MIDDLETOWN — Dec. 24, 1944, was not an uneventful moment in history. The Germans has begun the last-ditch offensive that would be known as the Battle of the Bulge on Dec. 16. The fighting in the Pacific raged on.

        I mention this because any professional theater that chooses to do a holiday entertainment formatted as a USO show, which is set at that moment on the other side of the Atlantic, can't lose the context of desperate energy. A lot of its audience won't be coming home unscarred, if they come home at all.

        The new Actor's Repertory Theatre presents its Christmas with the Boys: 1944 as pure nostalgia. It's an hour of singing old hits and some quite fine jitterbugging. The audience gets to dance and sing along to American anthems such as “String of Pearls” and “White Christmas.”

        But the only moment that channels us back more than half a century to what it perhaps felt like was Carla Gilene's moving interpretation of “I'll Be Seeing You.”

        For all its affability, there are some off-notes. The trio of “sisters” who make up the girl group harmonize the way they should, but they're dressed like stodgy matrons. According to my dad and my uncles, the guys Over There didn't much care how the women sounded as long as they looked like babes. Christine Brunner fits that bill best, and she demonstrated some comedic flair in “Chattanooga Choo-Choo.”

        There's the briefest of attempts at Abbott & Costello style stand-up that is quickly abandoned. That was probably wise because there are few things more painful than bad comedy, but it's a pity Joshua Jon Smith had his GI role pulled out from under him.

        Is Christmas for the Boys worth a drive to Middletown? Not unless you live a stone's throw away — and not unless you spend every New Year's Eve missing Guy Lombardo.

        Christmas with the Boys: 1944, Actor's Repertory Theatre, 2 N. Main St., Middletown, through Dec. 22. (513) 727-9361.

Wrap up entertainment
Rockettes director got leg up on job as dancer
At the holidays with: Doug Pelfrey
KENDRICK: Activist takes job step further
DEMALINE: Actor steps into new role: Dancer
DAUGHERTY: Feel-good movie of Christmas season lampoons all of us
Gergiev electrifies Met Orchestra
New faces to join opera summer festival
Recordings capture spirit of Jarvi
Theater review
Get to it