3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Inappropriate Christmas play, August 19, 2011
This review is from: The Eight: Reindeer Monologues (Paperback)
If you're looking for a warm fuzzy play to do at the community theater level for Christmas, this one is definitely not it. I had high hopes for it - it sounded hilarous, but it's not funny at all. Santa is depicted as a rapist, Rudolph as mentally challenged, Mrs. Claus an alcoholic...the list goes on and on. Yuck, yuck and double yuck. Not entertaining - very sad and angry, and completely inappropriate, in my opinion.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Something Else for the Holidays, July 5, 2011
This review is from: The Eight: Reindeer Monologues (Paperback)
Every theatre, come Christmas time, has the same dilemma: "So, what... Christmas Carol again?" Jeffe Good has done something exceptionally clever here -- all but cornered the market for theatres who want to do a Christmas play but don't give a crap about family friendly musicals. This is a grown-up play with grown-up themes and lots and lots of swearing.
The play is eight monologues long (about 90 min, no intermission), one for each of the Reindeer currently on the team (Santa and Rudolph are talked about extensively, but don't get a voice in this one). In the world of the play, Santa is real, he's an institution, and his Reindeer are international celebrities: something along the line of star atheletes mixed with movie stars. The plot centers around the fallout from Vixen's accusations that Santa Clause raped her in the toy shop a few weeks before scheduled Christmas run.
And things go downhill from there.
The play is a dark-comedy to say the least. It asks a lot of questions about institutions, the power of celebrity, and what we take for granted in our public figures, without giving any real answers. Modern audiences will probably relate the play most directly to the accusations leveled against the Catholic church over the past decade or perhaps those against late celebrity Michael Jackson. The play itself is over a decade old, but it is suprising (and perhaps upsetting) how relevant and relatable it remains. There are pop-culture references that are a bit out of date, though Mr. Goode has updates on his website and suggestions that he offers to keep it current. Overall, it's starting to show it's age in function but certainly not in theme: it's still a very relevant play.
It's got plenty of pitfalls: the tone is devilishly hard to keep even, flowing from broad comedy to dark tragedy and often blending the two with a wry smile. It can lose an audience if you're not careful. The transitions between the pieces are undefined and, though they complement one another nicely, getting from one monologue to the next stares at you like a big scary question mark when attempting to stage it.
All that said, thought, it's a pretty accesible, memorable, very funny dark-comedy. The big jokes land big (which is consistent among Goode's work, he is a funny man) and if you've got a strong cast of people with good timing and emotional availability, the characters are downright lovable and sympathetic. It's a tricky play, but a potentially rewarding one.
If you've got an audience that's expecing "the Nutcracker" for the 40th time, throwing this at them will probably just scare them away, maybe for good. If, however, you've got an audience that doesn't mind thinking while at the Theatre or is open to a broader range of plays (if you ever succesfully stage Sam Shepard or John Cameron Mitchel perhaps) then this will be a welcome break from typical holiday sap, both musical and melodrama varieties. It's witty, it's sharp, it's relevant, it's more than worth a look.
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