The past two years at Actors Guild of Lexington have been full of fresh starts and innovation: a new location, new signs, new equipment, new programming that includes a second-stage series, and especially, new plays.
Artistic director Eric Seale has done a terrific job of giving Central Kentucky audiences fresh material from contemporary playwrights Sarah Ruhl and Conor McPherson. And original work, notably local playwright Margaret C. Price's drama Belle Brezing, has seen its debut at AGL.
But sometimes you just need a tried-and-true hit. Joe Mantello's adaptation of David Sedaris' essay The SantaLand Diaries fits the bill. The one-man, one-act comedy follows one New Yorker's bitingly sarcastic, politically incorrect take on his seasonal job as a department store elf in Macy's SantaLand.
Timothy Hull plays Crumpet, Sedaris' elfin alter ego, who walks the audience through the entire Macy's elf experience with the mix of self-deprecation and keen observation of the more bizarre truths of human nature that is Sedaris' calling card.
Hull's narration captures the laconic wit with ease, but, much like his 2009 performance in the same role, it is during moments of emotional highs and lows, or frankly making fun of people, that his Crumpet is a Christmas star.
From humiliation — what is worse: applying to be an elf, the idea you might not get chosen, or being hired and having to wear tights? — to embracing the absurd nature of the job with comic rebellion (shouting, "You can see Cher!" instead of "Santa"), Hull knows how to milk the material, and the audience.
For instance, when Crumpet puts on his elf costume for the first time, his description of each item draws a chuckle, but his dry delivery of its final item ("joy boots") drives the ridicule home.
It is not all sardonic humor, though. There are a couple of times, most notably toward the end in a scene in which Crumpet is touched by an earnest Santa who really does change families' lives, when Hull allows us to catch a glimpse at what tenderness might lie beneath the character's salty, wry veneer.
Seale, who directs The SantaLand Diaries' and co-directed the 2009 production at the former Portabella's restaurant, has adjusted to the Downtown Arts Center's larger venue. The restaurant had a quaint, inside-Santa's-workshop feel, and Hull had limited space to work, with his audience a mere few feet from him. Now, he has ample space, and the production has to work on a larger scale, which it does with a larger replica of SantaLand, and more technical bells and whistles, including Mike Sullivan's lighting design and Tommy Gatton's sound design.
Another relevant addition to the production is guitar player Jim Gleason, who accompanies Hull's performance, filling the sometimes abrupt transitions with comical musical punctuation.
First read on NPR in 1992 and produced for the stage in 1996, The SantaLand Diaries might not be considered a modern classic, but it is well on its way.
