A TWISTED CHRISTMAS CAROL by Carol Kaufman Segal

            

Phil Olson is an award-winning playwright who has published 16 plays that have been produced many times in countries around the world.  They are all comedies to be sure!  Many of his plays have made their world premieres by the Group Rep at the Lonny Chapman Theatre in North Hollywood.  His latest Christmas play, A Twisted Christmas Carol, is making its world premier there now.  This comedy is a take-off of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

           

The characters in this play are quite different from those in Charles Dickens’ story.  This story takes place on Christmas Eve in a small town in Texas where we find Buford Johnson (Van Boudreaux) and his wife Darla (Lisa McGee Mann), owners of a barbecue restaurant.  How long they have been married, we do not know, but it is long enough that Buford certainly takes his wife for granted.

            

Their friends, who happen to spend a lot of time with them in the restaurant, are cute and whimsical Daisy Newsom (Veronica Roy) and Bubba Pickford (Christian Land) who has an inkling for Daisy (Veronica Roy) who side-steps his flirtations.

            

 Buford, who doesn’t show much patience, ends up in an argument with Darla and in a rage, runs out of the restaurant.  He leaves in his pickup truck in the midst of a storm, is hit by a twister, and ends up in a coma.  It is then that he is visited by his former business partner, Hank Walker (Paul Cady) who once had his eye out for Darla.  He visits Buford in his dreams as the ghost of Christmas past, present, and future and it all appears very real to him.               

           

The play is quite humorous.  The characters themselves are humorous to begin with, and of course we all know what to expect of the outcome when Buford awakens from his coma.  It ends in a very Happy Christmas for all.

           

A Twisted Christmas Carol is directed by Doug Engalla, set design by Chris Winfield.  This was a funny take on Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.   I did not find this play close to being as charming and comedic as all of Olson’s plays that I have seen in the past.  However, I must say that all of the actors helped to keep it moving and funny throughout.

           

 The play is performed Upstairs at the Group Rep on the second floor of the Lonny Chapman Theatre,

10900 Burbank Boulevard, North Hollywood.  It plays Saturdays at 4 PM and Sundays at 7 PM.  For tickets and information go online at www.thegrouprep.com, or call (818)763-5990.