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USA Today
By David Patrick Stearns |
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WASHINGTON, D.C. - Few things are quite so joyfully uninhibited as Christmas kitsch. And that's what A Tuna Christmas celebrates. A play about the tacky inhabitants of Tuna, Texas, its slyness and affection have made it a viable alternative to A Christmas Carol. Playing at the Kennedy Center through Jan. 20, A Tuna Christmas (a companion piece to Greater Tuna, seen periodically on HBO) has had major sellouts in Denver, Houston and Dallas. People see it again and again, year after year. It's not that there are subtleties to pick up on repeated viewings: This show is as broad as Texas itself. But most characters have too many idiosyncrasies to savor in one sitting - from clip-on mittens to hairdos that are Texas mutations of baroque architecture. The play is populated by 22 Tuna-ites of differing ages and genders - from waitresses to juvenile delinquents - played by two actors, Joe Sears and Jaston Williams, and a vast wardrobe. It's not quite the tour de force it promises to be: When the actors run out of accents, the wigs serve to differentiate the characters. Sears and Williams, who also wrote the script with director Ed Howard, often settle for half-funny jokes. But what ultimately makes A Tuna Christmas endearing is not the novel plot twists - such as an outdoor nativity scene that vandals redecorate with boxer shorts and an ERA button plastered on the Virgin Mary. It's the main characters. However goofy, they're more flesh and blood than caricature. The play ends, not with out some predictable silliness, but with two of the frumpier Tuna-ites taking a vacation from their bad marriages and conservative church groups to rendezvous at an out-of-town steak house. Adultery has never been so cute.
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