St. Petersburg Times
December 11, 1995
As the holiday season cheerily rolls toward the big C, apparently many folks would like a few moments with St. Nick ... to give his fanny a good smack.
Apparently. Because ripping into Santa and the season is the mirth behind The Eight Reindeer Monologues, and many in Saturday night's packed house appeared entertained by Jeff Goode's play.
For some, however, the Loft Production Company's offering of The Eight Reindeer Monologues is as painful as the most dysfunctional holiday dinner.
The play's eight stand-up routines, performed without intermission, aim to offer silly, sarcastic and unashamedly puerile glimpses at Santa's backstage. Each reindeer - there's a studly one, a dumpy one, a slutty one, a Young Republican one, etc. - gives a take on the cult of celebrity that surrounds being one of the chosen Eight who pull the sleigh.
It's a welcome counter to seasonal sentimentality, and the gimmick offers a few funny moments, such as the assurance from Cupid (Christopher Lee Gibson) that he's not the only gay reindeer - because if you're the only one, "you're not gay; you're a monk."
Other jokes, however, center on the exciting subject of Santa's love of oral sex. Shocking? Maybe. Funny? To some. Go figure.
Good costuming by Debbie Serbousek helps support the production's strength: the cast's clearly defined characterizations, which start well with tough guy Dasher (Steve Sands) and continue throughout.
Their performances might be more entertaining if they didn't dwell longingly on every ... single ... possibly ... funny ... statement. It's a monotonous style apparently encouraged by director Kim Collins and augmented by slow lighting fades and minor scenic changes between the monologues.
The material - admittedly, such as it is - isn't served well by the choice. Good stand-up comics maybe could sell this stuff; these actors, playing not in an ensemble but to a generalized audience, don't.
An exception is Karla Hartley as the radical feminist reindeer, Blitzen. With loudspeaker in hand, her call for a strike on Santa begins with the overconsidered weight that paces too much of the show. But a few clever ideas - Santa avoids Eastern Europe because it cuts costs and, face it, no one cares! - sneak in. And before she's done, Hartley's freewheeling involvement takes the audience through peaks and valleys of her needy indignation in a style that produced howls of laughter Saturday.
The rest is too often dull, and it's not helped by the play's structure: eight long speeches without a narrative to move them along. Oh, there's some question about what happened to poor, nutty Rudolph, but nothing that gives the performance a drive.
In fact, the play's concluding speech by Vixen (Sabrina Lubin-Lagana) is a disappointment so severe it smothers whatever goodwill the show had earned.
It's not the fault of the actor, who gives her character range and definition with a simple, sly "I know you're watching me" opening. But after a tongue-in-cheek evening of sketches, why does this production sum it up with tongue in a very different place - a playful romp through rape, power and victimization? Is this funny? Does this have an edge? And if not, should we care?
No, no, no.
The Eight Reindeer Monologues, staged in the intimate Off-Center Theater at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, has been held over a weekend beyond its originally announced schedule. It closes Dec. 30. THEATER REVIEW The Eight Reindeer Monologues Comic sketches by Jeff Goode, produced by the Loft Production Company at the Off-Center Theater in the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center.
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