Tired of the same old holiday songs already? Have we got a number for you. "The Great American Trailer Park Christmas Musical" doesn't have a single standard (song, that is – although one could expand on that line) in it. But in particular, there's one that makes "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" look like Gregorian chant. It closes the first act of Stray Dog Theatre's current offering, and I heard a number of people saying they'd be singing it at various points through the days to come. Or, when appropriate, humming it to themselves. I am not revealing the title. This post might be blocked by filters.
So, yes, the crew of Armadillo Acres, the Florida trailer park, is back, decorating their fannies off – "This place," one line declaims, "looks like Santa swallowed everything in a CVS and vomited it onto Armadillo Acres." Three long-time residents of the park, ladies who are in effect the Greek chorus of this near-tragedy, find the anti-Christmas attitude of a new neighbor impossible to understand. She's played by Paula Stoff Dean, snarling and attacking, and singing very well indeed. The women, Laura Kyro, Kay Love and Jessica Tilghman, individualize their characters well – we don't get them mixed up with each other, a compliment to both the actors and the writer, Betsy Kelso.
There are – surprise! – a couple of men hanging around. Rufus, Kevin O'Brien, lives in the park, too, a big galoot of a guy who faintly resembles a young John Goodman but who sings, and, I suspect, dances, better than Goodman. Gerry Love is Jackie, the love interest of the resident grinch, and a man who runs a chain of pancake houses rather like Hooters. Larger than life, Love's Jackie is impossible to take one's eyes off.
Sound balance still needs some work – at times it's impossible to understand the lyrics to songs unless it's a solo, and things are so funny, it's a shame to miss a line.
Not a show with A Message, and bawdy enough that it's being liberal to give it an R rating, so definitely not for the kiddies. But funny.
The Great American Trailer Park Christmas Musical
through December 20
Stray Dog Theater
Tower Grove Abbey
314-865–1995