Article:9995; Posted: July 18, 2015 at 10:00 a.m.

Sitting down to critique “The Great American Trailer Park Christmas Musical,” the newest offering by Farmers Alley Theatre in Kalamazoo, feels a bit like analyzing a bag of potato chips and onion dip for nutritional value and calorie count on MyFitnessPal. It is a guilty pleasure, and perhaps best not over-scrutinized.

That said, the show, an original musical and sequel to the earlier “The Great American Trailer Park Musical” produced by the company in 2009 and 2010, does bear scrutiny, not only because Farmers had the stones to put it on in July and August, but because as Christmas shows go, it is very much a worthier effort than many of the saccharine or derivative shows put on in December.

The story is set in Starke, Florida at Armadillo Acres, a mobile-home community. Scratch that. It’s a trailer park. Pickels (Nikki Scheidt), Betty (Gina-Maria Chimner) and Lin (Mary Teutsch) are waitresses at Stacks, a nearby “breastaurant,” (so called because they have to wear felt flapjacks over their breasts, complete with a felt pat of butter], and they are keen to have their trailer park recognized by Mobile Home and Garden magazine for its Christmas decorations. Darlene (Whitney Weiner) is a bitchy, acid-tongued resident who hates Christmas. But she has an electric shock from grabbing a hot and frayed cable-TV splitter, and has a case of amnesia that makes her love Christmas and fall for greasy, sweet, ne’er-do-well neighbor Rufus. Jackie, Stacks’ owner, is Darlene’s slimy, greedy boyfriend, who wants to marry her and evict everyone at the trailer park so he can build a combination auto-after-market mart/restaurant he wants to call High-Beams [he plans to have the waitresses wear headlights on their breasts].

Get the picture. There is so much cheese in the plot, Kraft should get a writing credit. There is also a nod to the Scrooge story with three visiting spirits. But here is the thing. It works. The book by Betsy Kelso and music/lyrics by David Nehls is quite good, even with such memorable ditty titles sure to make Irving Berlin spin in his grave as, “F*ck It. It’s Christmas,” “Christmas is for Dummies,” and “Black and Blue on Christmas Eve.”

The fact that all the music is original, that it all works and is quite solid musically stands the play in contrast to other Christmas shows that use the old standards. That’s not a bad practice, of course. People love to hear the cool Yule songs after Thanksgiving. There were four people sitting in my row who left at intermission, and I actually heard one say, “I thought there would be real Christmas music.” Really? You were pining for “Santa Baby” in July?

Be warned. The whole show is pretty bawdy, and there is a sign warning patrons that the show is not for kids. They aren’t kidding. Besides the f-bomb in a song title, there is a lot of talk about chlamydia, calling one of the character’s a “whore” several times (in jest), several references to all parts of the male anatomy, and so much more. But, hey, this is a trailer park of waitresses, and it is pretty clear there isn’t a decent SAT score or a bank account with $1,000 among them, let alone a dictionary or a subscription to The New Yorker.

The writing, the set and the music somehow all work together to make the audience actually care about these characters in the midst of all this cheddar, gouda, and Pabst Blue Ribbon. Chalk that up to a lovely performance by Whitney Weiner, who manages to be mean, sexy, funny and vulnerable at different times, and sometimes at all at once. She seems to radiate on any stage she steps on to. The ensemble of “girls” works sweetly together. And tip of the hat to Rod Cone as Rufus, who holds his own and then some against four strong women performers. Adam Weiner is solid and funny as Jackie.

These kinds of shows often suffer for lack of attention to the writing. Not here. Betsy Kelso and David Nehls did not mail this one in just to capitalize on the previous success of the original. The dialogue writing shows care and careful editing. I wish the same could be said of the Nunsense play/musicals, which are as tired as a Christmas tree in March if you ask me and churned out like sausage. Director Laurel Scheidt gets credit for keeping it on the rails with only a wobble here and there. W. Douglas Blickle’s set is spot on for a trailer park, capturing the grime and worn aspects of a trailer park, as well as the details like the pink Flamingos and garden gnomes, and the Christmas (and Hanukkah) decorations made from household this-and-that, especially beer cans.

There are a couple of times that the play risks hitting a ditch—when Cone and Weiner appear in drag, and when a Christmas tree turns into a kind of “burning bush” to speak to the cast. These are the moments when the cheese just melts all over the plate and drips down the sides. But what the hell. Pass the dip. Some days you just don’t count calories, even in the theater.

SHOW DETAILS:
The Great American Trailer Park Christmas Musical
Farmers Alley Theatre
221 Farmers Alley, Kalamazoo
July 17–August 9;
Evenings Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays and Saterdays at 8:00 p.m.
Matinees Sundays at 2:00 p.m.
$34.00-$36.00
269.343.2727
www.FarmersAlleyTheatre.com