Half Trick Theatre continue their form-bending parodies with Who’s Afraid of Santa Claus, a spoof of Albee’s 1962 play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf — the classic mid-century American work about marriage and a nation in crisis. Caden Scott adapts the work with what seems like a light touch, but is actually an intelligent recalibration of the text — sometimes subtle, sometimes overt and crass, but in the best possible way.
The central couple shifts from Albee’s George and Martha to Santa Claus and… Martha Claus. Nick and Honey become Buddy and Holly the elves, and the setting of a university campus becomes the North Pole. Perhaps the shifting of locations is the text’s most overt change — campus politics are now North Pole labour politics, highlighting the power dynamics that make this play tick. Many of Albee’s games and monologues are paraphrased or trimmed, but this is welcome for a play that uncut runs at three hours.
Scott relishes in small changes that give the text punchlines and new meanings — where George calls himself thin, Santa calls himself fat. The ‘pictures’ talked about at the beginning are changed to Christmas pictures. There is balance between changes and lines that are taken from the source material — such as “if you existed, I’d divorce you” — which fit perfectly into this story.
Courtney Bassett does a standout turn as Martha Claus and is the focus of the staging, and her direction of the three other performers is considered. Scott is a hilarious Santa Claus, and Isabella Velarde is a wonderful Holly — wide-eyed and bewildered, but also sometimes rightfully hurt. Rory Drinnan Murray plays the ambitious, opportunistic Buddy with glee. All four of them lean into the overt theatricality of this mid-century American style gracefully.
It might seem counterintuitive to write about a festive parody this seriously, but Half Trick are intelligent theatre makers, so you can and you should. An interval is shifted from twenty minutes to twelve for the twelve days of Christmas. Albee’s harrowing ending is switched to one with such a gleeful festive cheer. There is a cameo from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. If it is kitsch, it is kitsch by design.
Who’s Afraid of Santa Claus has all the trimmings of a mid-century American classic, parodied and twisted to festivity. This is a fantastic show, regardless of how much of a Scrooge you are.
Photo by Pedro Salazar (Tres Cielos Media).