Omar Heyward and Tara Jean O’Brien (Photo by Brandon Loeser)
Reviewed by Martίn Hernández
Whitefire Theatre
Through December 23
RECOMMENDED
Producers, co-directors, writers, and brothers Brandon and Shaun Loeser – along with choreographer/co-director Tania Pearson-Loeser, musical director Stacey Quinealty, and a crack ensemble – unleash a barrage of holiday—themed skits, Broadway and movie lampoons, and animated shorts. Balancing laugh-aloud hilarity and heartfelt sentiment, this is an energetic production, with the rare floundering bit salvaged by the screwy cast’s commitment to mirth. The show serves up a field day of sardonic send-ups — from family holiday dinners to “Top Gun,” from angels to penguins — and few of our memes or traditions are safe from them. After performing the show for 24 years to packed houses –which includes the night I attended – one assumes they must be are doing something right.
Priming the parody pump are pre-show slides of mock ads, and videos. One ad notes that the show has gone green with fifty percent recycled material. A video pokes fun at The Matrix, with an elfish Mr. Smith tormenting the Noel-inspired Neo, while another skewers Netflix’s Stranger Things. The opening number, “It’s Santasia” (with inspired routines from Pearson-Loeser), presents a coterie of frolicking North Pole denizens — was that a narwhal? — belting out lyrics sending up the production’s – and the Loesers — foibles.
A running set of skits portrays disgruntled elves at Santa’s workshop. “D.E.I.” involves a new minority hire (Adam Slemon) who sets his co-workers on edge (and vice versa) when Santa’s head office sets up its diversity, equity, and inclusion policy in typically clueless corporate fashion. “North Pole Life,” has the workers howling over Santa’s unfair labor practices; it is also a thinly veiled salute to the recent SAG/AFTRA strike. “Jollyfellas” has union elf rep Hermey (Brandon Loeser) negotiating with a mobbed-up Santa (Slemon) and his reindeer button men, Blitzen (co-writer Rusty Locke) and Rudy (Shaun Loeser, delivering a killer Joe Pesci impression).
Quentin Tarantino comes in for special treatment, starting with “Walken in a Winter Wonderland,” in which Locke channels Christopher Walken’s gold watch monologue from “Pulp Fiction,” substituting the timepiece and the orifice used to hide it for items even more ridiculous than those in original. “Pulp Christmas” is a Rankin and Bass Claymation-styled animated clip which features Jules Winnfield and Vincent Vega as Santa’s ruthless emissaries (“What do they call a fruitcake in Italy?”) out to retrieve a bag of shiny loot from the doomed Brett.
In “Jerry’s, Jerry Springer (co-writer Tara Jean O’Brien), pregnancy test in hand, interviews Nazareth residents Mary (Brandon Loeser) and Joseph (Omar Heyward). In the number “Snowblock Tango,” the black-clad cast depicts the horror that is holiday shopping with tales of lost receipts and brutal tug-of-war fights over gifts at shopping malls. And you do not need to know Hebrew to empathize when Locke airs the sentiments that some Jews — and other non-Christians —harbor at Christmastime.
“Full Monty” welcomes us to the North Pole Ladies Club, where a bevy of elves (Brandon and Shaun Loeser, Locke, Heyward, and Slemon) do their ecdysiast business. A humorous MasterCard ad epitomizes the highs and lows of small theatre productions with a punchline that, of course, is priceless.
While comedy prevails, there are also touching moments, notably in the monologues each performer delivers about their favorite holiday memory. Heyward relates a tale about his father, a Black man with limited skills and income, whose surprise Christmas gifts profoundly changed his family. O’Brien regales us with how she and her mom bonded as loyal Kmart Blue Light Special shoppers. Slemon reminisces about the time the Syrian side of his family sat down with the European side for their first joint Christmas dinner — and the ensuing culture clash that ensued, resulting in a universally teachable moment during these fraught holiday times.
Note: Cider and cookies are served before the show.
Whitefire Theatre, 13500 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks.; check website for schedule; thru Dec. 23. www.Santasia.com. Running time: one hour and 50 minutes with an intermission.
