Santaland’s elf makes short work of season’s good tidings
When aspiring actor David Sedaris landed in New York, it wasn’t with visions of sugar plums dancing in his head.
Sedaris dreamed of becoming a cast member on the long-running soap opera One Life to Live.
Alas, like so many other disillusioned actors, he found himself leafing through the want ads where he saw that Macy’s was looking for people to play elves and Santas in the department store for the holiday season. Sedaris claims it was his roommate who dared him to apply but, once he did, he actually put his hardened heart and downtrodden soul into getting the job to avoid the humiliation of being an elf reject.
In 1999, Sedaris wrote an essay about the holiday season when he played Crumpet the elf in Macy’s Santaland, and The Santaland Diaries became an instant hit when he read it on public radio.
Picking up the torch and donning the elf boots under the direction of Kelly Reay is Devon Dubnyk, who scored a personal triumph last year at this time playing George Bailey in Lunchbox’s It’s a Wonderful Life.
Until Dec. 23, Dubnyk will hold court in Lunchbox’s gaudy Santaland village (design courtesy of David Smith) and he’ll be decked out in his cringeworthy elf costume (courtesy of Ralamy Kneeshaw). It’s as if Smith and Kneeshaw decided to conspire against Dubnyk by adding another level to his embarrassment, making his plight seem all the more ridiculous.
This probably explains why there’s nothing ho ho or ho hum in Dubnyk’s Crumpet, but rather shades of Scrooge and the Grinch.
At the top of the show, Dubnyk wears his elf costume with bitter disdain. His leggings are down around his ankles and his shorts are askew. He doesn’t even have his elf hat with him. This is definitely
not some happy sprite and that is what makes The Santaland Diaries so much fun.
Dubnyk is an ideal Everyman and our hearts go out to him while layered with gales of laughter. Better him than me is the essence of our laughter of recognition and relief.
In his 55-minute visit, Dubnyk tells us about his rotating elf duties, from welcoming elf to Santa’s window elf and photo elf to ushering out elf.
He also recalls the worst of the parents and children and of his coworkers, assuring that Lunchbox audiences likely won’t view those shopping mall Christmas displays the same way ever again.
The Santaland Diaries is the ideal show for anyone who empathizes more with Scrooge at the beginning of A Christmas Carol than at the end.