The Dueling Critics’ guide to holiday theater: Tinsel and treacle triumph!
By Kelly Kleiman

The Dueling Critics’ guide to holiday theater: Tinsel and treacle triumph!
By Kelly KleimanThere are so many holiday shows that if we, the Dueling Critics, didn’t restrict ourselves in some way we’d be here til Easter. So each of us offers a list of the top shows that are worth your time (or at least not too agonizing to sit through) for the holidays. The Ghost of Christmas Present will be played by Kelly Kleiman; the role of Scrooge will be played by Jonathan Abarbanel.
THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PRESENT SAYS:

Enough deference. Now we can get on with the season’s favorite sport, which is making fun of the season. The Building Stage reaches right back to the source with its Charles Dickens Begrudgingly Performs ‘A Christmas Carol’ Again, with artistic director Blake Montgomery as the exhausted and aggravated prisoner of his own success. If the troupe could conquer Moby-Dick—and it did—surely it can manage Dickens. December 1 through 24th at 412 North Carpenter in the West Loop; tickets are $22, $12 for children and students.
It’s a good idea to check out another one-man show when the man in question is Steve Pickering, former artistic director of Next Theatre and directing-designing-writing-performing polymath. This time around he’s producing and performing St. Nicholas, Conor McPherson‘s 1997 mashup of Christmas and vampires. As anyone who’s seen The Weir or Dublin Carol or The Seafarer can tell you, McPherson is a prodigiously talented contemporary Irish writer; and in Pickering he’s met his match. See the show at the Irish-American Heritage Center, 4626 N. Knox; its run will benefit Seanachai Theatre and Pickering’s Shanghai Low Theatricals. St. Nicholas runs Thursdays-Sundays December 1-18; tickets are $20.

And finally, if Xmas in the city is starting to get you down, blow town for Spring Green, Wisconsin, beginning this weekend (November 20) to see American Players Theatre’s original musical The Gift of the Magi. (Indoors, of course, at the new Touchstone Theatre.) Tickets: $36. A weekend near Taliesin: priceless.
SCROOGE SAYS: Me as Scrooge? Why, don’t be silly. Why would I want to be redeemed when I’m perfect the way I am? Besides, the Ghost of Xmas Yet to Come is scarier and more threatening, so I’ll take that one. Of course, I DO refer to this as the “sugarplums-and-treacle time of year” when it comes to theater, so perhaps there’s a tiny bit of Scrooge in me after all.

Then, in the spirit of dysfunctional families in which everyone really hates the idea of spending Xmas with all the others, I offer Season’s Greetings at Northlight Theatre. Since this is a farce written by Sir Alan Ayckbourn, you know that whatever might possibly go wrong does. The plot entails mistaken identity, under-the-tree promiscuity, a dreadful puppet show, an incompetent doctor (just imagine) and a senile retired security guard, all of which should be enough to cook your Xmas goose and curb your holiday enthusiasm. Director BJ Jones has put together a first-rate cast of Chicago veteran performers. Season’s Greetings continues at Northlight, 9501 Skokie Blvd. in Skokie, through Dec. 18.

Next, in the spirit of elves and reindeer, there are the two monologue shows which have been offered every year since Time Immemorial (or so it seems): The Santaland Diaries at Theater Wit and The Eight: Reindeer Monologues also at Theater Wit (but presented by Stage Left Theatre Company). The Santaland Diaries are the account by David Sedaris of his days as a department store Xmas elf, and acerbic and jaundiced are only the first words that come to mind. Once again, Mitchell Fain is the Master Elf in this solo show, running through Dec. 31. Jeff Goode’s Eight Reindeer Monologues is a tale of bestiality and sexual harassment at the North Pole (something about Santa and a reindeer), and each of his eight tiny reindeer gets to speak his/her piece. Also through Dec. 31 (most performances at 10:30PM, when kids are asleep!).
Finally, in the spirit of, well, A Christmas Carol, we note that there are several alternative versions of the perennial holiday favorite, among them A Klingon Christmas Carol, performed entirely in Klingon (with projected English titles) by Commedia Beauregard at the Greenhouse Theatre Center, 2257 N. Lincoln, through Dec. 31; and A Christmas Carol: the Silent Bah-Humbug, a wordless adaptation of the tale as performed by the physical artists of the Silent Theatre Company through Dec. 30 at the arts center of St. Paul’s Church, 2215 W. North Avenue.