Barenaked Lads Save Christmas

Book by Andy Eninger

Music & Lyrics by Michael Mahler

Bailiwick Reperatory   

http://www.bailiwick.org

 

P.T. Barnum’s infamous quote “You gotta have a gimmick” is alive-and-well in today’s theater, especially prevalent in those works with mass appeal that, in Chicago anyway, seem to last forever.  We are treated to being a member of a wedding party for an ultra-dysfunctional Italian family - Tony & Tina’s Wedding , three blue-colored mimes using common day household products in whacky ways - Blue Man Group, and thirty plays in sixty minutes - Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind.

 

Though based on a gimmick, this does not mean that these productions are bad.  They are often well-worth their long-runs, if not for their artistic value, then for their fun-factor.  A general theme of most of these shows is that they end up being more of an “experience”, relying on the audience interaction or outlandish settings rather than artistic content.  A good comparison can be found in restaurants that are successful more for their experience (i.e., spectacle) rather than their cuisine: “Chucky Cheese” (games to pre-occupy kids), “Rainforest Café” (obvious), “Billy Goat Tavern (cheezebugger-cheezebugger, , no Coke, Pepsi), and “Hooters” (boobs).

 

Barenaked Lads Save Christmas borrows from this playbook - the gimmick being naked men.  The show’s loose theme involves five guys (sans clothing throughout most of the show), the Barenaked Lads, whose mission is to go around the world in search of people that are emotionally struggling with the holidays.  Once they find the holiday-challenged, they successfully mend their problems, thus saving Christmas for them.  This is a cute idea, providing lots of ammo to draw material from.  Unfortunately the show does not keep with this theme throughout, suffering from inserted scenes that are completely out-of-place, much like a ballet piece would seem in the middle of a circus. 

 

Though there are a number of insufficiencies in Naked Lads, more than anything else, this show suffers from the lack of milking the total outlandishness of the premise (i.e., the gimmick).  This show needs to constantly make fun of the very fact that they are naked.  The best example of this is a skit where four of the actors pose as kitchen appliances, one being a blender that mixes, grinds and slices.  The fun comes from the fact that the naked actor uses his male appendage to demonstrate the blender’s mixing (swinging his hips around in a circle) and slicing (shaking his penis up and down), etc.  Though this might be classified as low-brow humor, it is what the audience expects when walking in, which can be verified by the big laughs this scene received.

 

Written by recent Northwestern grad Michael Mahler, the music and lyrics range from exemplary to adequate.  The best numbers of the show include “We Are the Naked Lads”, using a parody of the Off-Broadway hit “Altarboyz”; the fun “We Wish You A Naked Christmas”, and the beautifully-melodic and heart-tugging “Christmas Cancelled”.  (fyi: being that the program does not list the songs, I apologize if these are not the song’s true titles.)  The songs are expertly backed up by Gary Edward, also serving as musical director.  Most of the time the lone piano is sufficient, but there are a few syncopated numbers that beg for a rhythmic back-up by way of a drum-set. 

 

Considering Mahler’s fine composing talents, it’s interesting to note that the best scenes are actually some of the skits, written by Andy Eninger.  Though often lacking that final ending “punch”, there are a number of expertly-written skits, including a very funny set-up where a kid (Jack Ryan) mistakenly assumes that the naked redneck coming from his mom’s bedroom (Greg Poljacik) is Santa, rather than his trailer-trash mother’s trick.  Another hilarious sketch features Scott Thomas, playing a boy in a bathtub, telling his mom (Priscilla Parchia) that what he wants for Christmas is world peace and the end of poverty and disease.  With each wish, though, his mother rebukes him, telling her son that there will never be peace and that people will always die.  Merry Christmas!

 

On the opposite end of these hilarious skits, Barenaked Lads Save Christmas skids to a lurching halt with a ludicrous and embarrassing number composed of a four-member choir singing Christian carol “Do You Hear What I Hear” while two of the actors, in red-filtered lighting, perform a modern dance in the nude.  This is one of those moments where you turn to the person sitting next to you, roll your eyes, and mouth the words “What the f*ck?”. 

 

The six-member cast, consisting of John Cardone, David Jiles, Priscilla Parchia, Greg Poljacik, Jack Ryan and Scott Thomas, work well together, with the best performance coming from Greg Poljacik, wonderfully portraying the previously mentioned redneck trick as well as a pot-smoking reindeer, Donner, complete with a perfect cockney accent. The director, David Zak (also Bailiwick’s long-time artistic-director) has done his artistic best to piece together the material he was given. 

 

At times funny and imaginative, Barenaked Lads Save Christmas ultimately lacks the frivolity and edginess inherent in the title, instead delivering a wishy-washy compendium of songs and skits rather than dick-and-shtick (hey, I couldn’t resist).

 

Rating: So-so (2 stars)