The Reluctant Daddy

Continued from Games People Play Pt. 4: Intro to Acting)

Gall in the Family
Review: THE GREAT ESCAPE: A PLAY THAT ENDS AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE
By Theodore Fletcher

In Tod Abrams’ claustrophobic new play THE GREAT ESCAPE: A PLAY THAT ENDS AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE, the author expects the audience to spend hours with him observing the excruciating holiday antics of a ‘typical’ American family whose bizarre idea of Christmas cheer is to shamelessly strip innocent children of their hard-earned Christmas presents while staging interminable dramatic readings of banal Hallmark greeting cards. Like the author himself, who in the leading role as a repulsive, Hollywood phony is forced to fake a grand Mal seizure to escape his narcissistic family, we can only hope that God renders us as comatose as our lead actor for having to spend even a nanosecond observing such ghastly source material.

Clumsily written and even more appallingly acted, THE GREAT ESCAPE: A PLAY THAT ENDS AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE, is inexplicably set at Christmas time in a San Diego tract house, light years from civilization (or a decent freeway) and stars a family of miscreants whose propensity for upstaging, scenery chewing, and ‘look-at-me’ theatrics left this reviewer hoping that a sudden brush fire might sweep in and mercifully cause our ‘actors’ to perish from a fatal case of smoke inhalation.

The wooden acting and cloying stage presence of the ‘actors’ is often overshadowed by the hideous set, which consists mainly of a creepy 70′s era living room completely furnished in Mexican restaurant cast-offs, shag carpeting and an inordinate number of crocheted doilies. Seated close to the cruel little area that served as a type of ‘stage,’ this reviewer was nearly overcome by the stench of cheap tequila, tortilla chips and the ash from hundreds of Acapulco Gold joints carelessly ground into the cheap nylon pile.

While we might choose to forgive Abrams for the indifferent staging and lackluster direction of THE GREAT ESCAPE: A PLAY THAT ENDS AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE, we should not be obligated to excuse the author for his inability to offer us a cohesive plot, involving characters or at least a decent ending – which in this case has Abrams suffering the baddest of bad Karma when after faking an Epileptic fit to escape his insufferable family, finds himself alone and moribund, trapped like a rat in holiday traffic and unable to escape his own personal purgatory: San Diego.

Abrams’ dismal play can best be summed up by the great Oscar Wilde who once wrote “The world is a stage but the play is badly cast.”

(Continued from Games People Play Pt 3)

(The crowd twitters at this bit of naughtiness)

TOD


(To the audience) Kill me, kill me now.

GEORGE SR.

Ok, settle down, settle down. I know that you've all been waiting for the day's real fun to begin and I promise not to disappoint you.  My thoughtful wife has yet againoutdone herself by thinking up a new Christmastradition.  Honey, stand up and take a bow, you deserveit!

 
GAYLE

De Nada, Senor!

GEORGE SR.

Pretty as a picture folks, I'm tellin' you!  Well without further ado,I have the supreme pleasure of introducing you to one of America's most important actresses, anational treasure who despite her innate poise, perfectdiction and strong resemblance to her fantastic lookingolder brother,yours truly,has agreed to lead us in athrilling reading ofevery Christmas card we've ever received -I give you the incomparableJudy B!

(The crowd politely claps as JUDY B grabs the MR. MICROPHONE)

JUDY B

Oh George, you can't be serious!  ALL THESE CARDS?!Why we could be here for days! Better get me my reading glasses and some more of that Christmas hooch- this could take awhile! All right, this card here isfrom Aunt Hildawho lives in Maryland withher 2nd husband Eddie.  They havetwo children named Larry and Sarah.  They used tohave the cutest dog named Laila or Lady - poor dogwas hit by a car several years ago.Poor Hilda nevergot over it...such a sin.Anyway, Hilda and Eddy sent this card6 years ago rightafter Eddy's colostomy bag was installed.

God, don't they both look so happy?!

'May this day that comes but once each year fill your loving hearts with hope and cheer.Let's pray your Christmas wishes are granted in all due haste for the doctor tells us we've not time to waste.Death may be impatiently pounding at our door,and our medical bills may leave us profoundly poor,but we still send you our holiday bestpraying that unlike usthe Lord decides not your faith to test.'

