‘Gayest Christmas Pageant Ever!’ may shock thin-skinned crowd
Theatrically speaking, Christmas is all about stock characters that return year after year — there’s the jolly, chubby Santa, the aging greedy miser, the outcast red-nosed reindeer. But a new Christmas production takes these standard players in a whole new direction.
After a successful off-Broadway run, Alternative Theatre Company founder and playwright Joe Marshall’s gay-themed Christmas comedy, “The Gayest Christmas Pageant Ever!” made its West Coast premiere Monday at North Hollywood’s Avery Schreiber Theatre. And it features a veritable parade of stereotypes for the holidays.
“We have lots of different characters,” director Paul Storiale says. “There’s a narcoleptic with Tourette’s, over-the-top gay, over-the-top black, a gay Mexican Jesus. This show is filled with every stereotype; no group goes untouched.”
The show is egalitarian in its aim to offend all classes and creeds — think of it as staged episode of “South Park.” It’s camp with a point.
“Stereotypes are realistic, that’s why they’re called stereotypes,” Storiale says. “It’s hidden by fun, but we’re trying to say something important here. We can make fun of each other, but at the end, let’s love each other.”
The story starts with a struggling LGBT theater company in (where else?) West Hollywood as it prepares for its annual yuletide production. Chaos ensues when the company tries to bypass the resident, flop-prone playwright, whose credits include “Okla-homo” and “The Wizard Is Odd,” in favor of another more prominent writer.
When Plan B backfires — thanks to a mishap with the straight, stoner stage manager — the high-drama theater returns to the original script, a gayed-up parody of the birth of Jesus Christ, and everything that can go wrong indeed does, including lights landing on the playwright’s head and the baby Jesus catching fire.
It’s “The Producers” with a little “I Love Lucy” slapstick, although not for thin-skinned audiences. Expect plenty of racial and homophobic slurs from the stoner’s bigoted mother, and characters playing to type, including a gray-haired, flatulent and nearly deaf rehearsal pianist, a not-so-virginal Jewish prima donnaplaying Mary, and a hetero African American youth whose audition includes a dramatic reading of a Craigslist ad just before he pulls a gun.
“When I read the script, I realized how extremely important it is to do because it’s about racism and homophobia, and how we should love people for who they are,” Storiale says. “I say that this is a show for nonconservative adults because it could be offensive to people, but that’s what it’s about.”
As the title suggests, most of the actors play embellished gay personas: a flouncy costume designer swishing across the stage, a drama queen with the stage name Fromage, and two “Brokeback” shepherds in hot pants.
Things take a turn for the even more exaggerated when a gay Latino Jesus shows up to save the play and mend bigoted ways. “He’s kind of a silly, deviant character, and he brings the chaos and the joy,” says Geo Santini, a music video director who landed his first theater role playing the flamboyant, hair-twirling Messiah. “It’s really in your face — the characters are exocentric and weird. It’s so L.A.”
During the 90-minute-or-so performance, 19 actors — many with stand-up and improv credits — play more than twice as many roles in the 50-seat theater.
“It’s a chaotic mess, a play of over-acting,” says Storiale, who turned to comedy after penning the award-winning “The Columbine Project.” “The [pageant] is so much more fun — you don’t have to make anybody cry.”
Still, the comedy isn’t all camp. One poignant moment is when the theater owner explains to his perky, passive-aggressive stage manager that the reason his plays are “so gay” is that he wants his community on stage alongside other holiday traditions.
“There’s a line in the show, ‘We do gay theater because it’s who and what we are, so we can be seen, heard and represented,’” Storiale says.
His cast agrees.
“The underlying message is one of visibility, and those of us who are gay and lesbian struggle with that,” says Jen McGlone, who butches up the Nativity as a lesbian angel in a bow tie and suspenders. “The hope is that some day [this play] won’t be a big deal because it’s gay. It will just be another Christmas pageant people will want to see because it’s well-written and because it’s funny.”
‘The Gayest Christmas Pageant Ever!’
Where: The Avery Schreiber Theatre, 11050 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood
When: Through Dec. 30; see website for showtimes
Price: $18
Info: (818) 766-9100, https://www.averyschreibertheatre.com
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