What do you get when you toss together a healthy dose of stereotypical Minnesota, a bucketful of Prairie Home Companion-style humor, a group of Ole and Lena-esque characters, and a series of musical numbers about ice holes, football, Barbara Streisand, and cutting the cheese? You get Masquers Theatre Company’s most recent laugh-a-minute stage production of “A Don’t Hug Me Christmas Carol.”
“A Don’t Hug Me Christmas Carol” is one in a series of plays chronicling the life of northern Minnesota bar owner Gunner “don’t hug me” Johnson, his wife Clara, waitress Bernice Lungstrom, local business owner Kanute Gunderson, and local musician-gone-famous Sven Yorgenson.
This particular episode sees Gunner adopting a Scrooge mentality as his jealousy of his wife’s former flame (Ian Lexvold as Sven Yorgenson) and his frustration over his lack of the ability to produce children has him in a bah-humbug mood. Despite Clara’s repeated attempts to kick-start Gunner’s holiday spirit, he refuses to comply and instead takes off across the lake on his snowmobile. Gunner crashes through a hole in the ice and winds up in a coma. That turn of events sparks a Dickensian “Christmas Carol” dream sequence that leads Gunner to see the past, present and possible future in a whole new light.
I and my fiancée, Kristina, ventured out to enjoy the dinner theater production of this show at the Forest Lake American Legion on Dec. 12, during the second weekend of shows. Having written a preview article for the past week’s paper, I had a Cliff’s Notes version of what this show entailed in my mind. Little did I know that I was in for much more than meets the eye.
The humor in this show cannot properly be described in words alone. Being there and experiencing all that the cast has to offer is essential to understanding just how much laughter filled the room during my viewing of this play.
A lot of why the humor works so well is the fact that the show is cast so well. Each member of this troupe seems to be playing a role that was just meant to be. A perfect example of this is Brian Etienne in the role of Kanute Gunderson. A bit of a drunkard with a crass sense of humor and a slightly perverse sense of flirtation (mostly directed at Bernice), Kanute is the quintessential lovable loser. Etienne performs the role with the perfect amount of sleaze in tone of voice, facial expression, body movement and comedic timing. I and my viewing partner both agreed that he and Bernice, arguably slightly minor characters, stole the show in more than one scene (especially during the musical number “It’s Christmastime So Please Give Me Some”).
Singing the praises of Etienne’s Gunderson, although a worthwhile endeavor, should not take away from the performances of the other members of the cast. Rachel Lexvold’s Clara is blessed with such a seemingly unending exuberance and wildly spirited cheerfulness in the face of Gunner’s constant grumbling and the actress pulls it off with ease. It feels as though we have all known that person who is just a bit too excited about every single thing, and Lexvold makes it believable.
Speaking of Gunner, Peter Wiberg does his job well in channeling Archie Bunker to Lexvold’s Edith. You can’t help but find his constant grumpiness somewhat endearing and Wiberg’s delivery of Gunner’s quick one-liners are sure to force a smile.
Much of what makes this production so on point for a production in Forest Lake is the fact that the authors of the play are brothers from Edina. Everything from the set pieces to the vocal accents to the language to the clothing to the style of humor screams “Minnesota.”
Masquers has one final run of shows Dec. 18 and 19 at 7 p.m. and Dec. 20 at 2 p.m. A quality dinner is available from the American Legion one hour prior to show time. At $30 for dinner theater and $15 for show alone, my advice would be to snap up some tickets now because I believe that the threat of a sellout is very real. Visit masquerstheatre.org for more information.