THEATER REVIEW:Christmastime comedies

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas on theater stages in Costa Mesa. Beyond the traditional double feature at South Coast Repertory, there are home-grown holiday shows blossoming at the Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse and Orange Coast College.

The Christmas show at the playhouse is simply titled “A Christmas Show.” It’s a four-pronged effort (playwright, composer, director and leading actor) by John Blaylock and quite nearly an original, shifting to Costa Mesa after a two-season shakedown cruise in La Habra.

OCC’s marquee — the same every December — reads “An Old Fashioned Christmas Melodrama and Ice Cream Social,” though it’s a different “meller” every year.

This one is set at a country music radio station and is called “The Final Radio Show of Hick Hayseed,” from the pen of the prolific David Scaglione, who also emcees the show. It’s directed by Rick Golson.

The playhouse’s offering is the more intricate and challenging of the two, though the corn grows nearly as high as that of OCC’s knee-slapper. A flimsy premise spawns a plethora of subplots, which somehow coalesce delightfully with some earnest and imaginative interpretations — not the least of which are writer Blaylock’s frequent barbs at the genre itself.

Blaylock earnestly enacts his central character, Peter, who can’t purchase a Christmas tree for his family because he’s not getting his Christmas bonus this year. To make matters worse, the Scroogish employer is Peter’s own father, an avaricious toy store mogul.

Things are set right only after a series of outlandish incidents set to some pleasing holiday music — some of it original — and some enthusiastic performances.

Among the more impressive are Kelli Cass as a beautiful but ditzy wand-wielding fairy, Brian Wessels and Lauren Mitchell as two of Blaylock’s high-voltage children, Vicki Sky as their vacuous mother, Stephen Reifenstein as the crafty children’s store magnate and Chris McCullough, Marc Montminy, Kimberly McCoy and Elizabeth A. Bouton as a quartet of street bums.

Ensemble work is well executed under choreographer Carrie Hacker, though the group vocalizing often fails to achieve clarity (individual mikes would help here, even with the show almost in the audience’s lap).

The Christmas melodrama has long been a staple at Orange Coast College, and longtime staffer David Scaglione manages to create a new one nearly every year. This one borrows its theme from “A Prairie Home Companion” but keeps its roots firmly in yee-haw soil.

Last year’s villain, Dan Barnard, is the good guy this time around, a hillbilly radio host whose program is faced with cancellation because the villain (a rodent-faced James Barrett) has purchased the property. Barrett elicits — and revels in — a cascade of boos and hisses.

There are the obligatory hero (Matt Jensen) and heroine (Erica Matulich) who aren’t required to expend much effort in this one. Ariel Tobias Cohn takes stupidity off the charts as Barrett’s dim henchman, while Steven G. Moe is his opposite number in the hero’s camp as the equally dense stage manager.

Brightening the proceedings considerably are Courtney Chudleigh, Melissa Maurizi and Samantha L. Wellen as program entertainers and Jill Prout as a late arrival who changes the course of the conflict.

The OCC program also includes the traditional Christmas caroling, children’s joke contest and curtain-call visit from Santa Claus. Plus, the college springs for an ice cream treat at intermission.

Both shows wind up this weekend. Call (949) 650-5269 for information on “A Christmas Show” at the Civic Playhouse and (714) 432-5880 for details on the OCC melodrama.