• By GEORGE MORRIS
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Dec 16, 2009 - Page: 1D

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Just about everyone who has attended a church has probably seen a Christmas pageant. With children typically portraying all of the characters in the biblical account of Jesus’ birth, it is a tradition in which the theology is heavily seasoned with cuteness.

But humor? Any that occurs is by accident — which is often the best kind.

“The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” which ends this weekend, gets laughs from the potential for things to go horribly awry even with something as simple and beautiful as the Nativity. Like the pageant it portrays, much of its appeal is the adorable nature of its actors and actresses, and the unsophisticated humor makes it something that children will enjoy at least as much as adults. The play lasts an hour, short enough not to tax short attention spans. Kyle Lemaire directs.

For the Bradley family, the upcoming pageant is of concern only to the children, Beth (played by Victoria Carbajal) and Charlie (Brock Kaufman), who will be expected to perform. Their father, Bob (Chris Roussell) is just hoping to stay home over the objections of his wife, Beth (Christy Appling).

But all this changes when the director, Mrs. Armstrong (Cynda Barfield) breaks a leg — literally, not theatrically speaking — and Beth Bradley gets roped into directing it.

She’s never done this before, but with many of the church’s children having performed before and with Armstrong giving constant instruction on the telephone, how hard can it be?

She soon finds out.

Beth Bradley is aware of the six Herdman kids, who routinely bully other children. The Herdmans didn’t attend church, but while Leroy Herdman (Jesse Appling) was stealing the dessert Charlie brought with his school lunch, Charlie let slip that his Sunday school class has plenty of goodies for free.

Intrigued, Leroy brings the rest of his siblings — Imogene (Shannon Harger), Ralph (Joseph Butler IV), Claude (Emmanual Dunn), Gladys (Ashleigh Martin) and Ollie (Maya Verma) — to Sunday school, where they learn about the pageant and decide they want to perform all of the major roles. The church kids are too intimidated to object.

Rehearsals are a disaster. The Herdmans have never heard the Christmas story, and their ignorance leads them to ask some pointed questions and draw some interesting conclusions. Not the least of them is Gladys’ plan to turn the angel Gabriel into a kick-butt avenger of those who made Joseph and Mary stay in a stable.

The pastor (Kevin Harger) and other church members are scandalized, but Bradley is determined to make this the best Christmas pageant ever.

There is some spiritual content, as it occurs to parishioners that they can hardly exclude the Herdmans in a play that introduces the Jesus who later would be known as the “friend of sinners” and one who welcomed the children who came to him.

That it does so without being preachy is one of the play’s strengths.

The primary children’s roles are handled well by Carbajal, who provides narration; Shannon Harger and Jesse Appling as the older, tougher Herdmans; Martin, as the spitfire who wants to have the angel Gabriel man-up; and Katelyn Thomas as Alice, the prim, proper, pain-in-the-neck who isn’t happy about relinquishing her role as Mary to Imogene Herdman.

The Angel Choir also does a nice job with some Christmas hymns.