. . . AND TO ALL A BAH HUMBUG!

Undeck the halls, throw out the tree, dump the last of the eggnog down the drain, take three Vitamin C’s and attend to the final rite of the holiday season, the Humbug Awards.

The Humbugs are symbolic mites intended to memorialize certain deeds of the past theatrical year that illustrated something less than total class. The hope is to forestall an exact repetition of these deeds during the next year, which would hardly make for an amusing column.

Humbugs go less frequently to those who actually make theater, than to those who make a living off of it--producers, public relations types and even journalists (see last award).

For instance, we would never fault Joe Namath simply because he can’t sing and can’t dance. Joe does his best. The Humbug here goes to Civic Light Opera for bringing him in from Atlantic City to star in a cheesy emergency production of “Sugar” at the Music Center. (Still, Joe should have given that last bow to Bobby Morse.)

By Civic Light Opera, we mean, of course, the Nederlander Organization. A second Humbug goes to them, for bringing about the above-mentioned emergency by canceling the touring production of George Abbott’s lovely revival of “On Your Toes” after an injury to its star, Leslie Caron.

Caron would have been fine in the show. But she was hardly irreplaceable, as claimed. Even the show’s original Broadway star, Natalia Makarova, had been most capably replaced, by Galina Panov. Yet Lloyd’s of London gave the show’s producers a record $1.4-million settlement for folding the show in Houston. One of those producers was James Nederlander. Too bad CLO’s subscribers don’t have insurance.

The biggest non-delivery of the Olympic Arts Festival was Robert Wilson’s “the CIVIL warS.” A double Humbug goes to Wilson and to the festival’s artistic director, Robert J. Fitzpatrick. Wilson’s is for going back on his promise to perform at least sections of the work at the Shrine, even if the full piece couldn’t be financed. Fitzpatrick’s is for announcing the cancellation of the project behind Wilson’s back. Now let’s get “Einstein on the Beach” out here.

While on the Olympic Arts Festival, we can’t neglect Susan Loewenberg and Steven Berkoff, producer and author, respectively, of L.A. Theatre Works’ “Agamemnon.” Berkoff sent us a long letter denouncing our vulgar claim that his show displayed “more slashes than in the shower scene in ‘Psycho,’ ” while Loewenberg used that very phrase in her quote ad. Can’t have it both ways, guys.

Quite a lot of tosh was committed by the out-of-town press covering the festival. Los Angeles Catches Culture! Shakespeare on the Freeways! But the Humbug in this category goes to the New York Times for giving the festival no plausible coverage at all. When it comes to theater, the view from 43rd Street still extends only about three blocks.

A class-action Humbug this year to Lena Horne. She told a reporter that she yearns to run off and join a repertory theater company. She’d do small parts, anything. We have heard this yearning expressed by other stars in other years--Tony Randall and Lorne Greene, for example. They never do anything about it.

Triple Humbugs in the Shakespeare category. One to Prof. A. L. Rowse for removing both the obsolete words and the poetry from six of his texts. Another to the BBC, for plowing grimly ahead with its “Shakespeare Plays” series, in which British actors demonstrate that words without thoughts seldom to heaven go.

And one to the crackpots (surprisingly vociferous in 1984) who keep proving that Shakespeare was really Queen Elizabeth’s doctor’s dog. Trust me: Theater people can’t keep a secret. If Shakespeare hadn’t been Shakespeare, the word would have been out.

A Humbug with holly trim to Edwin Meese, of the Reagan Administration, who told the National Press Club--in jest, we are sure--that Ebeneezer Scrooge wasn’t all that bad an employer. “Bob Cratchit was paid 10 shillings a week, which was a very good wage. . . .” Actually it was 15 shillings, and Bob still couldn’t afford an overcoat.

Speaking of “A Christmas Carol,” South Coast Repertory was one of probably 50 American theaters who described their holiday productions of it as “a gift to the community.” If you charge money for it, it’s no gift.

Speaking of charity, “42nd Street” made a big to-do about its “unprecedented move” in “playing host to several organizations which specialize in youth counseling.” What would really be unprecedented would be for a show to do this before the box office starts to sag.

Two legal Humbugs--earwigs?--go to New York State Courts. The first ruled that the old Playhouse Theater on 48th Street theater couldn’t be named after Tennessee Williams without the permission of his heirs. So the owner decided to call it the Jack Lawrence Theater--after himself.

The second New York court decided the case of a food critic accused of libeling a Chinese restaurant, by this novel method: Inviting the restaurant chef in to cook his Peking duck pancakes for the jury. Everyone thought they were absolutely delicious and the critic had to pay damages. Somehow a theater critic doesn’t find this amusing.

Our next Humbug goes to the Wilshire Theater, for promising Jerome Robinson of Van Nuys front-row balcony seats and seating him 11 rows up instead. Explanation: The first rows of what we used to call the balcony are now known, in certain box offices, as the mezzanine . Shrewd, Marley, eh? And how about those altruistic folk at New York’s Actors Repertory Theatre? They announced a new play contest with a big first prize of $500--and an entry fee of $15. After 35 scripts, then, the project would be in the black. No, the scripts wouldn’t be returned.

Some of this year’s Humbugs suggested why people would rather to go the movies than the theater . . . which doesn’t excuse David Denby’s article on the same topic in the current Atlantic Monthly. Denby’s argument seems to be that movies are better than plays because they’re more natural . We’ll return to this topic next Sunday. Meanwhile--Humbug!

The final award goes to this reporter, who got entirely too many names wrong last year, including last Sunday’s identification of Bill Hunt as the star of the Callboard’s “In Trousers.” Bill Hutton played the role.