Syracuse New Times - January 19, 2005
They're two one-act plays in tandem, but they feel like dark comedy routines set in an edgy nightclub. Both shows, David Sedaris' The Santaland Diaries and Jeff Goode's The Eight: Reindeer Monologues, originated in Chicago, and both take a view of our biggest commercial holiday that Hallmark never captures. The humor is that Christmas ain't a time to be jolly. For these amusing anti-yuletide rants, Syracuse Civic Theatre has moved to the really intimate space of the Katherine Dunham Room, inside the Paul Robeson Performing Arts Center's home at 2223 E. Genesee St.
Having packed the Civic Center for the Gifford Lecture Series two years ago, Sedaris is now an established if idiosyncratic voice. When Santaland Diaries burst upon the scene in the 1990s, its broadcast brought in some of the most ecstatic response National Public Radio has ever received. Before that Sedaris was a failure at almost everything he tried, including being a Macy's department-store elf during the Christmas shopping rush.
A fanatic diarist, Sedaris (the older brother to comic actress Amy, star of the Comedy Central sitcom Strangers with Candy) wrote up all his humiliations and disappointments; on the urging of friends he began reading passages in coffeehouses and clubs, when a man from National Public Radio's Morning Edition happened by. The original broadcast was about 20 minutes. But with raging success, Diaries turned into its own 41-page booklet, or 75 minutes running time. Like the darker flip side of Jean Shepherd's A Christmas Story (part of the author's In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash), it not only does not wear out but grows richer in the retelling.
Director Dan Tursi's first smart move is to forget Sedaris' own whiny, nasal voice, which would be unprofessional if he were not playing himself. Joey Panek has better vowels and breathing, which focuses the mordant absurdity of the narrative. Further, Panek, one of the most skillful performers in community theater, turns Sedaris' words into a kind of ballet so that every syllable gets a wave of the hand or an arch of the eyebrow. He could almost do Santaland Diaries in mime and still get laughs in the right places.
Assuredly, however, the laughs are in the right places, even when they're not exactly gags. One is the inside scoop that Macy's elves speak of "Omigod corner" for the turn in the corridor where parents realize just how long they're going to have to wait in line to see Santa. Or Sedaris' deadpan putdowns of the company cheerleaders who shout up the Christmas "spirit," locking all sentiment in emotional Styrofoam, all the better to serve the demands of commerce.
At the same time Panek and Tursi never portray Sedaris' edge as merely cynical or as aggressive secularism, attacking Christmas itself. In his most touching moment, Sedaris remembers the best Santa who paid little attention to the gimme-gimme sentiments of advertisement-addled kids and instead urged parents to remember what a superlative gift their children are.
Underneath it all is a vision like painter Edward Hopper. Santaland Diaries is a bit like Hopper's "Nighthawks," only done in a pointy hat and red-and-white striped tights. For all the gratuitous cruelty, such as the costumer who snarls, "I could get you fired!," Panek's narrator conveys empathy with the lonely, the foolish and the disconnected who populate our cities.
Despite the shows' common origins, The Eight: Reindeer Monologues is quite another animal. Borrowing the narrative devices of Michael Bennett's A Chorus Line, Jeff Goode's piece outlines the autobiographical aspirations and intra-company tensions of a performing ensemble of eight entertainers. Along with the received traditions about flying around the globe on Dec. 24, Diaries invents characters for eight reindeer (some with new names), as well as three new intertwined subplots: motivations, or lack of them, for being part of the team; resentment over the attention given to interloper Rudolph; and a pending sexual harassment case against the Fat Guy.
In promoting Reindeer Monologues Syracuse Civic Theatre producing director Todd Ellis has emphasized that the show is not for kids and the language is R-rated. Well, it's hard to know what kids will find suitable these days, and there's a relative paucity of the seven words you can't say on television. What drives the show instead is the sustained putting on of the straights. Blitzen (David Minikhiem), for example, is a kind of hermaphrodite with prosthetic breasts who angrily refers to Santa Claus as a "libidinous troll." As Blitzen comes fourth in the pack, we're on to Goode's methods by this time, and he's just pushing the envelope a bit further.
Many of the monologues are not written to generate laughs. Donner (Ron Sweet) is a blue-collar type who smokes and confesses he used to be a lowly "herd reindeer" near Anchorage before he joined Santa's team, which he likens to becoming a member of the Beatles. The most hilarious of the monologues arguably belongs to new reindeer Hollywood (Gennaro Parlato), turning all the satire against show-business vanity rather than Christmas.
Another target is the way performers can't resist revealing their shady pasts, even as they try to hide them. Dancer (Kristie Grant), in toe shoes, admits that it's humiliating to wear only black leather and sleigh bells, but it's not as bad as being one of the animals in the zoo. Not only do they wear nothing, but they stand around all day "and play with themselves, and they don't even get any tips."
The final monologue belongs to the aptly named Vixen (Aubry Ludington), whose sexual harassment suit against Santa is touched on in the previous ones. She's more bemused than angry: "You don't know what it's like to have your gynecologist interviewed on Geraldo." Sultry in her clingy leopard-print skirt, Vixen is nobody's helpless victim.
Syracuse New Times content is Copyright 2005 by A. Zimmer Ltd.