entirely by teenagers.

It’s a little harder to ignore the unnecessary microphones taped to the sides of actors’ faces, but their singing is honest and unaffected, if not especially powerful or expressive.

Meet Me In St. Louis will play at Portsmouth’s Seacoast Repertory Theatre through December 28.

If you’re in the mood for a sweet rendition of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”, and you don’t mind a little roughness around the edges, it’s an entertaining family show.

Just leave your professional expectations at home.

For NHPR News, I’m Kevin Gardner.