Columbus Alive - December 5, 2002

"The Eight: Reindeer Monologues"
First Unitarian Universalist Church
Through December 7

Something scandalous has happened up at the North Pole. And each reindeer has his or her own version of the story.

Playwright Jeff Goode's subversive comedy The Eight: Reindeer Monologues is a curious mixture of the funny and the discomfiting. It's hard to take seriously a parade of actors with antlers bobbling on top of their heads. Yet the laughter can hardly flow freely when these anthropomorphized beasts begin talking about sexual harassment, child molestation and rape.

Let's say right off that The Eight is decidedly not for kids. Nor is it for people who consider cultural icons like Santa Claus and those in his inner circle to be inviolable symbols of goodness and light. On the other hand, if your gorge rises along with the holiday decorations, Goode's goodie may be just the paregoric you need to make it through the season.

In the world of reindeer, The Eight are royalty, the pinnacle of success to which every youngster aspires. Just as happens among humans, some of The Eight regard their lofty position with a sense of entitlement whereas some are grateful they've been saved from a life of ignominy. Likewise, their attitudes toward Santa and Mrs. Claus vary according to their own perspectives.

Comet, for instance, is unequivocally worshipful of Santa, who saved him from a life of reindeer crime. Richard Napoli plays him with the gentle caution of someone who's seen the dark side and may be in constant fear of backsliding.

Dasher is the loyal leader of the reindeer team, willing to gloss over problems for the sake of upholding tradition. M. Steven Parsons gives him a military resolve and a clear distaste for un-Christmaslike behavior. Most complex of all is Michael Louis Wilson's conflicted Donner, father of the now-catatonic Rudolf.

Andy Scahill is the fey Cupid who regards Santa as a "holly jolly sex crime waiting to happen." Eric Ewing is "Hollywood," known to us as Prancer, full of himself and irate over the film world's blatant discrimination against animal actors.

Marie Kamara gives Blitzen a streetwise disgust for those who abuse authority. Emily Hill (alternating with Amy Bennett) as Dancer has a clear-eyed view of the political compromises she's made to live in the rarified world of The Eight. At the center of the Santa controversy is Juliette McCawley's Vixen, who makes her own uncertain peace between justice and conscience.

Take away the antlers and the Christmas conceit and The Eight works as a dissection of the myriad ways that people react to terrible events. Its dissonance between image and story feels absurd, but it offers seasonal food for thought.

Call 876-0223 for show info.

--Jay Weitz