Theatre review: The Twelve Days of Christmas is a trite take on the holidays
Actor Melissa Oei performs the one-hander’s role with heart
Melissa Oei.
An Arts Club Theatre production, streaming digitally via the Arts Club.
IN THE TWELVE Days of Christmas, the Arts Club Theatre’s one-hander holiday livestream show directed by Barbara Tomasic, Melissa Oei does a fine job swapping between so many characters. Given the terrible times we’re living in, credit goes to the whole team for bringing a seasonal production to fruition against so many odds. But not even a miracle on Newmont Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre (where the show was streaming from) can save this script from seeming cliched a decade after its world premiere.
No doubt the Arts Club had to pivot swiftly to mount the performance amid so many COVID-19 constraints. (The play was to have been presented to a small live audience in addition to streaming but shifted to streaming only with recent health regulations shutting down theatres to December 7 or until further notice.) The troupe has had to shift to one-person shows for this new socially distanced era. American playwright Ginna Hoben’s one-woman comedy from 2010, however, feels out of step with the times despite the strong performance.
It starts when Mary, an actor living in New York, catches her fiancé making out with another woman on TV at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The story unfolds over the next 13 months, as Mary decorates a Christmas tree with ornaments that represent every lousy, awkward, or otherwise regrettable relationship she has. There’s Larry, Edward, and psycho Joe. She goes on multiple dates with some of the men she meets; other doomed encounters end almost as soon as they start. To make unlucky-at-love matters worse, her fitness-obsessed sister gets engaged, and Mary ends up going to her perfect, elaborate wedding alone.
Mary’s mom worries about her; her aunt prays for her. Her sister reminds her you need to kiss a thousand frogs before you meet a single prince. Even though she lands roles in Macbeth and A Christmas Carol, Mary describes the time she spends single as “worthless”, a “year’s worth of disasters”. In her heteronormative, white world, things don’t work out with a seemingly fine fellow who raises money for children in Africa, and she makes a point of mentioning that the weekend getaway she went on over Labour Day was with a golden retriever and eight lesbians.
Is this really the kind of writing and messaging that Vancouver audiences are yearning for? What’s more, the story doesn’t feel overly Christmassy, despite the wonky tree and occasional snippet of a carol, travelling from Valentine’s Day to St. Patrick’s Day to American Thanksgiving and so on.
Ted Roberts’ set is perfect: a single armchair, side table, and lamp on a Persian carpet sit next to the tree, all on what looks like a single piece of wooden plank flooring that curves up to form the back wall.
Oei is especially compelling as a five-year-old boy, makes a convincing drunk, and is hilarious when doing a stress-busting kickboxing workout. She gives the role a lot of heart, particularly when Mary finds peace with her aloneness. (Oei alternates the role with Genevieve Fleming.) The performance rises above a play that feels a bit past its pulldate--and the fact that we have theatre taking place at all is a gift.
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