STAGE REVIEW : ‘Glory of Christmas’ Places Grandeur Over Innocence

“Nowhere in the world is the Christmas story told in such a grand and impressive manner,” states the press kit for the Crystal Cathedral’s “The Glory of Christmas.”

It is certainly big. Real camels, real sheep, hundreds of villagers, dozens of dancers, seven angels soaring around on nearly invisible wires and a sound track that harks back to “The Robe.”

Perhaps the rest of the world doesn’t go in for this sort of thing because it finds the essential beauty of the Christmas story in its modesty--the image of a baby’s being born in a stable because his parents had nowhere else to lodge.

This image is most sweetly conveyed when the actors playing Mary and Joseph are 5 years old, and their mothers made the costumes. For innocence, “The Glory of Christmas” can’t compete with the average Sunday School tableau.

But it seems aware--more so than in earlier years--of the need to be as simple and as real as possible. For example, although the background music is still on tape, the actors do their own singing. It’s a great improvement in human presence, even when a younger singer slips off pitch. Theater, like worship, dies when it’s prerecorded.

The narrator’s voice once seemed dipped in ecclesiastical butter. Thurl Ravenscroft, the present narrator, reads the story in a respectful but not-too-awestruck voice, as befits events that actually happened.

Paul David Dunn’s script is equally plain. “I don’t know as I can make it,” says Mary, when it appears that she and Joseph will have to take the long way around to Bethlehem. This is real without being quaintsy-folksy.

In general, the script holds back from sentimentality. An exception is the device of making Joseph an apprentice carpenter, so that he and Mary can present the image of an attractive young couple, rather than the traditional one of the old man and the young girl. It makes us wonder why Mary is so astonished to learn that she’s going to have a baby.

As director, Dunn also isn’t afraid to let the pageant proceed calmly, in natural time. Probably that’s a necessity, given the use of live animals: You’re not going to get sheep to gallop down the central aisle. But it also takes some of the hype out of the occasion, reminding us that “The Glory of Christmas” is partly an act of meditation.

The animals are a plus. Eight years ago, when the pageant started, the use of real livestock seemed a cumbersome and ridiculously literal device. Now that we’re used to it, the animals’ presence seems to add warmth to the story, besides giving the youngest children in the audience their first look, probably, at a baby goat.

The angels remain a problem. What’s most impressive about them is how quickly they appear and disappear (they are “flown” by Peter Foy, the leading American practitioner of the art). But the costuming makes them look like big moths. It’s not particularly the fault of costumer Richard Bostard, who has at least taken them out of golden wings. But the angels still come off as a gimmick, rather than an integral part of the story.

The starry panorama over Bethlehem is impressive, blending nicely with the actual night sky when the doors of the cathedral are rolled back at the end of the show. But the star of Bethlehem looks like a vulgar rhinestone pin. Couldn’t this effect be achieved with light alone? (Charles Lisanby did the set, Rick Helgason the lighting.)

The cast alternates night-to-night. I saw Debby Smith as Mary and Robin Buck as Joseph. Each was able to connect with the character without becoming too colloquial--the Christmas story is not the story of nice kids in love, after all. Young Don Christensen was wonderfully concerned as the shepherd boy wondering “What Can I Give Him?”

Besides the singing, the evening offers much dancing, and most of it seems absolutely wrong: ballet turns and lifts, in a story that calls for the vigor of folk-dance. In general, though, this show will satisfy believers and will interest viewers curious about the possibilities of ritual theater on a large scale. If Robert Wilson had designed those angels, we would probably be knocked out by them.

Performances daily at 4:30, 6:30 and 8:30 p.m., through Dec. 23. Tickets $14-$25. Lewis Street and Chapman Avenue, Garden Grove. (714) 54-GLORY.