Stage Review - Have Yourself a Crazy Little Christmas (Olympia Little Theatre)

Stage Review - Have Yourself a Crazy Little Christmas
Presented By: Olympia Little Theatre - Olympia, WA
Show Run: December 06 - December 22, 2024
Date Reviewed: Friday, December 13, 2024
Run Time: 90 Minutes (including a 20-minute intermission)
Reviewed By: Greg Heilman

We’ve all seen those Christmas movies where everything seems to go wrong, when relatives come from near and far, getting together for a holiday dinner that blows up into a conflagration of jabs, insults, and until then kept under wraps family secrets, or some major announcement is made to the group, causing a cacophony of gasps from the guests. The stress of family members getting together with those they haven’t seen for awhile, and have likely chosen not to for some reason despite being related, most definitely adds angst to an already stressful situation, and even though these cinematic situations are largely exaggerated, the fact that we’ve all experienced holidays, or at least some sort of similar family event, like these surely speaks to their popularity. Another chapter in the Christmases that go wrong saga occurs in the 2013 play from writer Collin Andrulonis, Have Yourself a Crazy Little Christmas, this year’s holiday production from Olympia Little Theatre (OLT), directed by Kelly Toombs, and running on stage through December 22.

In the play, Molly and Grant are hosting Christmas for the first time, a responsibility previously handled by Molly’s parents before the passing of her father during the previous year. As if the stress of hosting isn’t enough, and by hosting that means not just having her mother Evelyn come by along with grandmother Nana Rose, but also Grant’s parents Harvey and Carolyn, the latter who has never really been overly fond of Molly. Add to that a group of annoying teenage carolers showing up at Molly’s door every few minutes raising funds, a dollar per lap around the block, including one who earlier that afternoon got into a skatepark fight with one of Molly’s three children, Jonathan, leaving him with a nice shiner just in time for the family Christmas picture, and it’s even more for Molly to deal with. But wait, there’s more!! A runaway ferret and a surprise guest that throws the whole family reunion into chaos isn’t even the icing on the cake, that involves a turkey and a slingshot, but you have to see it to understand what I’m talking about. This play is extremely funny, it’s crazy, yes, and, though it starts a bit slow, once it gets going, outside of a 20-minute intermission, it doesn’t stop.

In fact, I would like to see Have Yourself a Crazy Little Christmas without that intermission. As I mentioned, it starts a bit slow, though not necessarily in a bad way. Molly, played in this show by Elizette Brown, begins the play by narrating her annual family letter, including a photo of their crazy Christmas, which requires a little more explanation, a flashback, and the play itself. Molly and Grant, the latter played by Curtis Rhyner, are full on in preparation for their guests to arrive. It’s a slow go as they peel the potatoes and otherwise prepare, and as we meet their children, Jonathan (Grayson Lockeby), Heather Jane (Willa Toombs), and Ivy (Isla Miller during last Friday’s performance), but once the guests arrive, the chaos begins to ramp up, and the carolers show up at more inopportune times, the pace of the show speeds up very nicely along with it, this ensemble in fine form delivering the dialogue and physical comedy to drive the humor in the show. But then, it just stops for intermission. Once it picks up again, it takes a few minutes to gain that momentum again, which it does, but ultimately without that break, I can only imagine how much better it would be if it was run straight through. Of course, I understand the need for intermissions, and the benefits they have for theaters but for a show that is just 90 minutes in length, perhaps doing something before the show, like placing carolers in the lobby to entice patrons to arrive early and loiter a bit outside the auditorium might be just as beneficial.

All that said, the production of the show is done very well, especially for the small space that is Olympia Little Theatre. For those who haven’t been to this venue, its auditorium is configured in a thrust, its size somewhere between Taproot in Seattle and Jewel Box in Poulsbo. There’s not a ton of room to work with in the space, but set designers Paul Malmberg and Kelly Toombs make the most of it, presenting a fairly sizeable living area, a stairway that leads to an upstairs landing, and a way to represent the exterior of the home, plus the implied kitchen. At any one time, there could be up to 12 actors on stage, and at no time does the stage feel crowded, despite a sofa, chair, and tables, plus the Christmas tree and stairs. One scene in particular that is both impressively designed and very well performed is the group’s game of hide and seek, in which the adults cover their eyes and count to 100 while the children hide. There’s a bit of choreography in this that director Kelly Toombs has designed nicely in keeping with the humor of the show. Jess Thomas is responsible for lighting and sound, Julie Toombs is the show’s stage manager, and Barb Matthews and Bitsy Bidwell are listed in the program under the category of costume assistance. It’s solid work by this creative team and for a straightforward holiday comedy, it’s the kind of show that you really don’t want them to stand out too much, like a referee in a football game, if you don’t notice him, it means he’s doing a good job.

