Christmas Pass

Mrs. Bob Cratchit's Wild Christmas Binge is all downhill after the clever title.

by Mark Cofta

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Published: Nov 27, 2007

Christmas in theater falls into two categories: A Christmas Carol, and everything else. It's chumps against the eternal champ. If any American playwright could break Dickens' spell with sardonic parody, one might think it could be Christopher Durang (Beyond Therapy, Adrift in Macao).

Put this one in the win column for ol' Charles, who handily triumphs over the challenger's lightweight 2002 attempt, Mrs. Bob Cratchit's Wild Christmas Binge. It's all downhill after the clever title in Bristol Riverside Theatre's anemic production, despite the inspired chaos of Greg Mitchell's sprawling scenic design.

Demetria Joyce Bailey struts attractively as the ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Future (though she seems a bit bored), leading Kenneth Boys' mugging sketch of Ebenezer Scrooge through Dickens' familiar story. Durang scattershots jokes along the way (e.g., Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling drop by selling "energy units," the poor Cratchits keep 20 children in a pit under their trailer) until Bob Cratchit's wife (Jo Twiss) breaks out of the tale, flirting with Scrooge and infuriating the ghost.

When Mrs. B. fixes to end her wonderful life by jumping off London Bridge, Clarence the angel (Jerry Carrier) intercedes, and Durang jabs feebly at another Christmas classic. He also detours into Oliver Twist and The Gift of the Magi, and pads his meandering play with bland carols ("We Love Christmas" is sung straight and features lots of kids in "aww, shucks" performances, but surely this treacle is meant as parody?). Finally, director Keith Baker's production limps through molasses to, of all places and times, 1977 — for reasons that might have been funnier three decades ago.

There's plenty of time to wonder how this script saw the light of day. Jokes about Rice-a-Roni, Mia Farrow and Leona Helmsley — whose last horrifyingly comic act in this life, leaving $12 million to her dog, is already played out — suggest that Mrs. Bob Cratchit's Wild Christmas Binge languished in Durang's underwear drawer for a few decades, finally dragged out by a theater desperate for a Dickens alternative.

(m_cofta@citypaper.net)

Mrs. Bob Cratchit's Wild Christmas Binge

Through Dec. 2

Bristol Riverside Theatre

120 Radcliffe St., Bristol

215-785-0200, brtstage.org

 

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