Utah theater rejects the commercial storyline of Christmas for something funnier

For years, Utah playwright Julie Jensen has been haunted by Christmas ghosts, a very different kind of invisible beings than those who spooked the miserly old Scrooge.

Jensen has been haunted by the people like her who have never quite fit in at the holidays, "who don't take to the world of Christmas excess," the playwright says in summarizing the inspiration for her new collection of four short plays, "Christmas for Misfits." "I feel embarrassed for them, and for myself."

After all, the Christmas season is the most wonderful time of the year — mostly, that is, for retailers and economists, who annually assess the strength of the American economy based on sales numbers. And there's something simply perverse and out-of-balance about that, she says.

Plan-B Theatre's premiere of "Misfits," Jensen's collage of plays, opens Thursday, Dec. 11, and runs through Dec. 21 at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center. The play features characters you won't see in holiday stage classics with words like "carol" or "miracle" in their titles. "Christmas is intended for traditional American children in traditional American families," a narrator says. "If you're outside that group, Christmas is not for you. And you'll be either uncomfortable or invisible."

As you can tell from the title, the kind of wonder in Jensen's spiky comedy is sparked by why we haven't seen more plays about people like her collection of misfit characters. After all, they are people, like just about all of us, whose lives don't always fit into a traditional happy family photograph or braggy holiday newsletter.

Her misfits include a 7-year-old girl who commandeers the attention of a reluctant department-store elf; a pair of adolescent nerds, a gay teenager and his lesbian best friend, who are out of step, sexual experimentationwise, with their peers; and a man at a Christmas craft bazaar who brags about stealing baby Jesus figurines for a bizarre collection. Most interesting of all is the aging lesbian who finally admits her best Christmas ever was the one she spent home alone, ironing, rather than attending another dull family dinner.

It's not that Jensen's anti-commercial holiday sentiment is particularly novel. Some of the most famous of the usual suspects in our seasonal stage lineup, from Dickens' Scrooge to Dr. Seuss' Grinch, got there first. But those characters became the stars in their Christmas stories only when they found a change of heart.

Instead, what's interesting about "Misfits" is the comedic lens Jensen uses to challenge the traditional holiday stories we tell and retell, the way we consume Coca-Cola advertising stereotypes as if retail storytelling or overly sweet Christmas carols playing on a 45-minute repeat loop have any connection to reality.

The holiday always turns out to be a disappointment, a narrator admits. "You eat too much, drink too much, get too much, give too much. The kids are obnoxious, greedy and loud. The relatives are surly and unhelpful. After it's all over, you're in debt, overweight, pissed off and hung over."

"Misfits" isn't a downer, says director Cheryl Ann Cluff, but instead serves as Jensen's love letter to what Christmas can be, or perhaps what it really should be.

Cluff praises the veteran cast — Kirt Bateman, Colleen Baum and Jeanette Puhich — for their comedic timing. "They are three very, very funny people, without overplaying the funny, and they're really nailing the touching and intimate moments," the director says. "We've been laughing a lot in rehearsal, which is really fun."

As for Jensen, you don't need to worry about what's spiking the playwright's eggnog this year. She's approaching the holidays with a new attitude. Now the season of commercial excess offers an opportunity to collect new material and possibly inspire new characters in her ongoing "Christmas for Misfits" stories. "The market for the funny Christmas theater stuff is really open," she says.

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'Christmas for Misfits'

The premiere of Utah playwright Julie Jensen's darkly comedic story about holiday oddballs.

When • Dec. 11-21; 8 p.m. Thursday-Friday; 4 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday

Where • Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center's Studio Theater, 138 W. 300 South, Salt Lake City

Tickets • $20; 801-355-2787 or planbtheatre.org

A story of Christmas weddings

Plan-B Theatre commissioned Utah playwright Elaine Jarvik to write "Marry Christmas," a dramatic theater work about the stories of Utah same-sex couples who got married last year. The staged reading of the play — a benefit for Restore Our Humanity — marks the anniversary of the landmark district court ruling in the Kitchen v. Herbert case that overturned Utah's same-sex marriage ban.

When • Dec. 20-23; noon Saturday; 7 p.m. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday

Where • Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center's Studio Theater, 138 W. 300 South, Salt Lake City.

Tickets • $20; 801-355-ARTS or planbtheatre.org