The Gayest Christmas Pageant Ever – Off B’dway Holiday Humbug
Oscar E. Moore “from the rear mezzanine” for Talk Entertainment.com
Emblazoned on either side of the awning/marquee, swaying in the breeze at The Actor’s Playhouse where “The Gayest Christmas Pageant Ever” has just opened for a holiday run through January 3rd - as if this play is the second coming - is this quote from Kathy Griffin – “The title alone is brilliant!” That may very well be. But the rest of the dreary evening doesn’t come close.
Badly written and ineptly directed by Joe Marshall who hails from West Hollywood, California this lame excuse of a play rarely rises above being amateurish. During the first act – there are two where there should be one – it might help, a couple of guys behind me wondered aloud if they could get their money back (tickets are $45.00) during intermission. Yes, it’s that bad.
Unless, you want to see a production that boasts twenty four actors portraying over forty characters, a Santa that poops snow, a drunken accompanist who has a big problem with gas, a few wild queens (I thought such swishy characters went out of style decades ago) and a lesbian director not in a pear tree but in a quandary as to why she accepted this assignment.
If you want to suffer through auditions and a rehearsal and finally the opening night performance of “Jingle Bells for Jesus” which has had its title changed to Kathy Griffin’s aforementioned “brilliant” title, then this is the eggnog replacement for you. There is also a pot smoking straight man learning gay lingo and his squawking parrot of a mother you uses a walker and the word “faggot” ad nauseam.
Supposedly the playwright writes flops. That is, the playwright in the play, not the playwright of the play. Really there isn’t any difference. All during this alleged comedy are lines like this: “I don’t believe it” “Are all his plays as bad” “It needs a miracle” “What the hell is this?” “I can’t breathe” “It’s a nightmare” “I don’t understand what just happened here” and “No one’s going to believe this crap”.
Joe Marshall is brave if nothing else to have characters speaking these lines when the play (which is supposed to be bad actually is) and then have the nerve to trash Terrance McNally.
As to the pageant itself which finally gets going midway through the lugubrious second act – the costumes are fun, the acting over the top, and we are relieved to know that we’ll be able to go home soon. That is, for those of us who stayed and didn’t depart during intermission.
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11-30-09
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