STAGE
It's Christmas tradition with a
twist
Plays bringing tidings of joyful mockery to the season
become holiday rituals themselves.
By DonShirley, Times Staff Writer
Riding the New York subway last June, Rob Elk was startled
when a man approached him and asked if a little play Elk
co-wrote, "Bob's Holiday Office Party," would
again appear in L.A. during the Christmas season.
The man, Elk soon realized, was Don Took. Took is an avid
fan of "Bob's," a comedy about a boozy Christmas
party set in an insurance office in a small town in Iowa
— now in its 10th annual production.
"Bob's" is hardly Took's sole interest in end-of-the-year
theater traditions. He has often been an actor in the
Southland theater scene's most established and professional
holiday show, "A Christmas Carol" at South Coast
Repertory.
Took discovered "Bob's" during one of the rare
years when he wasn't in "Christmas Carol" —
he was recovering from surgery.
"I was transfixed" by "Bob's," he
recalls. Took told his future wife, "This is going
to be our holiday tradition."
And it has become just that. Took manages to see "Bob's"
every year, even if he has to leave South Coast in Costa
Mesa at 6 p.m. after the Sunday "Carol" matinee
to get to the tiny Third Stage in Burbank, the current
home of "Bob's," in time for the 7 p.m. show
— a journey he made once again last Sunday. Took
has also introduced "Bob's" to some of his fellow
South Coast "Christmas Carol" cast members.
Took compares his obsession with "Bob's" to
the feelings of many British theatergoers about the free-wheeling
comic pantomimes that they see during the holiday season.
While South Coast's "Christmas Carol" is "a
wonderful bells-and-whistles holiday show," he says,
"Bob's," by contrast, "is a wonderful,
over-the-top, politically incorrect holiday show."
It's not the only offbeat production that keeps returning
year after year. Southland audiences have long been able
to supplement such mainstream traditions as "The
Glory of Christmas" at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden
Grove and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" at
the Old Globe in San Diego with rowdier offerings such
as the Troubadour Theater Company's series of pop music
spoofs, including this year's "Little Drummer Bowie,"
at the Falcon Theatre in Burbank, or the Evidence Room's
series of holiday extravaganzas based on the visual motif
of the 99 Cents Only Stores.
"A Christmas Carol" itself is presented in many
different flavors. For the last three years, International
City Theatre in Long Beach has used Doris Baizley's adaptation,
in which a circus troupe tells the Dickens story with
stunts and puppetry.
Or consider "A Mulholland Christmas Carol,"
a musical now in its fourth year at Theatre of Note in
Hollywood. Scrooge in this variant on the Dickens classic
is William Mulholland, the water baron from a century
ago. He built an aqueduct to import water to Los Angeles,
but his project was tarred by accusations that it despoiled
the fertile Owens Valley and by the deadly 1928 collapse
of the St. Francis Dam north of L.A.
In "A Mulholland Christmas Carol," Owens Valley
residents correspond to Dickens' London poor, and the
dam collapse is part of Mulholland's vision of what might
happen in the future if he doesn't change his ways.
This year, the production played two shows in the Owens
Valley before opening at the 49-seat Theatre of Note,
where the show's writer, Bill Robens, says, "We're
selling out pretty easily."
Robens had become interested in the Owens Valley story
as a child, when he accompanied his civil engineer father
through the valley on ski trips to Mammoth. As an adult,
Robens considered trying to write a musical from "Cadillac
Desert," a book and movie about the same subject,
but then it occurred to him that "Mulholland's brusque
personality seemed to fit that of Scrooge."
Soon thereafter, Theatre of Note started looking for a
holiday show. The company "does some daring, challenging
shows that don't necessarily ask for repeated viewings,"
Robens says. His musical comedy was seen as a way to attract
returning audiences without sacrificing the company's
edgy iconoclasm.
Donna Luengo has seen "Mulholland" every year.
Two years ago, she brought a group of more than 30, and
a dozen of them plan to attend again on this year's closing
night.
"It's so clever, and it seems different every year,"
Luengo says. "It's different even depending on what
night you see it and the energy of the audience. It's
fascinating."
Not that "Mulholland" or any other annual holiday
show necessarily becomes a cash cow for a struggling theater
company. "Mulholland" co-producer Lynn Odell
says the show breaks even. However, because it annually
reopens before a calendar year has passed, it's defined
as an ongoing show by Actors' Equity, which means that
payments to the 22-member cast have to rise every year.
Next year, depending on what happens in Equity deliberations,
the production might have to start using a regular Equity
contract, which would at least triple its cost. The company
is looking for a larger theater for "Mulholland"
to sell more tickets.
"If money were the only motive" for International
City Theatre's "A Christmas Carol," says the
theater's artistic director-producer Shashin Desai, "I
would have dumped it." Of course the primary message
of "A Christmas Carol" (ICT's version closed
Sunday) is that money shouldn't be someone's only motive.
Besides, Desai says, "A Christmas Carol" attracts
new audiences, who often bring children. If it provides
the first theater experience for even 10 children, Desai
says, "all the money we lose is OK."
"Bob's Holiday Office Party" — which is
definitely not for children — is starting to make
a little money, says Elk, but its bottom line is still
recovering from an expensive decision to experiment with
using a live band during the production's early years.
Elk also notes that doing the show means "the stress
of the holiday season starts a lot earlier — in
September."
So why do it? "Bob's" co-writer and cast member
Joe Keyes — who says he gets depressed this time
of year — says the chance "to vicariously debauch
for an hour and a half wards off the blues. You can't
be immersed in depression when you're laughing."
Holiday plays
What: "Bob's Holiday Office Party"
Where: Third Stage, 2811 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank
When: 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 10 p.m. Saturday
Ends: Saturday
Price: $15 and $20
Contact: (818) 842-4755
www.bobsofficeparty.com
Also
What: "A Mulholland Christmas Carol"
Where: Theatre of Note, 1517 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood
When: 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday
Ends: Saturday
Price: $20 and $25
Contact: (323) 856-8611; www.theatreofnote.com
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