‘A Bloody Christmas Experience’ : Theater: Full of violence and obscenities, ‘Rage,’ is hardly the usual holiday fare. The director accepts that some people will be offended.

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Jack Frost nipping at your nose. . . . Stop the music! Cancel the nostalgia! Hold the mistletoe! It’s Kevin Armold and Gus Buktenica’s violence-laden, obscenity-spewing “Rage! Or, I’ll Be Home for Christmas” (just opened at the Alliance Repertory Theatre in Burbank), and holiday fare may never be the same.

Subtitled “A White Trash Family Comedy in Two Black Acts,” the play tells the story of Whitey Spurlock, his estranged wife Inita, slatternly daughter Priscilla (whom he had sexually abused), gay son Russell, and Priscilla’s moronic boyfriend Wilson. On this particular Christmas, Whitey invites the family over for dinner on the pretext that he’s dying from cancer, pulls out a shotgun and starts shooting.

“That’s the end of the first act,” director John Randle explained cheerfully. “The second act takes place three years later in a TV studio--a reality show called ‘Death Row.’ ” On hand are Whitey, his book-hawking psychologist and a venal talk-show host.

“When I first saw a reading, what stood out was the harshness of the material,” Randle admitted. “These people are vultures and sluts, ignorant and judgmental; all sorts of four-letter words are tossed around by the female characters. That’s why it took me two months to decide to do it. I don’t like to do dark without light, or be assaultive for the sake of assault. I want people to be impacted, to laugh, to be moved--as I was.”

Nevertheless, the director knows--and accepts--that there will be people who will be offended by the barbed holiday satire.

“It’s not ‘The Nutcracker,’ ” he said firmly. “It’s a bloody Christmas experience, a very difficult play. We have warnings in the program about the language and violence. I’m a little syrupy about Christmas myself, so I had to get in touch with why the play was profoundly funny for me.” Taking on the project meant that Randle, who makes his living as a film editor, had to turn down several lucrative assignments. “It was a big decision,” he said. “I feel very at risk with this piece.”

Co-author Buktenica acknowledges that much of his and Armold’s initial impulse was to “shake up” a theater audience.

“But mostly it’s about how the suffering of people is usurped for other people’s entertainment,” said the Chicago-based writer. “It’s not just TV shows and talk-show hosts. It’s audience members and playwrights--we’re as voyeuristic as anybody.” Buktenica does stop short, however, of claiming any autobiographical impulses for the Whitey character. “Nothing cataclysmic has happened in my life,” he said earnestly. “My father is the coolest guy on the planet.”

For the director, however, the play’s emotional core strikes close to home. “The point the playwrights are making is where our television interests are going, the addiction people have to reality television--that whole baseness,” said Randle, 44. “My own interest was the dysfunctional family, because I came from one. Actually, mine was worse than the one in the play. So it’s been about exorcising that and learning to live with it. Also, I’ve had a long-term fascination with evil--who’s really evil.”

Raised outside Pauline, Kan. (population: 50), Randle grimly notes that “a whole lot of my life was spent getting out of there.” Bounding from a claustrophobic home life--an alcoholic grandfather, rage-filled grandmother and much-married mother--he was at Kansas State University studying psychology when the entertainment bug bit. After working at a small film studio in Kansas, Randle ventured to Chicago, and later established his own film company.

“I spent way too long in Chicago, because I was really afraid to go for my dream, which was Hollywood,” he admitted. In 1987, he took the plunge. “On my 40th birthday--literally--I moved my wife and two kids across the country.” Randle’s first job, as an editor on NBC’s “Cheers,” came after 23 months. Recent television editing assignments (“Step by Step” and “Family Matters”) allow him the flexibility to segue into more personal theater projects. “I get to deal with characters who allow me to laugh at painful parts of my life,” he said. “It’s very healing.”

“Rage! Or, I’ll Be Home for Christmas” plays at 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays at the Alliance Repertory Theatre, 3204 W. Magnolia Blvd. , Burbank. It continues through Dec. 21. Admission: $10 to $15. (818) 566-7935.

Arkatov writes regularly about theater for Calendar.