A play for those who hate Christmas
‘People were coming up to me ... asking if I’d been spying on their families,’ playwright says
When it came to collaborating again on their new play The Day Before Christmas, Stacey Kaser and Alison Kelly (Conversations With My Mother) found common ground immediately: The two had the same feelings about the holiday season.
“We both hate Christmas,” says Alison Kelly. “We started from that place. Why everyone runs around being miserable, overworked and unhappy at a time of year when we are supposed to be enjoying family and friends and good company and good times.”
Admit it. The two are on to something. Whether you come from a background where Christmas features or not, it’s all but inescapable. As the seasonal consumer feeding frenzy goes into overdrive, so do stress levels.
“So our starting point for the play is about why we make ourselves miserable at the time of year when we are supposed to be happy,” says Stacey Kaser. “I’m calling it my revenge on Martha Stewart.”
Both writers have families and have analyzed the weird seasonal shift that happens when otherwise normal people suddenly become obsessive/compulsive about “enforcing traditions nobody really wants anymore because it’s how grandma did it” and “the predominantly female role in doing almost everything leading up to the celebrations.” Even the family dog plays a part in the process.
Yes, The Day Before Christmas is most certainly intended to bring much needed comic relief to a time of year that can truly be trying. It’s what the Arts Club Theatre Company wanted: to shake up the rotating holiday theatre classics that all have earned their place over the centuries.
First presented last November at Arts Club Theatre Company’s ReACT New Plays in Progress public reading series, the show was initially scheduled for the 2017 season. As it happened, the play got produced this season.
“The response to the ReACT reading was positively overwhelming,” says Kaser, “People were coming up to me afterwards asking if I’d been spying on their families, or been listening in to arguments in their kitchen. Many were surprised, and relieved about the ending.”
The cast for the world premiere of the Day Before Christmas features Vancouver theatre regulars Jennifer Clement as Alex, Andrew Wheeler as Alan, Daren Dyhengco as Max, Jay Hindle as Keith, Nick Lea as Reid, Julie Leung as Brodie and Curtis Tweedie as Dirk. The seemingly omnipresent Chelsea Haberlin directs.
Without giving anything away, it seemed right to ask why the audience was surprised about the play’s finale? “Because it’s happy,” says Kaser. “People, it’s a Christmas play, we’re not monsters,” says Kelly.
Nor are they necessarily any closer to liking the holiday season.