Hannukatz The Musical!
Playwright: book and lyrics by Terry Abrahamson, music by Michael Carlson. At: National Pastime Theatre at the Preston Bradley Arts Center, 941 W. Lawrence Ave. Tickets: 773-327-7077; www.hannukatzthemusical.com; $25. Runs through: Dec. 30
A Klingon Christmas Carol
Playwright: Sasha Walloch & Christopher Kidder-Mostrom. At: Commedia Beauregard at Raven Theatre, 6157 N. Clark St. Tickets: 800-838-3006; www.cbtheatre.org; $20-$35. Runs through: Dec. 30
No, this isn't the one who sings "Memory," nor the one in The Hat. Its author, Terry Abrahamson, is a Grammy-winning songwriter/musician/producer/playwright who lamented the absence of Hannukah pageants amid the glut of seasonal fa-la-las, leading harried parents to counsel their confused offspring in the fallacy that Hannukah is "the Jewish Christmas" (it isn't). Thus was born the specter of Hannukatz, a rotund, hippie-clad, strat-strumming feline bringing the facts behind this misunderstood holiday to families of all faiths.
On this first night of the eight-day Festival of Lights, the Moskowitz household is not happy. Daddy's latest invention—a fish-and-chicken processed meat, called "chish"—is not proving successful, causing his children to resent the scarcity of expensive gifts. After a visit from the furry pun-loving hepcat, however, the true meaning of this winter celebration is rediscovered and a zoological miracle witnessed.
Clocking in at a little over 60 minutes, this third time for the National Pastime production is its first in the spacious ballroom at the Preston Bradley Arts Center in Uptown, and while some adjustment is still needed—a live band and better amplification come to mind—the cast's exuberance is infectious as they zip through Shifra Werch's jubilant dances and Abrahamson's irreverently eclectic score. Adults can enjoy the Shirley Bassey-styled "When The Lights Go Out" and teens will happily join in the defiant "Hannukah Sucks," only to both squirm during "Everybody Pees In Their Pants" (a guaranteed hit with the under-twelve set—trust me).
* * *
The story of A Christmas Carol is universal, its message of error and redemption echoed in the folklore of every tribe the world over, but the universe got substantially bigger when Commedia Beauregard, a theater company specializing in translated drama, proposed not only adapting Dickens' immortal holiday fable to the alien culture referenced in the Star Trek science-fiction series, but performing it entirely in the artificial language springing from the popularity of the pop mythology engendered thereby.
The projected English subtitles (for the benefit of Terrans like us) are still in evidence for the production's third revival, newly mounted on the Raven Theatre mainstage under the direction of Eric Van Tassell, but the room's intimacy makes for less distance between the aural-visual narrative and the literary text, enabling us to receive them almost simultaneously. Also decreasing any xenophobic response to the quasi-Slavic phonemes and martial orientation defining Klingon community values is the emotionally-naturalistic delivery augmented by more of the actors' faces being exposed beneath the characters' distinctive scarred foreheads.
If the intergalactic sensibility necessary to bridge parochial barriers still elude you, recall that it wasn't so long ago that Italian opera or African dance was, to many Americans, as strange and foreign as if from another planet.
