Deck the MET with cans and corks! Fa-la-la-la-laa! La-la-la-laaa!
Gather round ye hist’ry dorks! Fa-la-la-la-laa! La-la-la-laa!
Don you now your drunk apparel! Fa-la-la-la! La-la-la! La-la-laaaa!
And hear the tale of A Christmas Carol! Fa-la-la-la-laa! La-la-la— hold-up. Nah. That’s not right. Shoot.
Inebriated Holiday. D’oh! That’s the one this one is about! Good grief, how many Three Kings draft beers did I have at Maryland Ensemble Theatre last night!? Not as many as the five golden narrators of this MET-conceived production, that’s for sure! So you’ve heard of Drunk History, right? (No? It’s a TV Series.) Maryland Ensemble Theatre is doing their own spin on that very show…except they’re doing it holiday style! Directed by Laura Stark, with Cinematography & Film Editing of Stephen Craig, this Inebriated Holiday is best enjoyed with a drink or two under your tinsel belt! (And the MET has options in their lobby both before the show and at the intermission.)
Costumes are simple— like holiday rags. Of course that sounds a little Grinchy to say it that way, because we don’t want to disrespect Costume Designer Rachel Smith. But in order for the concept of this show to work, we can’t have the rotating cast of actors bogged down in pounds of tinsel, buckets of snowflakes and glitter, or other more traditional holiday garb. Smith’s design work with the show’s sartorial selection lends itself to “trunk show” vibes. And that’s essentially what’s happening. Over the course of five holiday-themed historical narrations, six actors are racing around on the set like a proper pantomime troupe, playing dozens of characters in quick succession, one on top of the other. You’ve got war hats, Christmas cloaks, historical period gear, and some other stuff— like that cigar that keeps appearing on James McGarvey (but that begs the age-old question of… “Costume or Prop?” shout-out to Lori Boyd, the Properties Master, if it’s technically a prop.) At any rate— where was I? Holiday Trunk Show! Right. Rachel Smith serving up all the laughs with her seasonal threads giving you just enough of an allusion of a quick-change character, which keeps the pacing of this show on a roll! Sadly, there are no buttered rolls in the lobby. Beer makes you hungry. Moving on!
The set— that pretty, pretty playground that those six actors are flying all around, like they’re the eight-sleigh-pulling reindeer (who actually only ever get mentioned in the ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ segment, very, very briefly), but these actors are flying and zipping and zooming— almost farce style through the two doors on this cheery, festively festooned set. Scenic Designer David DiFalco, working in tandem with Sound & Projection Designer Shayden Jamison and Lighting Designer Reed Simiele, creates this beautiful set that looks like any street with houses and snowy front stoops all decked out for Christmas. Jamison pipes in all the ‘extras.’ And by extras I mean some visual shenanigans on screens (that look like windows) on either side of the back of the stage. And these screen-window-screen spaces are also where the five golden narrators’ videos get streamed before each story-segment. Simiele and Jamison work together well for a lot of the callback-joke comedy. Particularly during the first story where the “hole count” is high and there’s some shenanigans with “dead bodies” you get to see Jamison and Simiele’s expertise come into play.
Director Laura Stark has a fine vision for this production. With the exception of the first story in the block of five, all of them felt really fitting and wildly entertaining. And it isn’t that “The World War I Christmas Truce” isn’t a decent story, but it just felt indescribably ‘off’ in comparison to the other four tales. The narrator for this tale, Mike Simmons either misunderstood the assignment and didn’t get drunk enough to add the inebriated hilarity that the other four stories had, or his brand of sloshed is just milder than the other four. The tale read a bit like a straight-forward history lesson and while the actors and production worked triple-time to add hilarity to it (the black-gaff-tape finger-band Hitler-esque mustache, all of sky-salutes and the dummy doll getting thrown around every time Simmons said ‘dead bodies’, etc.) this particular tale just felt like somewhat of a rough-and-dry start for a drunk evening of shenanigans. But by the time the six actors launched into the remaining four tales, the pacing was whip-quick, the narrators were drowning in drink, and the stories rode off the rails the way Santa rides off into the night sky in Christmas Eve.
The second tale of the evening— Krampus as told by Tiffany Ahalt— really gave the Six-Shiny-Actors (Sonny Etzler, Lauren Johnson, James McGarvey, Courtney M. McLaughlin, Thomas Michael Scholtes, Mallorie Stern) to settle into the high-octane miming. These actors are essentially a shadow-cast for an unseen film (though you hear the narrator perfectly the whole time) and they are wild! Their lip-syncing abilities is spot-on, and the panicked facial expressions they make when scenes start to run aground or go awry are priceless comic gold. Courtney M. McLaughlin embodies the Krampus itself, making hilarious facial expressions whenever Krampus has to ‘goat’ (which is a lot. There’s also a lot to be said for the way McLaughlin slinks around the stage as Krampus…there’s something enchanting and yet slightly villainous about this style of movement; it’s fascinating!
