The Santaland Diaries is a hoot because it turns Christmas on its head. It tickles audiences with its real life tales of what America’s biggest retail holiday is like from the inside of Santaland, as told by a temporary elf.
Crumpet the Elf tells all. All photos by Kevin Sprague.
Now Shakespeare & Company in Lenox has staged a bon bon that gives us grownups and older children a story we can savor together,The Santaland Diaries.
Originally written by humorist David Sedaris, it became a sensation when it was first excerpted on NPR in 1992 and has not slowed down since. Broadway director Joe Mantello (Wicked, Take Me Out) adapted Sedaris’ essay for the stage in 1996 as a one-man show. It has proved to be as venerable a tale as Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, which will soon be playing a short distance away at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge this coming weekend. (Preview of that show here.)
Peter Davenport as Crumpet is always in motion. Kevin Sprague Photo.
Director Tony Simotes and actor Peter Davenport have chosen a far more subtle, and I think, successful approach to staging the tale. Gone is the bitter slacker who inhabits some of the other Santalands, and in his place is a cosmopolitan guy with grace and good taste who finds himself with the embarrassing job of playing an elf at Macy’s Santaland in order to survive a bout of unemployment. It is a characterization and concept that is perfect for the times.
It is still about taking a humiliating job. Actor Peter Davenport establishes his character as a charming and thoughtful man, but in short order finds himself dealing with an often despicable public while working in Santa’s world
"This way to the exit!" Peter Davenport tells a Crumpet story. Kevin Sprague photo.
But he is hired, despite a failed drug test and not being a dwarf, applicants who seem to be a high priority. He takes the elf name of Crumpet.
Soon at work he finds himself shifting through a variety of roles there, ultimately attending to the children visiting the various Santas. Even in the face of crying, vomiting and urinating children, the worst of the visitors to this styrofoam world have to be the clueless and insensitive parents. He sometimes takes out his frustrations on the worst of them, many of whom often deserve it.
Assigned to the Santa picture taking station, he hears one mother yell: “Get on Santa’s lap and smile or I’ll give you something to cry about.” He fills out this story slowly, and with a straight face.
The actual Santaland draws tens of thousands.
There are as many Santalands as there are Santas. The play is sometimes performed as a sort of John Waters meets Cher dish session. Wouldn’t sell in the Berkshires. Or an Adam Sandler/Jim Carrey comedy. Better for New Jersey. Shakespeare & Company aimed higher. Its intelligent production could be said to have a Mark Twain meets 60′s television feeling, with maybe a little J.D.Salinger thrown in, especially in the segment that details the rules and regulations for Elves.
When Crumpet talks about the other elves, and the various santas,you realize that the Christmas world has lots of interchangeable pieces. You might enjoy watching this real life clip of actual elves. It is eerily close to Crumpet’s descriptions of Snowball and his many other co-workers.
The set for The Santaland Diaries is gorgeous, the work of Patrick Brennan. In this elegant setting the contrast of amusingly clever costumes by Govane Lohbauer and subtle lighting by Stephen Ball enhance the fun. The production is first class in every respect.
Everything is first class in this production.
One of the reasons is how energetic the play seems to be for what is, in essence, an extended monologue. Simotes keeps Crumpet constantly on the move, an elfish bundle of energy. Davenport strolls, skips, ambles, and walks from stage left to right, sits, stands, sprawls, straddles, squats, crouches, and even speaks some lines with his feet in midair. He pours wine, fiddles with the canapes, fluffs pillows, tunes the radio, and even plays the piano and sings during the course of the 75-minute show. It is quite a stunning performance.
Simotes sums up the meaning of The Santaland Diaries in the program notes. He says that the play asks you to remember the holidays as they really were, not as you dreamed them to be. Simotes accomplishes his goal of making The Santaland Diaries feel like our shared memories of the past while capturing today’s fast, edgy and stressed out 24/7 lifestyle.
You know the saying, when something unexpected happens, and you say “Someday we will laugh about it.” That’s what David Sedaris has done, taken an awful job he had in a rough year of his life, and made it a new, funny and delightful part of Christmas for all of us.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
For more about The Santaland Diaries and Crumpet the Elf, read our interview with Crumpet the Elf as he answers questions about Santa Claus and the other elves.
Shakespeare & Company presents The Santaland Diaries by David Sedaris, adapted by Joe Mantello, Set Designer – Patrick Brennan, Costume Designer – Govane Lohbauer, Lighting Designer – Stephen Ball, Sound Designer – Michael Pfeiffer, Stage Maager – Nicholas C. Bussett, Directed by Tony Simotes. Cast: Peter Davenport – Crumpet the Elf. 75 minutes with no intermission. December3-30, 2010 at the Elayne P.Bernstein Theatre of Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA.
God bless you Tiny Tim.