It’s an irreverent, boozy spin on A Christmas Carol
For those looking for something a bit less merry and bright, Drunk Christmas, Audacious Theatre’s annual fundraiser, is a boozy spin on a Christmas classic that is a jolly good time thanks to the spirited work of the cast and production team.
Drunk Christmas is a retelling of Charles Dickens’ beloved (or infamous, depending on who you ask) A Christmas Carol. It is a fairly faithful adaptation of the seasonal tale. They include stingy Scrooge, sickly Tiny Tim, and ghostly visits from spirits who teach Scrooge basic empathy. Yet, unlike the version of the show you can see at the DCPA, Audacious Theatre’s version is produced at a bar and features all six actors getting hammered while attempting to relay the story of A Christmas Carol.
And it’s not just the actors who are drinking. Audacious Theatre is an immersive theatre company after all; so, in an effort to get the audience in on the action, they have created A Christmas Carol drinking game for the crowd to play along with. The crowd is encouraged to drink every time Scrooge says “Humbug,” drink when the actors sing, drink when you hear “Spirit,” and, for the advanced drinkers in the crowd, drink when you hear “Merry Christmas.”
Along with this drinking game, they also have interactive goodie bags available for donation to the group with bells, party hats and fake snow that people are encouraged to use throughout the show. The effect is similar to a cross between The Rocky Horror Picture Show from 1975 and Bill Murray’s 1988 Christmas classic Scrooged. Everyone is yelling at the performers and throwing objects at the stage as they perform a sarcastically, abridged version of A Christmas Carol.
Audacious started this fundraising tradition six years ago at Fiction Beer Company. While they have expanded to eight performances at four different locations, including River North Brewery, Epic Brewing Company and Left Hand Brew Company, they always make a point to come back to Fiction Beer Company every year.
And, after attending a performance in the space, I can understand why. First of all, the owner of the bar was in the audience, enjoying the performance and telling anyone who would listen how much he loved collaborating year after year with Audacious Theatre. They cleverly positioned the bar behind the performance space, allowing people to get up and grab drinks throughout the performance while the company performed in the middle of the bar, surrounded by audience members on all sides.
The closeness of the performers to the spectators allowed them to interact with the crowd throughout. This led to many hilarious ad-libs from the ensemble to audience members directly and made it easy for them to seamlessly integrate people into the performance by asking them to help them up on boxes, play dead bodies or hold their beers when executing some of the complicated blocking.
For a drunken parody, I was shocked at how much of Dickens’ text I heard from the actors! Directors Macbeth Richardson and Liz Porter have done a remarkable job of staging the production for a bar setting and have created the perfect framework for the actors to communicate the plot of A Christmas Carol while also playfully skewering the story with hilarious staged bits and the actors’ drunken improvisation.
The company has two different versions of the cast that perform on alternating nights at the bar. I had the pleasure of seeing Shawna Urbanski as the narrator, Scott Jamieson as Scrooge, Lauren Long as Bob Crachit, Wendy Hisel as Fred, Jason Toennis as Marley and Ren Manley as Belle and Mrs. Crachit. The actors were having a lot of fun and had strong comedic chemistry together. Along with their main roles, most of the cast doubled up on parts and threw on a silly costume piece to hilariously play the story’s other characters Everyone was fully committed to bringing this wacky world to life which made this show one a hell of a good time.
My performance was sold out with an interesting mix of theatre-goers and Fiction Beer Company’s regular bar patrons cheering on the performers’ hard work. Audacious Theatre will perform the show at Epic Brewing in Denver on Dec 9 and 10 and at Left Hand Brewing on Dec. 16 and 17.
I highly recommend seeing this interactive theatrical parody of Charles Dickens’ ever-popular story; it’s a wild ride and the Audacious Theatre’s drunken antics breathe new life into A Christmas Carol.
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