With any holiday show of this ilk, the more varied, quirky, and outlandish the characters, and their portrayals, the funnier the show and the better it works. Have Yourself a Crazy Little Christmas has no shortage of absurd characters and situations. Couple Molly and Grant are opposites, she is the perfectionist, stressed over making sure this holiday is something her father would have been proud of, and he is a bit on the lazier side, more likely to let things roll off of him. Elizette and Curtis play this pair well, but they’re at their best when tested, when their parents raise the stress level and when surprise guest LeeAnn, played by Tate-Madison Bell, shows up at the behest of Molly’s mother-in-law. I love to watch actors build any kind of emotion on stage, and it’s fun to watch Elizette especially increase her frustration level as the play progresses. Meanwhile, Curtis has mastered the husbandly proverbial face palm, as he ends up being the brunt of a lot of the humor. Speaking of watching someone transform, perhaps the most fun an audience member can have is to watch Nana Rose, played marvelously by Bitsy Bidwell. As she enters, in a wheelchair, she’s silent, largely unresponsive, ostensibly still mourning the death of her son. But when her beverage is switched out with Harvey’s spiked drink, the more she drinks, she begins to morph into something altogether different, and Bitsy is so good at this, she can raise a laugh without uttering a word.

Molly’s mother Evelyn is played very nicely by Najia Haddock, she’s supportive of her daughter, and a good solid character in the play, more grandmotherly than anything if I had to use a word to describe her. On the other side of the marriage is Grant’s parents, Harvey and Carolyn. Harvey is the typical kid-at-heart grandfather, more likely to jump in and play with the children than spend time among the adults. Chuck Meares is hilarious in this role. His Harvey has got a knack for delivering one-liners and jabs at pretty much every other character (mostly toward his wife), and while he seems outlandish, I think what makes him so funny is that most of us actually know someone like Harvey, so when I say that Chuck nails the essence of this character type, I say that from the experience of knowing my own “Harvey”. Carolyn, meanwhile, is extremely vocal with her opinions and judgmental toward everyone, but mostly Molly. I like Jean Kivi-Thomas in this role, she’s snooty and contentious, and there’s always this sense that she is passive-aggressively trying to stir the pot between her son and his wife. These characters are all so different from each other, it makes for an ensemble that contrasts against each other nicely. There are also pleny of good children in the cast, too. Grayson plays son Jonathan very well, and when he meets Liz, LeeAnn’s daughter played by Matilda Schrum, his character is immediately smitten, and I like the interaction between the two. Additionally, Willa and Isla are good as daughters Heather Jane and Ivy. Then there are the carolers. Led by Max, played by Nora Toombs, who is the one responsible for Jonathan’s black eye, the tone deaf singers are played by Miles O’Brien, Isla Grund, Isis Bishop, and Hadley Andrake, which the fact that they can’t carry a tune is funny in itself because I think sometimes for talented actors, including kids, it’s harder to sing off key than it is to sing well. The children all bring a good energy to the show, there’s not a single one that seems to be “along for the ride”.

Have Yourself a Crazy Little Christmas is another in a long line of Christmas gone incredibly wrong stories, a holiday farce, if you will. When one thing piles on top of another, the stress of the holidays builds until it hits a boiling point, and as the tension rises, so does this show. After a slow start, the Olympia Little Theatre production hits its stride and keeps going, despite the challenges of a runaway ferret, a slingshot turkey, and a surprise guest that throws the holiday dinner into utter chaos. Director Kelly Toombs has done a nice job in creating a funny holiday show that gets funnier as it goes on, and will surely make any crazy family gathering you’ve ever had seem sane in comparison.

Have Yourself a Crazy Little Christmas runs on stage at Olympia Little Theatre through December 22. For more information, including ticket availability and sales, visit https://olympialittletheater.org/.

Photo credit: Scott Elgen