Every year, San Jose Rep has a special “holiday” show — usually something light and frothy, such as The 1940’s Radio Hour. Today was our day for this year’s holiday show is This Wonderful Life, described as “Superbly adapted from the most irresistible and entertaining ‘what if’ story of all time.” But that didn’t really help me, because I’ve never seen the movie
Still, we had the tickets, so we went. We even stayed for the after-show discussion with Timothy Near; she opened it by confessing that she’d only seen the movie once, and then she asked for a show of hands of those who’ve seen the movie — I’m not positive, but I suspect I was the only person not to have raised his hand.
I definitely enjoyed myself — Dan Hiatt is a very good actor, and the play is self-contained. But whether I ever will watch the movie is still an open question.