Review: SANTALAND DIARIES at Kansas City Repertory Theatre

From Kansas City Repertory Theatre comes "Santaland Diaries," a huge gift to stressed-out Moms and exhausted Dads on the run up to the holiday. This delightful jab at holiday hustle and bustle runs through December 24 on the Copaken Stage downtown in the H&R Block building.

If you feel a need to unload from all the pressure, this is the show for you. Leave the kiddies home, go out for an early meal, and laugh your way through all those "Santa" experiences that typically raise blood pressures behind the forced smiles. Are we having fun yet?

"Santaland Diaries" recounts author David Sedaris' slightly enhanced memory of his first holiday acting job as one of Santa's elves. Three weeks after landing in New York City, a newspaper advertisement caught Sedaris' eye. Macy's Department Store on 34th Street in New York City needs supporting players for the Big Guy at their Herald Square mothership over the holiday.

The 34th Street store is the end point for the annual, high flying, Thanksgiving Morning Parade. You surely know the one - before the big meal, leading into the football game, and connected to the tryptophan - fueled nap in the third quarter.

A little explanation is probably due. "Santaland Diaries" started life as an essay by humorist, actor, and director David Sedaris. In 1992, Sedaris performed the essay on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" morning news program. Two years later, actor and director Joe Mantello adapted the essay into a one-person play.

"Santaland Diaries" recounts the experiences of a newbie elf named Crumpet as he ushers us through interviews, rehearsals, and explains what it is like to be an inhabitant of Santaland from the elf's point of view. Crumpet says all those things you would like to say to the jerky people you bump into during the holidays.

KC Rep Artistic Director Eric Rosen mounted the first Rep production of "Santaland" in 2012 to run concurrently with "Christmas Carol" at the Spencer Theatre on the UMKC campus.

Rosen added a set of holiday music to fill out the short program. The musical additions worked and development continued. Claybourne Elder and Shanna Jones provided the 2012 music. This year, the music has been integrated into the script, Clay Elder has become Crumpet and the comedy monolog has acquired a straight person (Shanna Jones).

The ways these two talented performers play off each other make this enhanced "Diaries" especially worth seeing. Elder (as Crumpet) is appropriately sardonic and showcases a desert dry wit. Jones makes the most of being Crumpet's on-stage foil. She is one of those rare people whose smile lights up the stage. In comedy, timing is everything and having the courage to wait for an audience is a big deal. These guys understand how to work a silent take.

Both performers are really good musicians. They sing and play guitars, ukuleles, drums, a banjo, a violin, a melodica, xylophones, and sundry bells.

Technically, Kansas City Repertory Theatre productions are always superior. The audience enters the theater and spies a huge 12-foot cube - wrapped as a present in the middle of the stage. Smaller packages are scattered strategically.

Jones enters in holiday attire. Elder is in street clothes. He introduces the play and starts to spin his tale. A few minutes in, Jones sings, and Elder disappears behind the set piece.

Magically the package opens and reveals Macy's Santaland inside complete with trees, presents, Santa's throne, a toy train set, and an outlined sleigh with reindeer flying across the underside of the former box lid. Elder reappears from behind Santaland now costumed as Crumpet.

Elder is a big guy, over six foot tall. His reappearance in striped tights, pointed shoes, green elf getup, and high pointed hat takes someone totally at ease with himself to wait for the audience reaction. He is.

"Santaland Diaries" is a fun evening. It does migrate into some rough language a few times, but not excessively so. This may be your last chance to see this enhanced "Santaland Diaries." It is enjoying its fourth and last currently scheduled KC Rep production. I would enjoy seeing it again. Overwhelming audience approval has been known to suggest a scheduling rethink.

"Santaland Diaries" continues performances through Christmas Eve. Tickets are available on the KC Repertory Theatre website www.kcrep.org or by telephone at 816-235-2700.

Photos courtesy of Kansas City Repertory Theater - David Allison

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