By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Deb – the character, not Deb Shaffer the actress playing her – is committed to doing yet another stage production of “A Christmas Carol” except she can’t move on from the fateful announcement: “Marley was dead.”
She’s interrupted by her two fellow cast members Andrew (Andrew Varney) and Nick (Nick Yates ) who are tired of this beloved holiday classic, B.H.C. There are others, they say, and other traditions. They only signed up for this production of “A Christmas Carol” for the insurance – now that’s a fantasy.
Nick is a nerd who digs into how Christmas is celebrated around the world, including on Easter Island, but focuses on those dark Nordic traditions where bad children meet worse fates than a stocking full of coal. No, they may get hauled off by a wild mythical cat.
So with Deb’s reluctant assent – she continues to try to sneak Scrooge into the party wherever he can – they go on a madcap tour of Yuletide frivolity.
First they quiz the audience about what they think of when they hear “Christmas,” and then the comedy begins.
“Every Christmas Story Ever Told (and then some)” will be performed Friday, Dec. 10, and Saturday, Dec. 11, at 8 p.m. and Sunday Dec. 12 at 2 p.m. and next weeked Dec. 17-18 at 8 p.m. and Dec. 19 at 2 p.m. at the troupe’s theater at 115 E. Oak St., Bowling Green. Tickets are $20. Click to buy. Directed by Amy Wylykanowitz, the screwball sendup was written by Michael Carlton , John E. Alvares and James Fitzgerald.
Every Christmas Story Ever Told (and then some)” touches a variety of beloved holiday classics. “Rudolph the Rein-Goat” gets extended treatment. Rudolph gets a species-change because Nick declares the reindeer tale is still protected by copyright. That, of course, doesn’t protect it from the comic twisting it receives here.
The show is full of pop culture references. The Kardashians, Sally Fields, and Simon Cowell get name-checked. And that doesn’t included the rapid fire list of guests booked for the Bing Crosby-Bob Hope-Andy Williams Christmas special announced off-stage by Lane Hakel. This list includes Dorothy Parker, who happened to be one of the screenwriters for “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Stage crew Sara Aicholz, Macy Merrill and Mena Wylykanowitz get their own bits of comic business, including a bare-tutu take on the beloved holiday dance classic, “The Nutcracker.”
And audience members are hauled up on stage on odd occasions including during a game show sequence. Don’t worry, the audience member gets the softball questions. It’s the ever-put-upon Deb who has to answer the existential query about whether a certain jolly old elf actually exists. Andrew still believes.
In the second act, she gets her way, kind of, when Nick and Andrew, as Bob Marley, agree to stage “A Christmas Carol,” only to mash it up with “A Wonderful Life.” Interesting how the two actually piece together nicely.
A silly carol sing serves as the show’s rimshot. “Every Christmas Story Ever Told (and then some)” may even draw a smile from Scrooge, even if he does end up being upstaged by a cast of goofballs.
