‘BLACK FAMILY CHRISTMAS’ HEARTWARMING AND UNIVERSAL
No matter your culture or skin color in America, the holiday season is often bound up in years of cherished family traditions. But what if those traditions are keeping your family from moving on?
That’s the premise of Dea Hurston’s funny and endearing “1222 Oceanfront: A Black Family Christmas,” a lively holiday musical that made its world premiere Saturday at New Village Arts Theatre in Carlsbad.
Conceived two years ago by four artists of color — Hurston, Monica (Sellers) Phillips Frankie Alicea-Ford and Kevin “Blax” Burroughs — and musicalized by (Sellers) Phillips and composer John-Mark McGaha, “1222 Oceanfront” had one goal in mind: to tell a contemporary holiday story from the rarely seen Black perspective.
Dorothy Black — an African American widow hosting a Christmas celebration at her oceanfront Carlsbad home — is the focus of this story. For 30 years, Dorothy has hosted a traditionbound two-day Christmas gathering for family, but she is ready to move on from the annual event and start a new life with a new man. That infuriates her son,
James Jr., who wants nothing to change.
Hurston has become an in-demand playwright in San Diego, with a second play now under commission at the Old Globe, because she has a gift for writing insightful, funny and natural dialogue, creating multidimensional characters and telling Black stories that haven’t been told before.
This show is chock-full of laughs and quirky characters as well as Black cultural references, like a line dance to Nellie Tiger Travis’ “If I Back It Up” and a Kwanzaa kinara in the kitchen. But, using a line from Hurston’s script, it’s not a “BlacketyBlack-Black”
story that only Black people can connect with. It’s a universal tale of how one family adapts to change and creates new holiday traditions.
Each of the characters is richly detailed and wellplayed by the cast, which is well directed by Delicia Turner Sonnenberg. Dorothy is played by co-creator (Sellers) Phillips, who goes from serious career woman to giggly schoolgirl around her new cowboy-hat-wearing boyfriend, Victor (played by Victor Morris), her adoring mailman who lives on an avocado ranch in Fallbrook. Morris gets the show’s funniest and best song, the yodel-filled
“Cowboy Christmas,” where he re-enacts how he wooed Dorothy on a gondola at the Venetian resort in Las Vegas.
Kory LaQuess Pullam and Deja Fields have great stage presence and singing voices as the petulant James Jr. and his wife, Aadya, a successful social media influencer who can’t attract Dorothy’s attention.
They shine vocally in a soulful reimagining of “Silent Night.” Another strong singer is show co-creator AliceaFord as Dorothy’s adopted son, TV weatherman Javier, who give a spirited Spanishlanguage performance of “Jingle Bells.” Durwood Murray makes a brief and funny appearance as Javier’s podiatrist boyfriend, Brian. And Portia Gregory is the show’s entertaining comic relief as Dorothy’s outspoken and kooky sister, Lizzie, who totes around the ashes of her late husband, June, inside a Black Santa doll.
Savannah Brittian designed the elegant interior of Dorothy’s home, with subtle touches of Black family life, including a few African masks and printed fabrics here and there. Violet Ceja designed sound, Daniel Johnson-Carter designed lighting, Chanel Mahoney and Joy Yvonne Jones designed costumes, and Lesa M. Green created the choreography.
With its upbeat story, lively score of new and old holiday songs and humor, “1222 Oceanfront” is a family-friendly show, but it’s got a touch of sexy humor in the magnetic chemistry between Dorothy and Victor.