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Revived 'Game Show' as hilarious as ever
Tuesday, December 7, 1999
By JOE ADCOCK
Now here's a real ghost of Christmases past. For nine years, until 1995, the "Holiday Survival Game Show" was an annual tradition. Or anti-tradition.
It was produced by Alice B. Theatre ("a gay and lesbian theater for all people"). It provided relief from seasonal preconceptions of mom, dad and the kids that could sometimes prove alien or even irksome to Alice B.'s constituency. The "Game Show" was campy, tasteless, vulgar, obscene and hilarious.
A team made up mostly of "Holiday Survival" survivors has put new meat on the old bones. The result is just as objectionable and just as hilarious as yesteryear's efforts.
Act one, as always, is made up of timely skits. The show's subtitle is "Millennium Schlumennium." And so this year's theme is Y2K compliancy and associated concerns.
A look backward surveys Y1K compliancy, as exemplified by a gay couple living in Scotland. The year is 999 A.D. And what with all the vandals marauding up and down and over and across the British Isles, this enterprising service sector pair decides to take advantage of the situation. Theirs was the world's first bed-and-breakfast, in case you didn't know.
As for the present, we see a post-feminist seminar in millennium disaster survival. The seriousness of the curriculum is undermined by an elderly bag woman and it is destroyed by a post-post-feminist anarchist with an unusual "sweater guard" (as the bag woman calls it). The anarchist also sports a skull-piercing: a sort of shower curtain rod that goes in one side of her head and out the other, just above the ears.
The future time sketch gives us a peek at the crowning of Miss Seafair, 5999. A "volunteer" from the audience stands a chance of being covered with glory in this segment. On opening night last week, Miss Seafair turned out to be a stocky, middle-age man.
Audience participation takes a steep climb in Act 2. Couples (one gay, one lesbian, one straight) do a sort of "Newlywed Game" exercise in confusion and embarrassment. And contestants representing the three sections of the audience -- Cheese Logs, Hanukkah All-Stars, Fruitcakes -- match wits and motor skills. Abetted by famous celebrities like Liza Streisand and Selena Dion, the contestants' trials include singing karaoke tunes and carrying eggs on spoons.
Holiday Survival Game Show. By Eric Des O'Del and Peggy Platt. Music and parody lyrics by Lisa Koch. Broadway Performance Hall. Through Dec. 26. Tickets $17-$19.99; 206-709-7994.
Director Jennifer Jasper and choreographer Sandra Singler keep things peppy. Jasper has recruited a cast of contrasting zanies. Jeff Resta's responsibilities include expounding real quotes from Dan Quayle and strutting in filmy black female lingerie that Madonna might consider a bit much. Peggy Platt is a hen-pecked Santa and an overbearing Virgin Mary. Laura Hutchins tap dances in gold-sequined hot pants and plays second banana to a cockroach. Monica Appleby is the head-pierced anarchist and the ever-lively, though dead, Selena. Pete McBryan's roles include Dr. Evil and Mrs. Santa Claus. In addition to providing music, Mark Rabe plays an earnest lesbian survivalist and a smarmy game-show announcer.
No one on stage hesitates to make a fool out of himself or herself -- that's the main thing.
Some of the writing by Platt and Eric Des O'del is dopey. But when it comes to being in questionable taste and also incomparably funny, "Holiday Survival" is, well, as incomparable as ever.
P-I theater critic Joe Adcock can be reached at 206-448-8369 or joeadcock@seattle-pi.com
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
THEATER CRITIC
Alice B. is no more. It was among the midsize Seattle companies decimated during the mid-'90s. But the "Game Show" has been revived.
Helping the audience survive the holidays are, clockwise from left, Laura Hutchins, Jeff Resta, Monica Appleby and Peggy Platt.
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