Review: Live Theatre Workshop offers good production, bad script

Unfortunately, that isn’t enough to save “Every Christmas Story Ever Told (and Then Some!).”

At the risk of sounding like a grump, it brings little good cheer.

You can’t blame the cast. Cyndi LaFrese, Samantha Cormier and Albert Riesgo did a fine job taking nearly every Christmas carol and every Christmas story — plus a nod to Hanukkah and Kwanzaa — and mashing them together for a chaotic ride through holiday land.

And you can’t blame Director Missie Scheffman, who gave the play a frenetic pace and infused it with enough irreverence to please any grinch.

No, the blame falls squarely on the script, written by Michael Carleton, James FitzGerald and John K. Alverez.

It’s just, well, bad.

Now before you go saying I hate the holiday — I don’t. I get the warm fuzzies this time of year.

But this play goes on and on. And on. It begins with the talented Cormier attempting to read — in overblown fashion — “A Christmas Carol.” She is quickly interrupted by her fellow cast members, who insist the audience wants, umm, more. Such as: “It’s a Wonderful Life.” And “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.” And “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer” (in this case, “Gustav, the Green-Nosed Reingoat;” copyrights dontchaknow). And “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” You know — every Christmas story ever told.

Oh, and they go through them at a breathless speed. There are laughs, to be sure, but the 2-hour show (though the cast mentioned several times it was 90 minutes) was just a long one-note joke. Even 90 minutes would have been too much.

And then there is this: audience participation. Maybe I am a grump about that; it may be my least favorite thing about theater.

This opinion may be in the minority — the audience laughed hard, and some even gave a standing ovation when it ended. And there are some theaters around the country that stage this every year because it is so popular. Most perplexing. Let’s hope that’s not something Live Theatre Workshop has in mind.