Holiday classic soars above ponderous plot

“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” sticks closely, for better or worse, to the erratic plot of the stop-motion television classic from 1964 on which the musical is based.

With some expansion of the songs by Johnny Marks, and a lot of reprises of familiar tunes, the show stretches out into a 75-minute, twoact musical for an audience of the youngest theatergoers.

Narrated by slow-moving Sam the Snowman (Ryan Coon), who gets to explain what might already be obvious, the musical follows “misfit” Rudolph (Sarah Errington) as he responds to being rejected for his unusual nose by his fellow reindeer and a grouchy Santa (James Gruessing).

After spunky Rudolph makes friends with depressed fellow misfit Hermey (Derek Leo Miller), an elf who longs to become a dentist, the two head off into the snowy wilderness, where they encounter manic prospector Yukon Cornelius (Ben Burch), discover an Island of Misfit Toys, and fend off the massive Abominable Snow Monster (Evin Johnson).

Once they’re back home at the North Pole, the story familiar from the song takes back over, with Santa recognizing the value of Rudolph. Overly convoluted plot aside, the musical makes good use of bright colors and peppy song and dance numbers.

Errington’s Rudolph is a charmer and, apart from a few technical issues at Saturday’s 11 a.m. premiere at the Palace Theatre, the show succeeded in presenting a variety of appealing settings, using video projection to good effect along with the usual scene changes.

The sleek, nimble reindeer, with large heads perched over the actors’ heads, communicated ably with body movements as well as with facial expressions.

Extended elf dance numbers to “Holly Jolly Christmas” and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” neatly and subtly referenced the jerky movements of stopmotion. Capable puppeteers brought to life a troupe of raccoons, flying birds, rabbits and the massive, eventually tamed, Snow Monster.

And if most of Santa’s reindeer only hit the air in a video sequence, at least Rudolph was up there blithely flying around as much as possible.

The audience was encouraged to sing along at several points, and did so enthusiastically to the title song, though it’s hard to see what good words projected above the stage would have done for the target preschoolers.

Even without a coherent plot or much in the way of character development, the show transcends its nostalgic appeal to delight a new young audience.