Serving Some Sentiment, Straight Up or With a Twist : ‘Home Fire’: The Other Side of Family Gathering

Some Christmas plays are heartwarming. Others are rib-tickling. Still others are time-wasting. Here are reviews of just a few of the holiday-themed theatrical offerings in Southern California.

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If you’re sick of “Jingle Bells” and can’t bear to see another “Christmas Carol” for as long as you live, Marion Gallo’s “Home Fire” is the perfect play for the holiday season.

In fact, “Jingle Bells”--merrily sung by Rosemary Clooney, Jose Carreras and Bing Crosby--serves as crazed counterpoint to scenes that get loonier and darker and funnier, as every possible buried family secret surfaces at one Christmas get-together in Brooklyn. The confessions come fast and furious once Rocco (John Gallucci), a fed-up son, takes a gun to his own extended family, forcing a confrontation between his coddled brother Danny (James DiStefano) and his overbearing, nasty mother Mary (Vera Lockwood).

Just the anticipation of seeing his family for the holidays throws poor Danny’s back out. “They know how to push every button!” he tells his wife, Laura (Mary VanArsdel, also played by Nanci Christopher), who is an object of fascination for the family because she sees a therapist. “And they know where they are too,” she answers, “because they installed them!”

While Danny, a photographer, is still carrying the burden of being Mama’s favorite, his brother Rocco relishes his bad-boy role despite a wife and two constantly-fighting-because-they’re-sexually-attracted-to-each-other teen-age children.

In fact, the play at Theatre West opens with Rocco delivering a monologue actually in flagrante with one of his several mistresses. A sense of riotousness begins there and grows throughout the evening, which, though a bit long, is refreshingly honest about just how sick families can be.

In his black leather jacket, Gallucci (also the show’s producer) fairly drips testosterone as the unrepentant male who likes to remind all his lovers, including his wife (Barbara Goodson), that he needs to be free. DiStefano is completely believable as Rocco’s completely different brother, and his reactive comic timing is wonderful (sometimes reminiscent of Joe Pesci’s) in such interesting situations as listening to Rocco’s dream in which Farrah Fawcett urinates on his face.

Gallo directs with an eye for truthfulness as merciless as her pen, and with great energy. Her cast, some of which changes from night to night, bites into its assorted venalities with healthy appetites. “Home Fire” is a go-for-broke evening of dysfunctionality that, because of its candor, manages to be more revivifying than the load of pious family fare we will no doubt be served up this year, as ever. God Bless America.

* “Home Fire, An Insane Christmas Comedy!,” Theatre West, 3333 Cahuenga Blvd. West., Los Angeles . Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m. Dark Dec. 24, 25, 31, Jan. 1. Ends Jan . 15. $15. (213) 660-8587. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.

Other Reviews Inside

* A CHRISTMAS CAROL--Dickens Lite comes nicely packaged at South Coast Repertory. F11

* THE X-MAS FILES--Jeff Goode’s monologues at Hudson BackStage are wickedly funny. F11

* CHRISTMAS WITH SAL AND AMANDA GECKO--Over-the-top at the Gem Theatre. F11

* MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET--The show at Actors Workout Studio is more earnest than involving. F11

* YULETIDE STORIES--The trio of one-acts at the Burbage Theatre won’t kindle the holiday spirit. F11

* A CHRISTMAS CAROL--At San Diego Repertory Theatre, the story returns to its Victorian origins. F11