'The Santaland Diaries:' Chicago's Acquired Seasonal Taste

I understand there is someone called David Sedaris. Now, don't shoot me-I've been busy.

I have heard that he is an observant, middle-aged gay man who makes witty comments on the radio and writes funny, life-based books of stories, and that he has a funny sister who's an actress. And I understand, from no less a source than the Theatre Communications Group, that the successful director Joe Mantello's stage adaptation of Sedaris's early NPR success, "The Santaland Diaries," is the most-produced stage play (holiday or otherwise) in the nation this year. (It's second if you count as one play the multiple versions of Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" that every large city's largest theater seems to have developed in its own distinctive, very-low-royalty version. Oh, and TCG never counts anything by Shakespeare.)

"The Santaland Diaries" has as its economic selling point the fact that it calls for only one actor. And Theater Wit, the Chicago off-Loop company that will soon be taking over the theater that has housed Bailiwick Repertory for the last upteen years, is staging "Diaries" right next door to the Bailiwick space, in the Theatre Building on Belmont Avenue. They have staged it now for five seasons in a row, and actor Mitchell J. Fain is appearing in it for the second year in a row. It must be doing well for them.

And to top it all, Theater Wit is also presenting Chicago theater whirlwind Tom Mula in his own "Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol," in another theater in the very same building. Kind of a festival of one-man Christmas plays, while Wit bides its time and builds good will for its move to next door, scheduled for next October.

All of this would seem to bode very well for a lovely evening of light-hearted, even hilarious, "Santaland" entertainment, courtesy of Sedaris, Mantello, Fain and director Jeremy Wechsler. And the audience is in quite competent hands, it's true. Fain is a confident, impish presence, wordly and irreverent, thoroughly in command of the room and the material as if the story and those who have come to hear it are his very own dinner guests, or perhaps bar buddies, or perhaps captives-until he decides he's done being the center of attention, martini and all.

The script itself is a series of vignettes, taking us through the story of one man (Sedaris?) and his holiday season working as an elf named "Crumpet" at "The World's Largest Store," Macy's, Herald Square, New York. (Wisely, this production retains that setting and doesn't move the location to the State Street Marshall Field's, er, Macy's, store. I was afraid of that.)

This poor, out of work artist-type guy applies for, wins, trains for, performs, endures and inevitably resigns from the job of helping Santa ask kids what they want for Christmas, and helping Macy's sell photographs of the blessed event to doting and demanding parents (usually the same thing). He cleans, guides, explains, confuses, comments and bemoans. Both to the (unseen) Santaland guests and to the play's audience.

The various Santas and elves who populate "Santaland" (the section of the store, not the play) are a colorful if sketchy lot. Just as we begin to see the broader implications or possible warmheartedness at the core of the story or one of its inhabitants, time passes and we're one or two days closer to Christmas Eve. The whole play clocks in at about an hour and a quarter, give or take, with nice loudspeaker announcements about how many shopping days are left ‘til Christmas providing short pauses between scenes.

To his credit, Fain is very good and surprisingly delightful at creating different "voices," as he quotes from the weird speeches of the parents/shoppers he tells us about. And he wears his elf costume (by Mara Blumenfeld) resignedly if well, as comfortable in it as if it were his own skin (which I guess for four weeks or so it would have been). He inhabits a set (by Joey Wade) consisting of a big Santa throne, an enormous, diagonally-hung candy cane backing piece, a table thing, a crate thing, and not much else. Bring your imagination, I suppose. The lighting by Mike Durst and sound by Joseph Fosco were serviceable, I reckon, except that sometimes the lights dimmed between segments and sometimes they didn't. Makes you wanna go, "Hmmmm."

All of these theater artists come with lengthly, impressive credits, and the opening night audience surely appreciated their efforts. It left me a little cold, I guess, and not in a good way. I wish I knew why. Hmmmm.

Heaven knows I have done my share of gossiping about weird shoppers, exasperated parents, clunky retail theatrics and unbearable co-workers and bosses. If this is your cup of tea (or your cocktail, for that matter), then by all means, indulge here. Satire and irreverent humor clearly have their place, and we all can only take so many twinkling lights and cotton snowmounds and two-day holiday sales. If you have ever worked in any store during December, I'm sure there are things here you can relate to. And yes, I have, and yes, I did.

Maybe I expected more. I don't know. I knew it wasn't Mel Brooks, but then Mel Brooks isn't always Mel Brooks, either. This show is what it is. Either you like it, or you don't. 

If you like David Sedaris, or if you like poking fun at the conventions of a holiday much larger in its cultural footprint than any church could hope or imagine it to be, then "The Santaland Diaries" Chicago is the place for you. Don't bring the children, however, or you will have a lot of explaining to do. Just have a cocktail beforehand, and bring your likeminded friends. This morsel of a play will be the perfect appetizer for a long evening of North Side holiday carousing in some other venue. A lot of Chicagoans have already thought so, and many more will. A joyous holiday season to all. 

Photos of Mitchell J. Fain courtesy Theater Wit. 

"The Santaland Diaries," a solo show retelling David Sedaris's sardonic tale about a struggling young writer who takes a job as a Christmas elf at Macy's in New York, trying to enter into the holiday spirit as he is forced to deal with the humiliation of elf training, abusive customers, and badly cast Santas, runs Thursdays through Sundays until January 3, 2009 at Theatre Building Chicago, 1225 W. Belmont. Tickets at 773-327-5252 and www.theatrebuildingchicago.org; information at 773-506-8150, info@theaterwit.org and www.theaterwit.org.

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