The good news is that the Denver Center Theatre Company is offering a comic alternative to “A Christmas Carol.” The bad news is that “Season’s Greetings” is a gloomy greeting.
Alan Ayckbourn’s dry British comedy about a dysfunctional family is funny, at times uproarious. Despite a wandering accent or two, director Gavin Cameron-Webb’s cast is impeccable. Funny stagehands dressed as elves draw laughs as they swill booze during set changes.
But there’s an undercurrent of sadness and outright cruelty that make this play awkward holiday fare for theatergoers hoping for an easier laugh this time of year.
“Season’s Greetings” isn’t outright farce or drama. It’s an odd ‘tweener play that’s intermittently amusing – when it’s not creeping you out. Like when a genial fop of a young husband rears back to smack his pregnant wife, a disquieting moment with no context before or after.
This must be what they mean by “Chekhovian comedy” – there’s no plot to speak of, relationships are vague, atmospheric tension abounds, and though absurdly funny things happen, life is rather melancholy for anyone willing to really look at it.
“Season’s Greetings” is far too long for a comedy, yet it still ends abruptly and without satisfaction. And while Hugh Landwehr’s inventive set design expands and employs the Space Theatre in ways never before imagined, there are significant sightline problems – a Christmas tree and handrail obscure the action for some.
The whole play builds to what promises to be a dreadful and therefore hilarious puppet show, but almost no one can see it, either because of poor angles or cast members blocking views. That we’re in the round is no excuse; Ayckbourn debuts all of his plays in a round theater.
It’s all such a disappointment given the great effort by these fine actors, and that DCTC audiences are eager for an acerbic, adult antidote to Dickens. Instead they go home with an abject lesson in just how cruel we can be to those closest to us.
The play is set in the home of a Neville (the great Sam Gregory) and Belinda Bunker (Kathleen McCall), a suburban couple preparing to celebrate Boxing Day (Dec. 26).
They both have alcoholic sisters, one hilarious, one pathetic – Phyllis (the wonderful Charlotte Booker) is an outrageously boozy, bawdy cook, while Rachel (Henny Russell) is a spinster with a handsome young beau Clive (Greg Keller) she’s almost pre-destined to lose.
Alternately sweet and menacing curmudgeon Harvey (Mike Hartman) is somebody’s uncle. Not sure whose. I spent a good deal of the interminable first act trying to deduce how everyone else fits on the family tree. Turns out, they don’t. Hapless puppeteer and all-around sap Bernard is Belinda’s physician. Most oddly, young slacker Eddie (Douglas Harmsen) is Neville’s former electronics store co-worker. But the Bunkers have moved Eddie, wife Pattie (Anne Marie Nest) and their three kids into their home.
Hartman is brilliant again as a retired yet fully armed security officer who first makes us laugh with his loony remarks about giving guns to all the children for Christmas. But he turns menacing when vulnerable Bernard’s puppet show goes awry. Russell’s simpering Rachel is claustrophobic and wrenching – pure Chekhov. Even Booker, whose smile could light Rockefeller Center, brings an element of ruefulness. Drawing these characters as more sad than funny is an odd staging choice.
There’s only one moment of perfectly realized hilarity, and it comes courtesy of Keller and McCall. Their characters finally act on their illicit passion under the Christmas tree, setting off a noisy toy present. This brings the first act to an end amid mad mayhem, but things never come close to that level again.
Ironically, this is one peculiar dose of holiday cheer I might be more open to as a piece of art if I were taking it all in on the flip side of the calendar.
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
“Season’s Greetings” | ** RATING
COMEDY|Denver Center Theatre Company|Written by Alan Ayckbourn|Directed by Gavin Cameron-Webb|Starring Paul Hebron, Mike Hartman, Kathleen McCall, Sam Gregory, Greg Keller, Henny Russell and Charlotte Booker|Space Theatre, Denver Performing Arts Complex|THROUGH DEC. 23|6:30 p.m. Monday-Wednesday, 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 1:30 p.m. Saturday|2 hours, 30 minutes|$36-$46|
303-893-4100, 866-464-2626, all King Soopers or denver center.org; 800-641-1222 outside Denver
3more
“WINTER IN GRAUPEL BAY” In an original, character-driven production described as “a series of photographs set to life,” Buntport Theater creates and follows small-town characters on the longest night of the year. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 6 p.m. Sundays, through Dec. 23 at 717 Lipan St. (720-946-1388).
“ARMS AND THE MAN” George Bernard Shaw’s classic has been called “the most charming anti-romantic romance in all of modern drama.” 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays, 4 p.m. Sundays (some Saturday matinees) through Dec. 17 at Theatreworks, 3955 Cragwood Drive, in Colorado Springs. $12-$22 (719-262-3232 or uccstheatreworks.com).
“THE SPIRIT OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS” This staged reading drawn from speeches and letters features actors from the Shadow Theatre Company backed by a dozen members of the Spirituals Project choir. Performed with Pearl Cleage’s one-act play, “Chain.” 8 p.m. Thursdays-
Saturdays through Dec. 9 at the Emerson Center, 1420 Ogden St. $15 Thursdays; $25 otherwise (303-837-9355).
-John Moore
