This renegade tradition lives on in South Florida as a swarm of tiny, determined troupes flies against convention in show after show. Lacking establishment credentials or ties, these theaters don't have the support of foundations or corporations; their supporters, who tend to be somewhat lower on the economic ladder, often lack the means or tradition of donor support. Instead these companies rely on self-financing and ultralow-budget productions, aiming to deliver the biggest impact with the fewest resources possible.
That's the recipe for the Imagine Theatre Company's latest no-frills, high-energy project, The Eight: Reindeer Monologues, a clever, bitter fantasy now in a late-night run at the Hollywood Playhouse's Blue Box. The "Blue" is apt. Playwright Jeff Goode's premise is that Santa Claus is a serial sexual predator who has been molesting his elves and reindeer for years. The play consists of a series of monologues as one by one, each of his eight reindeer spills his or her secrets about what has been going down at the North Pole all these Yuletides.
This scabrous satire is a nice antidote to your standard treacly holiday cheer. It's also a comic workout for some of South Florida's best talent. Lead reindeer Dasher (Joe Kimble), a beer-swilling brooder, frets about the looming sex scandal involving Santa and Vixen, the reindeer who claims he raped her. Low-energy kvetcher Dancer (Ivonne Azurdia) doesn't want to get involved, but outraged Blitzen (Wendolyn Mateo) plans a reindeer walkout and a picket line. Prancer, a.k.a. Hollywood (Paul Tei), is a self-absorbed careerist who worries how Vixen's charge will affect his movie plans. Right-wing moralist Comet (Jerry Seeger) won't accept any criticism of Santa, but when Vixen (Azurdia again) finally appears in leather, fishnet stockings, and stiletto heels, she levels blistering charges that should make ol' Kringle's beard curl.
The cast is in fine form, with Tei leading the charge, especially as Cupid, the first openly gay reindeer, whose elliptical monologue goes off into meditations of the joys of gay reindeer sex and other cul-de-sacs. Playwright Goode has an ear for contemporary social preoccupations as well as for wordplay, especially sexual innuendo: Reindeer oral sex is "giving snout," and lesbian activity is "going doe-to-doe." All of this makes for some bawdy shenanigans, despite the serious subjects. The Eight is all about performers, text, and audience. Using a bare stage, four lights, and only a few props and furniture pieces, director Elena Maria Garcia serves up a Saturday Night Live-style romp -- breezy but not slapdash, well-suited to the show's late-night time slot.
The Santa sex scandal is a clever story hook, but perhaps that's not all that's going on here. Sure, this fantasy has to do with Santa and reindeer and elves, but merely lampooning Christmas tradition is not a very challenging task -- plays and films have drawn from the anti-Christmas well for decades. Underneath all that, The Eight is really about community dysfunction. These serious underpinnings take the foreground when Kimble's other character, Donner, the milquetoast father of the never-seen Rudolph, takes the stage. It seems that Santa was abusing the physically and mentally challenged Rudolph for years and gave Donner, a mediocre reindeer, a position in the prestigious sleigh team in exchange for his silence. In this disturbing monologue, Goode sets up a likable character who makes horrible moral choices, and Kimble does a fine job at depicting these complexities.
Despite this play's wacky concept, it is uncomfortably true-to-life in observing contemporary social behavior, and that is downright depressing. This reindeer community faces a fundamental societal challenge but responds with cynicism, denial, self-involvement, or self-indulgent rage. There is cooperation in the work environment, but these reindeer have no sense of community beyond that. They don't organize or cooperate to solve their problems; they either do nothing or flee. Sound familiar? Vixen herself realizes she can't win in a confrontation with Santa and plans to move to Florida, "where I can be normal again." Maybe so, maybe not, but if she's looking for strong, healthy community action here, that reindeer's just headed for more holiday blues.
More offbeat theater is going on in downtown Miami, where adventurous companies La Lucha and Artemis have joined forces to produce She Wolves: A Hybrid Journey of Women Through Time. This challenging multimedia performance piece uses poetry, dance, and video to examine the images of women in different historical contexts. Raquel Almazan, who is also the writer, heads the three-woman cast; her ambitious goal is to depict "the history of women in all their major themes."
Divided into four parts, the show is concept- rather than narrative-driven. Almazan and her cohorts, Diana Lozano (who also directs) and Paola Navia, depict a series of character types -- the Warrior, the Corsetted Lady, the Modern Business Woman, and the Futuristic Virgin Stripper, whatever that is. The curvy, bounteous Almazan isn't shy about revealing herself, both physically and in her poetic and sometimes-profane language. Early video clips have her cavorting nude in the woods; the stage costumes emphasize her points about female sexuality and exploitation.
The production includes inventive costumes, expressive dance sequences, and a weird fun-house set, festooned with female mannequin body parts and plastic bags of blood taped to the black walls. This is an unusual, compelling theatrical event, but the text could use some work. The flowery language tends to drag on and often fights for attention with the complex visuals and movement. It's also rather humorless and derivative: Most of Almazan's radical-feminist points are older than she is. More to the point, this show takes on women's issues but only from the point of view of a very young person, completely ignoring such issues as motherhood, aging, sexual preference, and generational community. It's more than a little pretentious for Almazan to lay claim to women's history without venturing beyond her own preoccupations and experience. Still She Wolves delivers a white-hot performance energy and a bold imagination.
