LUNCHBOX’S LAST CHRISTMAS DELIGHTFULLY DYSFUNCTIONAL
To chestnuts roasting and carols being sung add siblings squabbling and pot being smoked and you have Neil Fleming’s delightfully dysfunctional holiday comedy Last Christmas, playing at Lunchbox Theatre until Dec. 21.
At the top of the play, Grandpa Jake (Robert Klein) reads aloud his version of a Christmas letter.
It’s his first because it was just one of countless duties his wife commandeered in planning and supervising the family festivities, but she died just days after Christmas last year.
Jake’s letter is a bit too honest and revealing. He can’t believe his youngest daughter Debbie (Helen Knight) is still not married and that her sister Paula (Cheryl Hutton) is actually still married to her pompous, boorish husband. The only person Jake is really even half excited about spending a few days with is Paula’s son Riley (Griffin Cork), even if the teenager chose to attend a school trip instead of his grandmother’s funeral.
And, Jake has terminal cancer and has to decide what to do with the family house, car, his wife’s beloved jewelry and his bank account. Christmas gift-giving is going to take on a whole new meaning to this little family.
Christmas is being held at Debbie’s tiny apartment because there are still too many sad memories lingering at the family home. Paula is expecting Debbie will stick to tradition and serve roast beef on Christmas Eve and turkey on Christmas Day but Debbie is not the domestic type so it remains to be seen what they’ll be eating.
Fleming and his director Shari Wattling accomplish quite an amazing juggling act by preserving some genuine holiday sentiment under all the raucous farce and they don’t even have to trot in a ghost or two to help.
Klein’s Jake is Scrooge and The Grinch all rolled into one and he delights in playing the illness card to get his own way. As with Scrooge and The Grinch, we’re just waiting to see when and how his old heart will be thawed.
Klein makes Jake a cantankerous old coot we love to hate.
Knight shows that all this feigned merriment and strict holiday preparation is taking its toll. Her Debbie is a bundle of jangled nerves. It’s fun watching Knight bottle her emotions but even more fun watching her mini explosions.
Hutton’s Paula has an air of superiority just waiting to be hacked away at and when, during the gift exchange, she ends up wearing outrageous bunny slippers and a raccoon hat it’s painfully funny as well as a bit painful because we know her facade is hiding a great deal of personal angst.
Cork’s Riley is a moody teenager with an enormous chip on his shoulder. It’s just a matter of when and who will knock it off and let us see the real man or boy it is meant to protect.
One of the many highlights of Fleming’s play has Jake asking Riley to roll a joint for him and then sharing it. Both Klein and Cork know just how far to take their slapstick antics.
Last Christmas is a salute to all those holiday gatherings where the joy of Christmas shone through despite all the turbulence that preceded it.