SEATTLE — As the holiday season looms, and Seattle’s rainy autumn darkens into winter, the general mood in this decidedly Blue city needs some pick-me-up.
Local theaters are eager to provide it, while capitalizing on the unflagging interest in old chestnuts, and devising new offerings that may make us merry.
Jeeves and Wooster Deck the Halls
One of the more enticing options for me is Happy Christmas, Jeeves, based on the P.G. Wodehouse stories about upper class nitwit Bertie Wooster and his supremely versatile manservant Jeeves. Both sharp and sprightly, these tales have amused readers for several generations.
Heidi McElrath and Nathan Kessler-Jeffrey, who wrote this new riff on Wodehouse’s characters, have mined a Yuletide show from the author’s substantial canon.
And Taproot is the likely place to premiere the piece. In addition to spiffy, small-stage professional mountings of classics by other British authors (Shaw, Wilde, Wells) and speculative sequels to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (two Christmas baubles inspired by that novel), Taproot has also staged Margaret Raether’s Wodehouse spin-offs Jeeves in Bloom and Jeeves Intervenes; and just last year, Taproot offered a dandy version of her Jeeves and Wooster Take a Bow.
With many opportunities for slapstick, their wickedly funny sendup of the English idle rich, and outlandish farce plots, these tales are ripe for the stage. (They also generated a terrific 1990s British TV series, Jeeves and Wooster, starring Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry.)
Sponsor
In Merry Christmas, Jeeves, a quiet Christmas at home goes pear-shaped when Bertie’s posh London flat is invaded by two unwelcome guests: a hapless friend, and the overbearing Aunt Agatha. Hopefully, hilarity ensues.
Taproot has wisely tapped a duo of agile farceurs to reprise their roles from Jeeves Takes a Bow for this outing: Calder Shilling will again appear as a clueless, pratfalling Bertie, and Richard Sloniker reprises his turn as the cool-headed valet who rescues his master from many spots of bother.
Wodehouse, by the way, is a fascinating figure. He was highly prolific: In addition to 100 novels (11 about Jeeves and Bertie), he dashed off 18 musical comedies. And during his 1920 heyday he was celebrated as one of Britain’s most popular wits.
But Wodehouse tumbled out of favor in World War II. While living in France in 1940 he was arrested by the Nazis, sent to several internment camps, then released. In 1941 he was put up in a luxury Berlin hotel, and made six broadcasts on German radio. Though they were humorously anecdotal and nonpolitical, many in England (which was bombarded by the Blitz) were shocked and angry, considering Wodehouse’s actions at best “a grave moral mistake,” according to one of his biographers, and by many of his countrymen a betrayal or even treasonous. After the war, no longer feeling welcome in England, the writer emigrated to the U.S.
“Of course, I ought to have had the sense to see that it was a loony thing to do to use the German radio for even the most harmless stuff,” he wrote later, “but I didn’t. I suppose prison life saps the intellect.”
By 1975 the controversy had abated, and he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth for his contributions to English letters. But Wodehouse never returned to the homeland he spent his career writing about.
“Happy Christmas, Jeeves” debuts at Taproot Theatre, Seattle from Nov. 27-Dec. 28; www.taproottheatre.org
Sponsor
John Waters Returns
What would Wodehouse, I wonder, make of the filmmaker-writer-actor and cheerfully transgressive bon vivant John Waters?
Like a favorite eccentric gay uncle, Waters spreads a special kind of ribald cheer in his one-man holiday shows. His patter is campy and sincere, genial and at times, as he puts it, “filthy,” so not for the kiddies. And during a show you might hear a number or two from his compilation album of favorite Christmas songs – such as Tiny Tim’s version of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”
This winter Waters, now well into his 70s and mischievous as ever, tours his act A John Waters Christmas to both Seattle and Portland, where it’s safe to say he has plenty of fans.
“A John Waters Christmas” comes to Seattle’s Neptune Theatre, Dec. 3 and 4; stgpresents.org. It moves on to the Aladdin Theatre in Portland, Dec. 5-6; www.aladdin-theater.com
A “Carol” for the Times
If you love A Christmas Carol, you generally have your pick from numerous Seattle stagings/reworkings of the Charles Dickens evergreen. The most traditional and reliable tends to be ACT Theatre’s decorous annual version, which holds forth at ACT from Nov. 29-Dec. 27 (www.acttheatre.org; in Portland, Portland Playhouse continues its traditional A Christmas Carol Nov. 26-Dec. 29).
Given the differing directors and casts, there is usually some tweaking of this in-the-round, family-friendly, Victorian-placed adaptation. But it is essentially the most polished traditional version of the work in town, one that has been an ACT staple for 49 seasons.
***
Sponsor
A fine Christmas Carol alternative (or supplement) for those seeking one is Fellow Passengers. In Greg Carter’s staging for Strawberry Theatre Workshop, a trio of adept Seattle actors portray most of the characters (from Tiny Tim to the ghost of Jacob Marley) in the novella, and speak much of Dickens’ original prose.
With stripped-down, concentrated theater techniques, they convey more of the author’s original intent – which was to wake up his fellow citizens to a society that neglects the needs of its workforce, its poor, its infirm, and to suggest the worst offenders (as per the money-grubbing Marley) will go straight to Hell after meeting their end.
The title of the Strawberry Theatre Workshop revival comes from a passage in the book: Dickens posits Christmas as “… a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”
The Christian overtones in the story are unmissable, but they are not literal. What Dickens wanted, and vigorously promoted on and off stage, was a more just and charitable society – rather than a vicious one that handsomely rewards the rich at the expense of the masses. Parallels to our current situation are not explicitly drawn in Fellow Passengers, but inevitable …
Runs Dec. 5-23 at 12th Avenue Arts, Seattle; www.strawshop.org
Langston Hughes’ Joy to the World
For a rousing demonstration of community goodwill and solidarity, you can check out the recently revived and “refurbished” musical Black Nativity. Based on the Langston Hughes adaptation of the New Testament account of Christ’s birth, with a Black spin, the Intiman Theatre and Loraine Hansberry Project’s mounting of the upbeat show features a 30-member cast, a sing-along with live gospel choir renditions of Christmas carols, vibrant costumes, dance, and spirited, interactive preaching and teaching.
Dec. 4-29 at Broadway Performance Hall, Seattle, www.intiman.org; in Portland, PassinArt: A Theatre Company continues its tradition of performing “Black Nativity” Nov. 29-Dec. 15.
Sponsor
Spirit, No Xmas
If you seek upbeat fare that has nothing to do with the winter holidays, consider the Mary Poppins musical at 5th Avenue Theatre (Nov. 22-Dec. 26, www.5thavenue.org); and Seattle Rep’s rare Seattle mainstage production of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, the breezy, debonair romp about a current wife and a ghost of a former wife battling it out (with the help of a so-called psychic) for the affections of their very flustered husband. (Nov.29-Dec. 22; www.seattlerep.org)
Misha Berson, Seattle-based writer and teacher, was the head theater critic for The Seattle Times from 1991-2016. She is the former theater critic for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and has contributed to American Theatre, Los Angeles Times, Oregon ArtsWatch, Crosscut.com and Salon.com, among other outlets. She is the author of three books, including Something’s Coming, Something Good: West Side Story and the American Imagination (Applause/Hal Leonard Books). She was chair of the jury for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Drama, and has been a Pulitzer drama juror three additional times. She has taught at several universities, including Seattle University and University of Washington.
