The Santaland Diaries: Laboratory Theatre frolics in cheery holiday hell

Forward Theater Company, The Bricks Theatre, and Out!Cast Theatre have all been welcome shots in the arm for a stage scene that’s had its share of bad news in 2009. Thankfully, you can now you can add another checkmark in the “good things are happening around here” column. Laboratory Theatre is the newest new kid on the block, and it’ll launch its first public show at the Bartell Theatre on Nov. 27. The Santaland Diaries fits with Laboratory’s mission to produce oft-performed plays with fresh and accessible takes; ever since David Sedaris first read his essay (the basis for the play) on NPR in 1992, it’s been a ubiquitous foil to all the egg nog and good cheer. The A.V. Club talked with Laboratory’s artistic director Michele Good to find out how it plans to liven up this holiday staple.

Imitation isn’t always the best form of flattery
You’d have to be a black-hearted philistine not to love David Sedaris, but Good says one of the keys to pulling off a successful Santaland production is to diverge not only from the source material, but the source himself. “If you were to try to imitate Sedaris," Good says, "it’d be the most boring play ever.” Sedaris’ gifts of deadpan prose and understated delivery don’t translate particularly well to the stage. In the Laboratory production, Sedaris’ character is played by Peter Hunt, and Good says his performance hinges on the ability to suss out implicit stage direction from the original work, while punching up the controlled wit and sarcasm.

Then again, sometimes imitation is fine
A few of Santaland’s sections were excised to make it fit for broadcast on NPR (bloody tights, Snowball the elf, etc.). Those gems returned in Joe Montello’s one-man adaptation, which Laboratory fleshes out here with a few minimal supporting characters. Good decided to take them back out to preserve Laboratory’s family-friendliness. “We started with the one-man show as base, went back to NPR to see how it should flow, and added in some musical numbers to fill in the lost time.”

’Tis the season for singing and dancing reindeer
If you’re going to add some music, you'd might as well add the shit out some music. Laboratory’s Santaland has six musical numbers, and they’re not of the restrained, carol-based variety. Because the play is more or less a backward salute to the season, Good decided to go way over the top with go-go dancing reindeer and xylophone-heavy, ’60s-inspired arrangements. “I’m trying to play on the irony in the piece itself,” she says.

You buy a ticket, you’re in the show
In another attempt to mine the between-the-lines mayhem that seeps into the original piece, Laboratory’s show will lean hard on involving the audience. Characters walk through the audience handing out flyers, “shoppers” mingle in the aisles, and there will even be cocktail-table seating in front of the traditional seating area that will become part of the production. “The cast members mingle with the audience, but they don’t molest them,” Good says.