Oakland Center for the Arts offers 2 Sedaris holiday works

Looking for a smarmy,
sarcastic view on the
holidays? This is it.

By GUY D’ASTOLFO

VINDICATOR ENTERTAINMENT WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — For people who have had their fill of Christmas shows, the Oakland Center for the Arts has a gift: two holiday monologues penned by sharp-tongued humorist David Sedaris.

“Season’s Greetings” and “Santaland Diaries” will be presented back-to-back this weekend and next at the downtown playhouse.

In the opener, “Season’s Greetings,” sunny suburban housewife Jocelyn Dunbar reads her holiday newsletter to her family and friends. The upbeat newsletter takes some lurid twists and turns, including a surprise visit by her husband’s illegitimate half-Vietnamese stepdaughter; the arrival of Satan, her drug-addled daughter’s crack baby; and a court appearance after little Satan is found lifeless in a dryer.

Grace Vouvalis will portray Jocelyn Dunbar in “Season’s Greetings,” which is being directed by Brooke Slanina.

The second monologue is the more well-known “SantaLand Diaries,” which is based on the playwright’s experiences working as an elf named Crumpet at SantaLand in Macy’s department store in New York.

Eric McCrea, in elf attire with a cigarette dangling from his lips, stars in “SantaLand.” McCrea performed both monologues last year at Selah in Struthers, dressing in drag for “Season’s Greetings.”

Robert Dennick Joki is the director of “SantaLand Diaries.”

With intermission, the evening should take about two hours: 40 minutes for “Season’s Greetings” and an hour for “SantaLand.”

“Season’s Greetings” director Slanina said the strength of the monologues lies in the delivery and the humor. “One of the reasons these plays rarely get performed is because they tackle holiday fodder with such a sarcastic, smarmy approach. It definitely reeks of that Sedaris brand of humor, but fans of theater — as well as the author — will love it.”

Most people familiar with Sedaris know him from his contributions to National Public Radio’s “This American Life,” as well as his best-selling essay collections, “Naked,” “Holidays on Ice,” “Me Talk Pretty One Day” and “Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim.”

Sedaris’ sister, Amy Sedaris, is a writer and actress who is known for her stint on “Sex and the City,” her Comedy Central series “Strangers with Candy” and her appearances on “Late Night with David Letterman.”

David and Amy co-wrote “Book of Liz,” which the Oakland staged last season.