Theater Review - Blue Christmas

PushPush Theater’s company-created comedy Expecting Carol portrays a playhouse that pushes the motto “The show must go on” past the limits of reason to stage A Christmas Carol. If this be madness, there be method acting in it.

Cash-strapped Alchemy Theatre plans to proceed with its Christmas Eve version of the Dickens play, despite the absence of most of the cast due to vacations and mishaps. The few remaining players include recently divorced leading man P. Thomas (John Benzinger), overly “edgy” director B.J. (Daniel Pettrow) and an assistant stage manager looking for his big break as an actor (Randy Havens).

Actorly neuroses usually prove good for a few yucks, and the play features some amusingly absurd warm-up exercises and backstage rivalries. Yet Expecting Carol frequently falls flat when it sticks to traditional comic situations. The characters with all the put-downs — Claire Brown’s crabby, pregnant stage manager; Isma’il ibn Conner’s catty master thespian — prove the least humorous. Their rhythms are so forced, their patter barely registers as humor.

Instead, the artistic camaraderie of P. Thomas and B.J., two vainglorious artistes, finds laughs while revealing insights into the paradoxes of theater people. In the name of making bold artistic choices, they can embrace the dumbest ideas and worst stereotypes imaginable: P. Thomas improvises a Jewish Scrooge with a delivery that’s part Woody Allen, part Mike Myers’ Linda Richman. “You may be an undigested blot of brisket,” he kvetches to a ghost. Yet they can be hypersensitive to causing offense. In the name of political correctness, B.J. makes the last-minute decision to present a nondenominational version of A Christmas Carol by taking out all the references to “Christmas.”

Benzinger hungrily bites into P. Thomas’ hamminess, intoning “Bah, humbug!” like he’s Long John Silver and finding excuses to work experimental dance into the play. Pettrow gives B.J. a hilarious combination of creative zeal and maddening smugness — like someone who’d smile while driving off a cliff. Their portrayals of theatrical pretension make the PushPush production ring with self-deprecating wit that’s truthful enough to be funny, and funny enough to be true.Execting Carol plays through Dec. 31 at PushPush Theater, 121 New St., Decatur. Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m. $10-$16. 404-377-6332. www.pushpushtheater.com.