Joe Mantello's stage adaptation of David Sedaris's hilarious tale of his Christmas season stint as an elf in Macy's Santaland, first produced in New York on November 7, 1996, has lost none of its zing. Enacted with precision and rib-tickling--make that side-splitting hi-jinks--provides one hour of non-stop laughter by Garrett Storms channeling Sedaris.
The scene opens with Storms, as Sedaris, combing the want ads for a job, any job, when he comes across an ad for someone to play an elf in Macy's New York Santaland. Worse than the humiliation of such a menial job is the greater humiliation of the possibility of being turned down.
He gets the job as Crumpet, the elf, dressed in the requisite attire, and sweeps the audience along in a one-hour tour-de-force enacting all of his fellow Santaland colleagues, parents and children who visit Santa, and even old Santa himself. This is, hands-down, the funniest show I've seen all year.
Jason Harris's set design is a veritable cornucopia of color including a Christmas tree chock-full of lights and ornaments, a large, colorful throne, and Santa's candy-cane decorated house. All of this is enhanced by the prop design of Hannah Law including a large stuffed teddy bear which doubles as a repository for Crumpet's hooch. But don't take my word for it; you've got to be there.
