Graphic Design by Guy Picot with Corey Klemow

The Christmas Present

written & directed by Guy Picot

U.S. Premiere!
DECEMBER 6-24, 2011
Tuesdays & Wednesdays @ 8pm
plus Thurs-Sat, Dec. 22-24 @ 8pm

TICKETS: $15
Buy Tickets Now or call (310) 281-8337

Will you get what you want this Christmas?

'Twas the night before Christmas
and all through the house
not a creature was stirring...
So Colin hired a prostitute and checked into a hotel.
What followed was truly a Christmas miracle.

A LONDON TIMES "TOP FIVE THEATRE" PICK!

“...spellbinding... hilarious but deeply dark and meaningful work.” -Brighton Magazine (Brighton, UK)

“...a darkly funny tale...” -The Argus (Brighton, UK)

Reviews of the Sacred Fools Production

"Those who like their Christmases on the rocks, with bitters, will feel right at home..." -L.A. Times

"As the sultry Salome, Higgins glides through the role with a steamy, soothing calm, while as her counterpart, Moss has an inexorably gritty and humane charm." -L.A. Weekly (GO!)

Read the full reviews!

Like THE CHRISTMAS PRESENT on Facebook!

Enjoy homemade mince pies at our concessions stand when you come to see The Christmas Present!

Photos

Cast

Troy Blendell as Colin
Sasha Higgins as Holly
Mandi Moss as Debbie

Crew

Producers - Richard Levinson & Erin Parks
Design & Costume Consultant - Tifanie McQueen
Associate Producer - Joseph Beck
Stage Manager - Ari Radousky

Reviews

L.A. Weekly - GO

Sacred Fools' The Christmas Present: Who Spends Christmas With a Prostitute?

There's an imposing bed at the center of the stage. Colin (Troy Blendell) has such a typically English, genial disposition, you have to wonder why he's booked a hotel room (somewhere in Britain) for Christmas to be spent in the company of a hooker, what the escort agency calls "the Christmas Package."

There's a divide between what Colin thinks he's doing and what's actually unfolding, and that divide is the most provocative idea posed by writer-director Guy Picot in his dark comedy The Christmas Present, being performed at Sacred Fools Theatre through Christmas Eve.

Colin addresses the audience with droll jocularity, which carries over into his awkward interactions with Salome (Sasha Higgins), the sweet brunette bombshell who arrives in fashionable leather before reappearing in a sexy Santa outfit.

That he's assigned for himself the false name of John reveals Colin's singular lack of imagination, which offers a glimpse into why the poor guy can't, or doesn't want to, find a friend or some family to hang out with over the holidays.

Another clue is his slightly neurotic reaction to Salome's mention of a snowy Christmas, something he insists she shouldn't mention for fear that her fantasy White Christmas image may not manifest itself, thereby forcing meager reality into his insulated, paid-for world of perfect fantasy.

The final clue is the occasional wisp of hangdog desperation lodged somewhere within the twinkle of his eyes when he keeps telling her how perfect she is.

"Well, it's very sweet of you to keep saying that, but you don't really know me," she coos. "The sort of good time that you seem to want is about, I don't know, affection, comfort, companionship."

"Exactly," he fires back.

"But we can't really be that, can we," she reasons. "We haven't earned that from each other."

After asking her if she can take it on "trust," she expresses surprise that he should want human comfort. "Usually I just do sex and go."

That's a little hard to believe — that men residing in the outer margins of loneliness who hire upscale hookers aren't trying to purchase a substitute for a profound spiritual lack as well as a physical one.

Yet Salome doesn't have to be believed because she's a figment of Colin's imagination, a fantasy of the perfect woman who, after dispatching the matter of payment with assurances that she'll not break their contract by leaving early (though he may if he's dissatisfied), slithers like a feline across his bed, stoking his ego with gentle compassion while engaging in a quality of conversation that's assuredly intelligent without being pedantic.

She's too good to be true because she isn't true. She's an object of his psychic desire.

Her scenes are interspersed with the arrival of a second Salome (Mandy Moss), the real woman with whom Colin is actually reckoning — straight-talking, passion-killing, with a cavalier disregard for the impotence she provokes in him. Worse, she's a single mother — news that has the effect of ice chucked onto his shriveling libido.

And so, the play traverses the line of pretending, strung between silky romanticism and gravel-lined reality. Colin floats in the former as though on the wings of an angel; when he tumbles into the latter, he lashes out with sarcastic barbs, and in return the second Salome scratches and cuts him back through her matter-of-fact, sensible repartee. He's vindictive, she's not.

Both women play at being his friend, but which is truer?

Through Colin's ability to bridge the chasm between a generic fantasy and human contact, Picot gets to the heart of the divide between men and women. There's little here that's earth-shattering, and no point of connection between Colin's model of female perfection and the outside world of commerce and porno.

The play also traffics in cliches, in its fantasies for arousal, from calendar pinups to porno archetypes.

But eventually it becomes clear that Picot's point is that those fantasies lead to disconnection and loneliness not only for guys but for women, too. For this reason, The Christmas Present is a better play than it appears at first glance.

As the sultry Salome, Higgins glides through the role with a steamy, soothing calm, while as her counterpart, Moss has an inexorably gritty and humane charm. Blendell's Colin portrays the john's bewilderment with plausibly brittle and defensive darts, as he aims to fathom the causes of his loneliness. The inner causes are all too obvious, but their relevance to the world beyond his hotel is what gives this play its value.

--Steven Leigh Morris
© 2011 L.A. Weekly

L.A. Times

In art as in life, Christmas has its dark side. For every Scrooge and Grinch transfigured by the spirit of giving, somewhere a Raymond Carver character is shouting, “That’s the last Christmas you’ll ever ruin for us!” at her drunk husband.

Those who like their Christmases on the rocks, with bitters, will feel right at home at Sacred Fools Theater’s U.S. premiere of “The Christmas Present,” written and directed by Guy Picot.

The play is subtitled “a dark British comedy,” but even the most cynical American may find it longer on the dark and the British than the comedy. Although the tale of a borderline sociopath and the grouchy prostitute he’s hired to spend the holiday with him in a hideous hotel room — she’s his “present” —does provoke laughs, they’re closer to Nietzschean yelps of despair than Yuletide jollity.

Miserably divorced Colin (Troy Blendell) has hired “Salomé” primarily for companionship. Or so he explains to the lovely, accommodating woman (Sasha Higgins) who arrives after he has hidden a knife under the bed. This Salomé turns out to be a fantasy; a second knock heralds the actual prostitute (Mandi Moss), a belligerent harpy. Scenes of their squabbling alternate with tenderer, if creepier, imaginary interactions between Colin and the hooker of his dreams.

Blendell’s Colin is a deceptively average-looking “bloke” whose unctuous good humor keeps giving way to twitching rage. Higgins brings a quirky sweetness to her slight role. But the play doesn’t really come to life until the fiery Moss shows up in her sweatpants and starts laying waste to Colin’s delusions. Ultimately, for all its bile and threats, “The Christmas Present” pulls its punches, delivering not a bloodbath but its own darkly comic, very British Christmas miracle.

--Margaret Gray

© 2011 L.A. Times
 

Back to Top