I absolutely loved this play. I don't think it was perfect, the adult sisters could have been more fleshed out, but I was okay with the imperfections. Something about it was just so heart warming that I couldn't help but love it. In the introduction, Paula Vogel talked about how community Christmas pageants had the ability to create magic by "communal participation in the make-believe of the spirit." She really achieves that here, even with the really dark subject matter, all of it is sort of suspended in wonder, which maybe wouldn't have come across if the story had been told in a different way.
Reading this play also gave the added joy of the wonderful stage directions. I love how playwrights can write really dark material but lace it with humorous stage directions. Albee does that too, some of his stage directions in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf are fantastic.
My favorite was,
"(Stephen bends over a la Harvey Fierstein in Torch Song Trilogy. Because I have personally never been in a back room. The puppet stands beside him; side by side they simulate a sexual act that means this play will never be performed in Texas.)"
I feel like Vogel is there, in the stage directions, tending to her play. That way she's still connected to future productions of the piece, even if she isn't physically there.
The first time I read this play I was on the el and I laughed out loud when I read that stage direction.
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