The Santaland Diaries
An infusion of Lee Eddy into 'The Santaland Diaries' makes Zach's holiday classic even more delightful
Reviewed by Wayne Alan Brenner, Fri., Dec. 2, 2005
The Santaland Diaries
Zachary Scott Theatre's Santa's Workshop, through Jan. 8
Running Time: 1 hr, 30 min
What can one do to lively up an event that appears year after year? Even when it's a perennial audience-pleaser, a show needs an infusion of new blood, or Happy Christmas Juice, to keep it fresh enough to keep bringin' 'em back after another twelvemonth's passed. Sometimes a principal actor may be called to Hollywood, thus necessitating a change of performers and, pow, there's your infusion right there.
The Zachary Scott Theatre Center's version of David Sedaris' The Santaland Diaries which is to say, Zach Artistic Director Dave Steakley's version of it returns to the stage this season with Lee Eddy as the Macy's Little Elf, and your reviewer couldn't be more pleased. But your reviewer is predisposed, having witnessed many of Eddy's previous outings, to admire the lanky woman's excursions on the boards. Let's get it out of the way, then: Her performance is top-notch and invigorating and filled with all the rubber-faced mugging and freaky movement and ad-lib genius one expects of a Lee Eddy performance. She imbues Crumpet, the gamely struggling Macy's elf, with a personality so believably bittersweet and endearing that you'd think she'd written the show herself.
Actually, Eddy did write part of the show herself; at least a small part. Before the main Sedaris section begins, director Steakley has preluded that narrative with a medley of naughty-but-nice seasonal songs (wonderfully performed by Meredith McCall, with Jason Connor tickling the 88s), into the middle of which is placed Lee Eddy's original monologue about the Halloween when she, as a little girl, dressed up as The Cosby Show's Vanessa Huxtable.
This addition is in keeping with Steakley's heavy spicing of the Sedaris tale with his usual pop-culture tropes and so seems just another welcome piece of candied pear in the evening's performative fruitcake. Until second thought, after one's chuckles at the onstage antics have subsided and there's homeward-bound traffic to be navigated, and a thought of "What the hell was a Halloween piece doing in a Christmas show?" occurs to the wandering mind.
Well, how could anyone resist giving a spotlight to Lee Eddy's own material? Especially since that material, at its best, at least matches the most celebrated of Sedaris' own works? One Steakley should have resisted, we think, if only to preserve the Christmas-specific integrity of the show. Unless one Steakley has some Grand Plan in mind, the clever schemer.
Could it be that Steakley, now that he's lassoed Eddy into the Zach stable of talents, is considering a new production of the performer's original, one-woman Ladee Leroy Show? Wouldn't that be wonderful! For those who haven't already experienced the extreme delight of Lee Eddy performing her own work. And especially for those impressed, as was your reviewer, by what an infusion of Eddy can do for a holiday classic.