(The guests are convulsing in laughter as JUDY B takes a healthy swig of her 'holiday hooch' and takes up another card to read to the crowd.Tod uncomfortably squirms in his chair- he gives a knowing wink to the audience and thensuddenly clutches his head as if he's sufferedan aneurysm)


(To Be Continued)



 

(Continued from Games People Play Pt. 2)

The incomparable dancer/choreographer Martha Graham was once quoted as saying ‘The center of the stage is where I am.’ In that deceptively simple quote we are able to understand Ms. Graham in her totality. The world is her stage and the stage her world. If you were to take Ms. Graham’s simple the-world-is-your-stage concept, and allow it to metastasise into a narcissistic religion, you would possess a basic understanding of my husband’s family. Each of the kindly, Tolken-esque members of George’s family are scintillating stars on the verge of going supernova. These charming, simple ‘villagers’ possess so many innate ‘talents’ that visitors are warned to steer clear of the impromptu living room ‘stage’ as one could easily be trampled by errant family members desperate to have their way with the family’s pride and joy, the Ronco MR. MICROPHONE.

In my limited time with my husband’s family, I have been ‘treated’ to mind numbing, Karaoke, vertigo-inducing poetry readings, and stand up routines so tortuously unfunny that I’ve been tempted to contact Amnesty International and report George’s family for having violated my basic human rights. I had hoped that this Christmas might be different, that the grab and go ‘thrill kills’ of the gory White Elephant contest might have satisfied the family’s bloody desire for more egregious spectacles. How wrong I was!

I was horrified to learn that today’s soul-deadening holiday ‘center piece’ festivity consisted of a ‘spirited’ dramatic reading of every Hallmark Christmas card received by George’s family for the last 3 years. With mounting panic, I watched as George’s elderly aunts and uncles smacked their lips, their eyes glistening as they savored the obscene bounty of ugly Christmas cards before them, hungry for their chance to grab the MR. MICROPHONE and dazzle the room with their perfect elocution and dramatic ‘flair.’

Being the trapped, sniveling weasel that I am, I had to make up my mind between two unattractive choices – either fight or flight.

(To be continued)

(Continued from Games People Play)

‘The White Elephant’ in case you’re not completely up to date on violations of the Geneva Convention is the cruel custom whereupon each member of George’s idiosyncratic family is required to bring a small ‘novelty’ gift to the Christmas gathering. Unlike ‘Secret Santa’ where you might be required to buy a gift for a family member that they might actually value, ‘The White Elephant’ is a completely different animal. (No pun intended) In this horror show, family members are encouraged to bring ‘gifts’ that have little to no monetary value, are profoundly ugly, and serve no useful purpose. Guests are then required to draw numbers lottery-style from a gaudy ‘Christmas Cauldron’ and according to that number select their ‘gift’ from the enormous pile of gaily wrapped ‘White Elephant’ packages. Now, receiving a cow shaped candle or penis paper weight is bad enough, to add insult to injury, my husband’s family has put their own twisted imprinter on this awful custom. According to the mysterious rules set forth by the family elders, it is completely within one’s right to forcibly take a White Elephant gift from another family member who has had the misfortune to draw an earlier number.

I am again reminded of the gentle Hobbits who drunk with the power of the ‘The Ring’ degenerate into an orgy of winner-take-all savagery. In the White Elephant, kindness and chivalry are reduced to quaint notions that take a major backseat to not only satisfying one’s insatiable desire to score the ‘best’ of these shiteous gifts, but also the pleasure one receives in mercilessly annihilating every other family member in doing so. With my own eyes, I have witnessed the gruesome sport of once kindly old ladies ruthlessly stripping a bewildered three-year-old of a cherished gift. The ‘sport’ made even more gruesome by the 3 year old’s inconsolable tears and the gleeful cheering of the assemblage. I’m convinced that the ancient, blood-thirsty Romans never witnessed such carnage. To my husband’s famiy, no celebration of the birth of Christ is complete without a small, defenseless child in tears or at least one family member bitterly resentful at having received a beautifully wrapped Slim Jim or set of novelty golf balls.

Once ‘The White Elephant’ ended, Jesus surely wept for our immortal souls as the day’s torturous ‘festivities’ were far from over.

(To be continued)