This holiday season Theatre Gigante hosts performer Michael Stebbins’ staging of Holidays on Ice. David Sedaris now classic holiday tales will be delivered to the stage by someone who is not David Sedaris. This is an important distinction that I feel as though I need to point out. I was first introduced to Sedaris’ work on public radio’s This American Life back in college in the mid-1990s. The first thing that I’d heard him perform on said show was a piece from Holidays on Ice. Included on the program are Season’s Greetings to Our Friends and Family!!!, Dinah, the Christmas Whore and Front Row Center with Thaddeus Bristol.
To say that Sedaris’ voice is distinctive strikes me as kind of an understatement. He’s one of those writers with a voice I always hear in my head whenever I read his stuff in print. It’s soft and witty--a bit like a stuffed animal with a suspicious look on its face. You know that there’s a lot more going on than beneath the up-front cuddliness and you know that it makes the whole package that much more appealing but you don’t know why.
The people at Theatre Gigante are some of the nicest people you will ever want to meet. I never recall having ever said that about anyone before. That being said, it’s difficult for me to imagine going to hear someone else read Sedaris’ work. However, there are those who are unfamiliar with the man’s work. They should go to this show without being mildly disoriented by non-Sedaris vocals. And there are probably those who find Sedaris’ recorded voice to sound like...I don’t know...an abrasively cuddly-soft scarf that throttles the ear a bit too much to be able to enjoy what’s actually some of the wittiest biographical writing to come out of the late 1990s.
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Also, there’s that feeling of being in a live theatre setting and enjoying Sedaris with a performer who truly loves Sedaris as well. Look around online and you’ll see Stebbins warmly talking about the group environment of a bunch of people getting together in holiday attire and occasionally talking back to him during the performance. It’s that pleasant alternative evening at the holiday theatre with friends who might find other alternative fare not quite to their liking. This is a different flavor of alternative holiday show than those being offered up by the Alchemist and In Tandem and Neil Haven. The Milwaukee holiday theatre table is big enough for everyone--even a David Sedaris who isn’t David Sedaris who is being shown the stage by two of the nicest people you would ever want to meet.
Michael Stebbins performs Holidays on Ice for Theatre Gigante Dec. 5 - 7 at Theatre Gigante’s studio on 706 South 5th Street. For ticket reservations, call 414-961-6119.