You really get into the nitty-gritty-drunken-history-dirt when Lisa Burl ‘Ives’ the third-French-hen of Narrators decides to set her sights on Frosty the Snowman Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. She’s the appropriate level of ‘drunk’ for this narrative, which adds a lot of ‘mature’ language to a time in history (1939) that wasn’t necessarily known for such colorful language. She’s a scream as she curse-flips her way through this narrative. And so too are the players. You get the intensively animated Mallorie Stern as Robert L. May, the Jewish copy-editor working for Montgomery Ward who ends up inventing the shiny-nosed reindeer. Between her expressive eyes and her wild, engaging body language, which you get to see in every one of the characters she plays throughout the evening, you find yourself hilariously invested in this inebriated-recounting of “Rudolph.” You also get to see James McGarvey quacking around like a big Montgomery Ward executive, cigar in mouth and it’s hysterical. And let’s not forget Sonny Etzler who cameos in this as Chief Executive Crayon Head at Crayola and later as the infamous singing cowboy, Gene Autry. Then comes intermission.
The back half of the performance is sloshed! And I’m here for it. Err— I was there for it! You should be there for it! You get Matt J. Bannister and Shea-Mikal Green dueling fiercely for “who’s drunker” when it comes to taking their narrative turns. And it’s basically a dead-heat through to the end of the performance. They can share the title of “Most Inebriated Holiday Narrator.” Bannister takes up the mantle— well the story, he’s probably too drunk to lift a mantle. Or wear one. Or whatever it is you do with mantles. But he gives us his very British (and yes, he’s actually British) retelling of Scrooge McDuck as Ebenezer Scrooge Charles Dickens and how he and the iconic A Christmas Carol came to be. (Shameless show-plug— MET has A Christmas Carol for all ages happening 12/-15 to 12/17 right across the street at The Weinberg Center!) Aside from all the excellent drunken antics provided by Bannister, including his Scrooge McDuck moment, you get to see Lauren Johnson shine as the man himself, Charles Dickens. There’s a whole lot of hilarity and nonsense in this story and it’s a close-race for which one was more my favorite— Dickens or St. Nic.
Shea-Mikal Green, who might be nudging ahead of Bannister by a very red nose when it comes to “Inebriated Holiday Champion” gets the divine pleasure of telling us “Santa Claus: Origin Story” or “St. Nicolas, The Culturally Appropriated.” Green’s narration goes so far off the rails she’s no longer in the North Pole…. she’s in Antarctica. Literally! And this narrative gets poor James McGarvey as Americanized Santa, with Courtney M. McLaughlin as Nicolas pre-and-post sainthood, Sonny Etzler as some sort of Pope and an eldest daughter in a Dickensian sleeping gown and cap, with Thomas Michael Scholtes doing his best to be the Papa in that family, and the two zany gals— Stern and Johnson— as daughters and then elves. Green’s narration is so all over the place that she keeps mis-naming characters, bursting into uncontrollable giggles and just gibbering nonsense. But what’s truly brilliant about that is the way these six actors respond to that— particularly McGarvey and Stern and Johnson. The way they finesse these moments to appear organically unhinged is comedy at its finest. The panic in their eyes, the chaos in their lip-synchs, the overall responses as if they’re experiencing this nonsense for the first time in live-time— it’s truly brilliant and a perfect way to close out the show. Well, that and the insanely whack dance that the company does in lieu of/as part of their bows-n-curtain-call.
Ho-ho-ho! Who wouldn’t go? Ho-ho-ho-YOU BETTER GO! It’s hilarious, if a bit dry and clunky at the top of the show. Get yourself some booze and tune in to this wild ride of a Christmas-History-Living-Stage-Monster-Creation of hilarious goodness. Every adult’s perfect holiday gift is getting to relax, unwind, and listen to drunk people tell holiday history while a talented cast of pantomime actors acts it out in live time. MET’s got you covered!
Running Time: Approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes with one intermission
Inebriated Holiday plays through December 23rd 2023 on the Main Stage of the Maryland Ensemble Theatre in the Historic FSK Hotel building— 31 W. Patrick street in downtown historic Frederick, MD. For tickets call the box office at (301) 694-4744 or purchase them online.
