review
"inspecting carol"
at huntington beach playhouse
huntington beach
05 december 98
reviewed by
brook stowe

Warning! It's here! The dreaded holiday theater season! When theatres everywhere dreck their halls with bright and festive fare designed to get you into the holiday spirit while lightening your wallet. Leading the way, of course, is the perennial favorite, "A Christmas Carol". But closing fast is that mutant spawn of Scrooge's redemption, "Inspecting Carol".

If "A Christmas Carol" is a complete and sumptuous holiday feast, "Inspecting Carol" is a puddle of puke hurled by an obnoxious and overindulgent guest. A stunningly stupid play, "Inspecting Carol" teeters upon the improbable premise of an NEA "inspector" come to evaluate a financially-strapped theatre's worthiness of continued government funding. Threadbare clichés and cardboard caricatures pile atop one another in ever-mounting moronic excess as the play careens through the beleaguered theatre's annual staging of the Christmas classic enroute to a lame conclusion which will surprise no one.

Director Michael Ross is guilty of being an accessory after the fact here. The fact is, "Inspecting Carol" is a crime, lacking the craft and cleverness necessary to set the familiar Dickens tale on its head. Or knock it on its ass. Or do anything that hasn't already been done at countless middle-school talent shows. Ross doesn't clutter his direction with bothersome details like character shading or changes in tempo. He
understands the audience for this play is the same one that suckles nightly from the comforting teat of primetime TV. Thus unencumbered by nuance, Ross whips his cast of community theater regulars into a
collective frenzy of one-note histrionics from start to finish.

This is a crass and tasteless kickoff of the holiday season. If you have to see this play, try powering down a mug or six of festive holiday cheer first. Being blind drunk can only help.

Huntington Beach Playhouse, 7111 Talbert Ave., Huntington Beach. 714.375.0696. Thurs-Sat., 8pm; Sun., 2pm. Thru December 13. $5-$13.

t2k