Stage Review - Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (Erik Furuheim / Bainbridge Performing Arts)
Stage Review - Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
Presented By: Erik Furuheim / Bainbridge Performing Arts - Bainbridge Island, WA
Show Run: December 17 (One Night Only)
Date Reviewed: Monday, December 16, 2024 (Preview Night)
Run Time: 90 Minutes (plus a 15-minute intermission)
Reviewed By: Greg Heilman
Sometimes we just need to laugh. We’ve all heard that it’s the best medicine, or one of the other pick your own clichés. My favorite is that laughter is a straw for the drowning man, and it kind of feels like we’re all drowning a bit these days. With an uncertain future politically in the country, along with a society that is divided as ever, we sure could use some laughter, and when we add to all of that the stress of the holidays, I’d say we’re all at least a little bit underwater. When things get overwhelming, we turn to the arts for our escape, we look to the standard faire of holiday plays to rekindle our senses of hope, forgiveness, community, and love, but sometimes, again, we just want to laugh. And that’s just what Erik Furuheim has been helping people do at this time of year since 2006, when he, and partners Brian Newell and Nick McGee, adapted the 1964 science fiction comedy Santa Claus Conquers the Martians into a stage play that they have been running on stage in Fullerton, CA every year since then. Brian and Nick are the writers behind the adaptation, while Erik was involved with the original scenic design, and the group has been playing to sellout crowds every Christmas season. Over the past few years, Erik has become well known in these parts for his scenic designs and set work, and most recently has found a new home with Bainbridge Performing Arts, having designed for many of their latest productions, including last year’s The Book of Will and Cabaret, both nominated for Sound on Stage awards. When he approached the BPA leadership earlier this season with the idea of bringing Santa Claus Conquers the Martians to Bainbridge Island for the 2024 holiday season, they agreed that he could, but, as the story goes, he would be allowed nothing more than a table read for this first year, but if anyone knows Erik, they’ll know that he sets the bar pretty high for himself, so for the one night at BPA that Erik was scheduled to run “Santa Claus” in the Cynthia Sears Studio, of course he built a set, not a complete set, something sort of cobbled together, but given the plot and tone of the show, and the B-movie on which it is based, I can think of no better way for Erik to have designed this piece. This production, which Erik directed, ran on stage at the Cynthia Sears Studio at Bainbridge Performing Arts on Tuesday, December 17 to a sold out audience. Hopefully, the success of this year’s production will see the show coming back next year for a longer run in the area so more people can have the opportunity to experience it.
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is exactly what you might think it is, the typical 1960s B-movie that you might see on reruns on a Saturday afternoon, or on Mystery Science 3000. In fact, watching the play version of the story is like watching Mystery Science Theatre live on stage. The show is irreverent, campy, goofy, fourth wall breaking fun that is so downright hilarious in its ridiculousness and even funnier in its performance that it is horribly excellent. In the story, Martian children have been getting increasingly disenchanted with the planet’s rigid ways, especially after seeing an interview on Earth TV with Santa Claus, when they begin thinking that perhaps there are other ways to live, ways with more freedom and more individuality. Upon seeking the centuries old sage, the Yoda-like Chochem, who suggests that Mars needs a Santa-like figure themselves to address the issue with the children, the planet’s leaders decide that kidnapping Earth’s Santa Claus is the best way to solve the problem. Martian leader Kimar leads a delegation that consists of his number 2, Voldar, navigator/pilot Rigna, and robot Tory, and since they can’t tell the real Santa from all of the mall and sidewalk Santas, they decide to kidnap children Billy and Betty Foster to help lead them to the real Claus. Meanwhile, Voldar is against the plan and tries to stop Kimar at every turn. There’s not a lot of substance to the plot, but these types of stories are like that, the humor is really in the campiness of it all, and while that alone would be funny and make this production work, the performance is what takes it over the top and makes this one of the most unique and memorable holiday shows of this season.
All of that comes down to the show’s informality, and while it may be something that Erik and his production team stumbled into, it’s something that makes the show exponentially more funny and truly enjoyable than it would have been otherwise. The cast, only having had a few rehearsals, and limited time in the Cynthia Sears Studio space, along with having just been given new blocking directions earlier in the day of the preview performance I attended, wasn’t nearly as prepared as they would have been under a normal show preparation schedule, and here that is a good thing. Each actor carrying a small deck of index cards with their lines, the funniest scenes were when they either read off of them, or they missed a line and one of the other actors stepped in to prompt their cast-mate, but completely in character and totally within the tone of the show. The play doesn’t take itself seriously, and neither does the cast, they lean into the informality of their performance and do so completely, taking advantage of every foible, missed line, prop fail, and stumble to garner as squeeze as many laughs out of them as they can. The question I have is around the sustainability of this, if it were to have a longer run, which is the goal for Erik and his team down the line. The more that the cast gets familiar with the lines in the play, the less missteps that there will be, and the more that they’ll have to create those moments on their own. Though to watch the cast that Erik put together for this short one-night only run, it’s clear that Santa Claus Conquers the Martians isn’t just a fun play for the audience, but it is for the actors as well, and I think that has to be a prerequisite for casting, making sure those that are chosen to be in the show understand the assignment and aren’t the kind of actors that take themselves too seriously.
