THEATER REVIEW : LAMB’S PLAYERS IN 9TH YULE FESTIVAL

Going to the ninth annual Festival of Christmas at the Lamb’s Players Theatre is like going to Christmas dinner and finding the meat half-raw and half-burned. If you went for the dinner, you’re bound to be disappointed. If you went for the company, you may not mind.

The Lamb’s Players are great company. They sing Christmas carols with charm and verve. They invite the audience to share in their Christmas joy, drawing them into sing-alongs of “O Christmas Tree” and “Jingle Bells.” If only they had something to offer between the songs.

Festival of Christmas is the name of five different Christmas plays, now in their second cycle, all written by the theater’s associate director, Kerry Cederberg. The time and the setting change, but the message from this nonprofit Christian theater group remains the same: Christmas is a time for rejoicing and love, the proper mix between the duties of the spirit and the wishes of the heart. Some years, this message can be deduced naturally from the plot. This year, it is squeezed like stuffing inside the turkey.

The narrator, Otto Kugl (Michael Gier), tells us, with the help of his wife, Hilder (Janine Zeller), and children, Yorge (David Carminito) and Inga (Marilyn Mike), of a Kungl family legend that takes place in Narmastad, a make-believe kingdom between the equally fanciful northern kingdoms of Monteradom and Kaarlanda. These are all supposedly somewhere in Sweden, but it’s hard to tell from the puzzling potpourri of accents, from Swedish to Italian to British to American.

Twenty-five years earlier, a princess from Kaarlanda and a prince from Monteradom were born and betrothed by their parents to cement peace between their countries. The night before the wedding, Princess Linnae (Deborah Gilmour Smyth) tells her two ladies-in-waiting, the lively, fanciful Greta (Cederberg) and the straight-laced Elsebethe (Anna Carminito), her dread of marrying a man she has never met. They decide, over Elsebethe’s objections, upon an adventure.

They travel, disguised, into town. There, amid much revelry, dancing, caroling and a game of blindman’s bluff played with Linnae’s slipper (definitely the high point of the show), they each meet and fall in love with strange men they are sure they will never see again. But who are these strange men, dressed like peasants, and yet so handsome, so gallant and so polite? Will they really never see them again? The situation is hardly suspenseful. The most surprising part of the plot is that it can be stretched out for a full two hours, not counting intermission.

Some of the characterizations are winning. Cederberg is a delight every time she is on stage. Her character’s head is full of fancies about white knights and frog princes, about true love and derring-do. And how can we not believe her? No matter how improbable her tales, her whole body wells up when she tells them, her arms stretch out and her toes turn in.

“Sorry,” she says at one point when, in lieu of reassuring the princess about her husband-to-be, she enthusiastically pictures the prince as being dark and evil with eyes like burning coals. “Sometimes, I get so excited I start saying things I haven’t thought of yet.”

Cederberg has created a comic dynamic between the spirited Greta and the duty-minded Elsebethe. They carp at each other in the time-honored tradition of a comedy team, but it is much easier to like Greta. As Anna Carminito fills and overfills her part, there isn’t much there besides a cartoon-book girl with glasses and pinched lips.

All the characters, including the sweet princess, the noble Prince Christian (Phil Card), the comic knight Jaako (Chris Causey), and the learned knight Gunnar (Rick Meads), are one-note characters. The problem is that, though all the actors play their parts with good humor and a timing that bears the fruits of long collaboration, none of those parts is as ingenuous and funny as Greta’s. Only in her case do we not mind the monotonic characterization.

Skillful direction by Robert Smyth makes the 20-foot octagonal stage, decorated with snowflakes, seem twice its size. Mike Buckley’s resourceful scenic design allows for versatility--a cozy bed is swiftly stripped to wooden benches for a tavern scene; a few more quick changes and the stage is set for a wedding.

There are four curved arches, carved with hearts, framing the entrances and exits, which get quite a workout near the conclusion with a Keystone Kops routine in which everyone is chasing or being chased and Cederberg makes a dramatic slide in on her stomach, looking up with shock like a surprised otter.

Margaret Neuhoff Vida’s costumes pull magic out of the air. When Linnae, Greta and Elsebethe, dressed in their nightgowns, wonder what to wear into the village, they tug on a curtain and find they have a skirt; they slip a lacy doily off a table and find they have a shawl.

The dancing, choreographed by Pamela Turner, was lively and spirited. But the best part was the music, directed by Vanda Eggington, most of which was sung a cappella, the rest with a guitar and auto harp. The Lamb’s Players have lovely voices; their harmonies seem to come from within, bringing old songs such as “Old King Wenceslaus” to life with sweet force.

Two voices that stand out belong to David Carminito and Deborah Gilmour Smyth. Smyth’s crystalline soprano imbues songs with a conviction that makes them iridescent. If the Lamb’s Players want to create more Christmas spirit in the future, one can only hope there will be better talk between the carols. FESTIVAL OF CHRISTMAS

By Kerry Cederberg. Directed by Robert Smyth. Music direction by Vanda Eggington. Choreography by Pamela Turner. Costumes by Margaret Neuhoff Vida. Set designer is Mike Buckley. Stage manager is Karl Mertins. With Phil Card, Anna Carminito, David Carminito, Chris Causey, Kerry Cederberg, Michael Gier, Rick Meads, Marilyn Mike, Deborah Gilmour Smyth and Janine Zeller. Plays at 8 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m. Saturday and 7 p.m. Sunday, with Saturday-Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. Lamb’s Players Theatre, 500 Plaza Blvd., National City. Closes Dec. 28.