The Great American Trailer Park Christmas Musical reinterprets Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol with a dark twist that was filled with profanity. The adult rated act was directed, choreographed and acted in by ARC alumni and staff which accented a stereotypical Florida trailer park set perfectly.
Fair Oaks Amphitheatre hosted the production. It was a sophomoric view on trailer park culture, yet still provided laughter with a message.
This version of the play was a sequel to the act that occurred earlier this month with the same name.
The Scrooge like character named Darlene, who also despises Christmas, has a hilarious feud with her neighbors after cursing the Christmas spirit while trying to unplug the cable being syphoned from her mobile home.
Darlene is shocked and develops a case of amnesia that comes and goes throughout the play. The physical comedy of the shock left a little more to be desired. Less Three Stooges like physical comedy could have gotten the same point across.
Unlike the Dicken’s Tale, the three ghosts were past, recent past and present, instead of the classic ghosts were past, present and future, but the contemporary play shares the overall same meaning behind them.
The spiral of Darlene’s character was similar to the novella but wasn’t word for word. Brianne Hidden-Wise who portrayed the character brought her own unique charm to the character and a voice that you could hear from the back row.
Before Hidden-Wise could finish belting out a tune called “Christmas is for Dummies,” she began to receive an ovation with hooting and hollering from the audience.
Before intermission the cast sang along to a number called ‘It’s Christmas,” which its chorus contains many F-words. A fact worth being mentioned on both the poster and program received upon arrival.
The only drawback to the play was the continued joke of the pronunciation of Darlene’s last name Seward. While it was intended to be silly at first it got old fast.
From aluminum can tree ornaments to the aprons with pancakes on the boobs, The Great American Trailer Park Musical had a set with a character of its own. Near the end of the production, a tree comes to life as the voice of Christmas Spirit.
The Great American Trailer Park Musical will be performed for one more weekend before its September 6 curtain call.
