Post Script

In the first moments of Two Crows Theatre’s world premiere, A Christmas Haunting, it’s clear that Dr. Katherine Redlaw does not like Christmas. There’s the unceasing seasonal carols on every radio station, she tells us wearily. There’s the garish decorations and ornaments that assault the eyes, hiding something, probably. There’s the inevitable urge to measure yourself against those happy folks who genuinely have something to celebrate at Christmastime and realizing all the ways your own life comes up short. And there’s the ever compounding feeling of misery and remorse — another year past and nothing to show for it but disappointment. If only, Dr. Redlaw pleads, she could get out from under this crushing feeling of failure, particularly at this dark time of year. 

That’s when the ghost shows up.

Korean American playwright Young Jean Lee is not ambiguous about the subject matter of her 2014 play, Straight White Men, or the purpose of the work. She sets out to examine various behaviors of cis-gender white guys and how they either reinforce or refute the privilege that society that has disproportionately rewarded to them, ever since white men of means set up that structure. With the emotional distance of an anthropologist, Lee’s play puts four guys on display in their natural habitat — a father and his three adult sons, returning to their childhood home to celebrate Christmas. It is a “safe,” private space for the family where, in addition to having permission to revert to the roles of their childhood, the men can be themselves, away from all judgement, save from one another. But to recenter the narrative, Lee’s play provides two People in Charge who curate the show for the audience. These guides are emphatically not straight white men. According to the script, they demonstrate the concept of privilege to the audience and completely control the performance.

Aside from the Santa Claus stories filled with presents and the Biblical story of Christ’s birth in Bethlehem, one of the most common themes during the holidays is a wish for “peace on earth, goodwill toward men.” This sentiment is gloriously embodied by Four Seasons Theatre’s December offering, All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914, running in the Playhouse at Overture through December 15.

Neil Simon has mined his own life experiences for his art many times, and the results have been heartwarming and sometimes hysterical — plays such as the trilogy “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” “Biloxi Blues,” and “Broadway Bound.” One of the nation’s most prolific and most consistently entertaining playwrights, Simon was a junior comedy writer on Sid Caesar’s “Your Show of Shows,” which is the basis for his 1993 comedy “Laughter on the 23rd Floor,” presented by Next Act Theatre through December 15.

“Laughter,” directed by Ed Morgan, revisits the writers’ room of a weekly variety TV program in the early 1950s. The show’s star, Max Prince (David Cecsarini), worries about ratings and whether his more sophisticated comedy will play in Peoria. Meanwhile, the writers bicker, talk politics and struggle week after week to produce great television.

It’s been 16 years since Will Ferrell created the relentlessly cheerful embodiment of childlike wonder and ChriIstmas spirit that is Buddy, in the film “Elf.” If there’s anything better than re-watching that modern holiday classic on TV, it’s seeing the story retold as a musical at First Stage, in the Todd Wehr Theater, now through December 29. Because the stage and film have different strengths, some characters have been switched out and the story has been rearranged a bit for the live version, but the essential message remains the same; kindness is always the right answer and the more people who believe in Santa Claus, the better.

“Bingo, bungo, bang!” and “Toodle pip!” P.G. Wodehouse’s famous duo Jeeves and Bertie are back in town and onstage in the Studio Theatre in Milwaukee Chamber Theatre’s “Jeeves at Sea,” through December 22. The last production C. Michael Wright will helm as the company’s producing artistic director, “Jeeves” is an elegant, English Christmas cracker — an inconsequential but mildly amusing farce dressed up in beautiful wrapping that will temporarily distract audiences from any real-world concerns. English novelist Evelyn Waugh summed up the appeal of the stuffy, genius butler and his buffoonish charge saying, “Mr. Wodehouse’s idyllic world can never stale. He will continue to release future generations from captivity that may be more irksome than our own. He has made a world for us to live in and delight in.”

There could not be a greater contrast between the blockbuster musical “Hamilton,” and the Tony Award-winning production that follows it in the Broadway Series at the Marcus Center, through Dec. 1. “The Band’s Visit,” based on a 2007 independent film of the same name, is an unconventional musical filled with a few ordinary people. There are no big dance numbers, no wars to win, no great declarations or sneering villains. As the production reminds you, both at the top and the close of the show, once there was an official Egyptian orchestra that was stranded for one night in Israel, on their way to a prestigious concert. “You probably didn’t hear about it. It wasn’t very important.” And that’s true, except for the dozens of profound emotional connections made by musicians, lost in the desert, and the people they meet in the painfully small and stagnant town of Bet Hatikva. Even while struggling to communicate through language and cultural barriers, they find meaningful common ground as they share music and snippets of essential relationships with family, friends and lovers. 

Everyone loves unwashed, under-parented urchins at the holidays. Scruffy street kids sing carols to Ebenezer Scrooge in hopes of earning a farthing. Annie and the orphans stage an unruly coup and charm Daddy Warbucks in time to unwrap presents in his mansion. Even the “Horrible Herdman” clan avoids the truant officer and finds some meaningful gifts to bring to “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.” In that same vein, a battalion of scrappy paperboys, mostly homeless youth with hearts of gold, take on the newspaper tycoons of New York City this holiday season in The Skylight Music Theatre’s “Newsies,” running through Dec. 29. 

The most fascinating thing about Forward Theater’s current production, For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday, is the incredibly detailed and fanciful set, created by Joseph Varga. Running in the Playhouse at Overture Center through Nov. 24, the show’s backdrop is a stunning work of art. Like a magical department store window at Christmastime, the cityscape of Davenport, Iowa, is meticulously detailed. A perfect doll house floating in space, the lights in the miniature buildings blink on and off, and white puffy clouds hang pleasantly in the sky above. To signify time passing, we see sunset fall on the idealized, Midwestern city center and then watch the community wake again on a new day. (Equally beautiful lighting design by Greg Hoffman.) It is the most clever device I’ve ever seen to indicate time passing, and the effect is truly enchanting. The backdrop receives a great deal of attention in the first half of For Peter Pan, because it is intriguing. Mysterious. Beautiful. Its changes are delightful, unexpected and entertaining. The three-dimensional artificial world is ultimately much more interesting than what’s happening onstage.

Strollers Theatre’s current production, Men on Boats, is an old fashioned adventure featuring  “great men” exploring uncharted lands in the West and taming the American frontier. At once comfortingly familiar and completely disorienting, it is the story of the 19th century, rough-and-tumble, Renaissance man John Wesley Powell and his perilous journey canoeing down the Green River to the Colorado River and through the Grand Canyon. With a crew of nine other men — including a cook, an English tourist, and a mapmaker — the one-armed, Union Army hero Powell leads the expedition, outfitted with four boats and supplies to last ten months. Although he did ultimately succeed in his glorious mission, only two boats and six members of the original crew completed the trip — the first government sanctioned exploration of the area by white men.