This specific cast most definitely understands the assignment, and the fun that it was clear they have on stage is contagious, spreading to the audience. Actors know when they miss a line, or a cue, or if something falls off the wall when it shouldn’t, and create an atmosphere where the audience feels free to laugh at them, or at the set, even though it isn’t purposeful, and yet they know the laughter isn’t personal, in fact the actors barely kept themselves from breaking at various times during the preview. More than anything, though, and regardless of whether they had to access the cards with their lines on them or not, what this group of actors show is their agility and their ability to roll with anything that they are faced with, and it takes a special kind of talent to do that, especially when they haven’t had a lot of time to prepare. Each member of the cast brings a little something different to the collective, Shawn Bettinger as Martian leader Kimar is more of the straight, though his knack for over dramatization in a Captain Kirk kind of way is humorous in its own way, while Guthrie Bettinger as his #2, Voldar, also the one who fights Kimar’s plans, is responsible for most of the fourth wall breaking, the lion’s share of the ad libs, and a ton of the humor, through his character’s one liners. Speaking of ad libs, what I love about this play, and this production specifically, is how Erik and this group adapted the adaptation, meaning that they took the 2006 piece that Brian and Nick put together from the 1964 film and added some wonderfully funny and timely pop culture and political references. Case in point, it’s pretty funny to hear Martians make an Elon Musk reference, or to hear them talk about Covid. Savana Masako Dry is the other crew member on the mission to kidnap Santa, Rigna. Rigna is enthusiastic, and I like the way that Savana plays her. With these three, there is not just the dialogue that is funny, but there’s a physical aspect to the humor as well, and Shawn, Guthrie, and Savana are very good together in its delivery. The group, as I mentioned, don’t just kidnap Santa Claus, since they can’t figure out which of all the Earth Santa Clauses was the real one, but the two children as well, Billy and Betty Foster, played by Peter Knickerbocker and Sydney Swalberg. Consider that this is a pair of adults playing children in a play that is out of this world in more ways than one, and you shouldn’t be surprised to hear how funny they are, Sydney especially as Betty, who also recently played Sally in Urinetown at BPA, a similar character, though Betty could be looked at as “Sally on Steroids”, complete with enough spit in her delivery to make Daffy Duck or Sylvester the Cat jealous. Santa Claus is played by Zack Fowler, and is what you’d hope to see out of a Santa. His character is larger than life, always positive, and puts has a children first philosophy. Zack is a very good Santa, and never seems to be fazed by any of the Martian shenanigans that he’s a party to.
The supporting cast is full of good performances, all extremely funny in their own right, regardless of how much stage time they have. Doug Mackey is Winkey, Santa’s helper, Michele Bettinger is Mrs. Claus, Christine Dove plays Andy, Lindsay Hovey is Lady Momar, Tawnie Fransen plays Girmar, Stan Morrow is the robot Tory, Juliette Dove is Baby Tory, Alan Plaster is listed as the “Psssst Door”, and Jessica Robins is Chochem, the wise old sage. If you’re wondering about the “Psssst Door”, think of the sound the doors make when the open on Star Trek, there’s a cast member here in charge of the door, but it only opens it when one of the characters makes that sound. Erik has his set designed in traverse, meaning that, like a runway, audience seats flank a pathway through the middle of the studio space. At one end is the area that is Santa’s workshop, or the bridge of the Martian ship, while the other end has the “Pssst Door”, above which sits a television monitor, where Earth videos are projected for the Martians to watch. When someone enters or exits the ship, they use the door, and Alan is responsible for opening and closing, and sometimes it works well, and sometimes it doesn’t, and sometimes actors fit through, and sometimes they don’t, and when it doesn’t work perfectly, the cast uses that as another opportunity for humor. For Tory, the robot, Stan’s costume is the stereotypical 1960s robot costume, boxy and bright silver. The most impressive part of the costume is the sound of servo motors when Tory walks, marking an example of yet another level of detail that Erik’s become known for.
The whole cast and creative team of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians brings something that was supposed to be nothing more than a table read together into a production that isn’t far off from being a play that could be put on any small venue stage in the region, with just a few tweaks here and there. Dawn Janow’s costumes, especially the Martian uniforms, are wonderful, and the work that Eli Backer has done with lights and Brian Newell with sound aren’t perfect, but nothing here is, and given the time of preparation, it’s as perfect as it can be. Further, the imperfections are areas for this cast to extort humor, as they exert their ad lib, improv, and comedy chops.
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians isn’t the kind of holiday show that will rekindle your Christmas spirit, or make you rediscover your sense of hope, community, love, and forgiveness. There are plenty of other shows out there for that. What Santa Claus Conquers the Martians will do is make you laugh, laugh hard, and laugh a lot. It’s a cheesy, campy, irreverent, science fiction comedy that is like watching a B-movie on stage with all of its flaws and is presented by a cast that has such a quality about them as to not take the play nor themselves seriously at all, and to deliver a production that can only be described as perfectly imperfect.
Erik Furuheim’s production of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians has closed its one and only performance for 2024, but if your theatre is interested in including this production in its schedule next holiday season, reach out to Erik at Efuruheim@gmail.com.
Photo credit: Erik Furuheim
