By Galen Simmons

There’s nothing quite like being home for the holidays, and for those of us who call Stratford and the surrounding Perth County home, Here For Now Theatre’s world premiere of Ruby and the Reindeer hits about as close to home as it gets.

Set on a dairy farm on Perth Line 29, Ruby and the Reindeer features everything I want in a local Christmas story – Santa Claus, reindeer, snow, a family reunited, an unlikely love story, puppets and a flying Holstein cow – all wrapped up in that feeling of warm, nostalgic, 1980s Christmas magic.

Written by Mark Crawford and directed by Irene Poole, the play’s narrator, adult Ruby (Maev Beaty), takes audiences back in time to Christmas 1989 when her 12-year-old self (Tabitha Campbell) and her widowed dad, Dave (Gordon Miller), are asked by Dave’s father and Ruby’s estranged grandfather, Gerald (Benedict Campbell), to have their new livestock vet, Kathy (Ijeoma Emesowum), determine what medical malady is causing one of Gerald’s reindeer from his Christmas petting zoo “up north” to act so strangely.

A quick examination of the reindeer, who Dave tells Ruby is referred to by her tag number, B2, results in the discovery that she is pregnant and must remain on the Perth County dairy farm until after she gives birth. Kathy asks Ruby to serve as midwife for the pregnant caribou, and she excitedly takes on the role with the not-so-secret ulterior motive to play matchmaker for her dad and his new livestock vet, and to finally meet her grandfather, whom she knows almost nothing about.

Without giving too much away, both Ruby and her dad rediscover their Christmas joy and somehow wind up saving Christmas for every other kid on Earth. Quite the feat for a dairy-farming, father-and-daughter duo from Perth County!

From the actors’ performances to the costumes to the set and everything in between, Ruby and the Reindeer felt both familiar and fantastical – a story I’d be thrilled to see told and retold every Christmas.

Crawford’s writing is both humorous and heartfelt with just enough local references to keep me smiling without them becoming too heavy handed. The dialogue is delivered with expert timing by each of the actors, and their onstage chemistry anchors the story in what feels like real relationships between father and daughter, father and son, and a girl and her reindeer.

Do yourself a favour and see what I’m sure will become an instant holiday classic before it closes.

Ruby and the Reindeer runs at Here For Now Theatre (24 St. Andrew St., Stratford) until Christmas Eve.

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