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Out Front Theatre is operating well within its wheelhouse this Christmas with a holiday show tailor-made to appeal to the theater’s core demographic of Atlanta queers. The show in question is Christmas Dearest, a campy spoof of A Christmas Carol, written by Chicago-based playwright David Cerda. In Cerda’s saucy adaptation, the role of Scrooge is taken up by Joan Crawford, and the streets of London traded for Hollywood studio lots. The script falls squarely into camp territory, tearing through Dickens’ work with a bemused refusal to take itself seriously. For the most part, it works, and it’s certain to please theatergoers who share its silly sensibilities, though it makes a couple of missteps that mar the experience.
The Christmas Dearest cast is largely above criticism, committing to the screwball comedy with admirable aplomb. Emily Nedvidek is a particularly charismatic lead. She holds nothing back as the imperious and abusive Ms. Crawford, hamming it up so as to lend acerbic charm to her venomous personality. Her vulgar energy is matched by the three spirits, played by Tyler Sarkis, Jessica Wise and Blake Fountain. Subtlety is not on offer here, nor should it be. This carol is unabashedly loud and queer.
Christmas Dearest director Jennifer Alice Acker leans into the script’s inherent cheesiness to further invite the audience to turn off their analytical brains and enjoy the ride. The way she has staged the transitions — both regular, scene-to-scene transitions and the moments of time travel — combine faux-haunting carolers with some absurd physical comedy. The effect doesn’t gel 100% of the time, but it’s very amusing when it does.
There is also an informality to the way the actors perform their roles. At several points in Christmas Dearest, the actors will break the fourth wall to acknowledge the absurdity of some of their double roles or join along in laughing at a particularly funny joke. The effect is the removal of any sense of pretension, allowing the audience to react more freely and openly.
The musical numbers dive straight into the deep end of camp, infusing the show with a vaudevillian feel that is both distinctly 1950s and uniquely queer. Special shout-outs go to “Santa, Won’t You Come? (Down My Chimney)” — mostly for Anna Dvorak’s bright and bubbly performance along with Tyler Sarkis’ blunt interjections — and “Two Old Broads” for Nedvidek and Fountain’s fantastic chemistry. I highly encourage all audience members to stick around for the curtain call.
Still, some of the jokes are a bit outdated, and the script is not above taking a few cheap shots. The wheels don’t come screeching to a halt, however, until Joan visits the home of her assistant, Carol Ann (this script’s version of Bob Cratchit). In this version, the would-be Cratchits are a lesbian couple with a home full of adopted children (this choice creates something of an anachronism, but historical accuracy is not the first thing on Cerda’s mind, nor should it be for the audience).
What is genuinely upsetting about this scene is the choice to turn Teeny Teena, a sickly orphan with an unplaceable accent, into a focal point for mean-spirited and ableist jokes pointed at the chronically ill. I am completely aware that with a show like this, everyone is a potential target for parody. However, there is little that is clever, subversive or amusing about taking symptoms like muscle weakness, irritable bowels and speech impairments and putting them on display for able-bodied people to laugh at. My first thought when I saw Brandon Partrick walk out in a curly wig and dress, with his unusual movements evoking a cross between Shirley Temple and Igor, was Please God, let this be an adult playing a child and not an adult performing a parody of those with developmental delays. That prayer, at least, was answered.
Partrick is a talented actor, and the fault is not with him. He does exactly what the Christmas Dearest script asks of him, and he does it well. Certainly, there is some level of empathy extended to Teena (as the Tiny Tim surrogate, her entire role in the play hinges on the audience feeling bad for her), but it is the same kind of sympathy we would extend to a sick dog. If anything, there is more empathy extended to her parents as they struggle to pay her medical bills (I should scarcely be surprised, since prioritizing the struggles of a disabled person’s caregivers over the disabled person is a time-honored tradition of ableist media). Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if Teena were in on the joke, or if her spasms and wretches were not met with grimaces of disgust from the other characters, but as it stands, the whole bit becomes a distasteful example of punching down. It’s disappointing, it’s uncomfortable, and it’s not particularly funny.
On the whole, Christmas Dearest is a pleasant experience with plenty of laughs and some eye-candy sets (courtesy of Paul Conroy and Sydney Lee) and costumes (Tyler Ogburn). For those looking for irreverence with just the slightest hint of pathos, it may be the perfect holiday excursion. I would simply encourage us all to think twice about who is deserving of parody and who is not — at least we can rest easy with the knowledge that Joan would be fuming. And that’s a good thing.
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Luke Evans is an Atlanta-based writer, critic and dramaturg. He covers theater for ArtsATL and Broadway World Atlanta and has worked with theaters such as the Alliance, Actor’s Express, Out Front Theatre and Woodstock Arts. He’s a graduate of Oglethorpe University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree, and the University of Houston, where he earned his master’s.
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