Chaos Takes Over Christmas

Hazie (Ellen Ratner), a Salinas waitress who has hitched her hopes to an appearance on “Wheel of Fortune,” is explaining to her L.A. mother, Lillian (Sandra Kinder), why she left her husband.

“Ed was a drunk,” she says.

Mom’s reply: “One flaw. One.”

Snappy but a full step above cheap, the line comes in the middle of the best scene in “Happytime Xmas,” playwright and director Justin Tanner’s frequently revived 1989 comedy, now at Third Stage in Burbank.

Kinder’s raspy, passive-aggressive Lillian, dispensing grief with a smile, is a wonderful performance, and it brings out the best in Ratner’s Hazie.

As with most Tanner works of this vintage, the fun’s mainly in the full-throttle ensemble chaos.

As a director, Tanner tears through his own material, the actors overlapping their lines like fiends, avoiding dead air like the plague. But this mother-daughter scene works in comic contrast to the rest of “Happytime Xmas.” It’s funny in an easier-breathing way.

Living with Hazie are son Drew (Aaron R. Hill, a standout), recently fired from the local Albertson’s; Drew’s pregnant better half, Candy (Melissa Courter); born-again daughter Dottie (Heather Pauley), preparing for a church pageant with her boyfriend (Jeff DiDomenico) that’ll “put the Christ back in Christmas”; and Hazie’s fellow waitress, Rhonda (Kim Chase), whom Hazie’s kids see as an interloping sponger. The ex, Ed (James Henriksen), shows up, too, after Hazie’s brush with “Wheel of Fortune” has come and gone.

As with all Tanner works, this one treads a line between venality and sweetness.

Frustratingly, “Happytime Xmas” is pretty obvious in setting its characters up for their various dashed hopes, relating to the presents they’ll get when Hazie wins big on the game show.

Tanner knows how to turn on the self-deluding, self-pitying rants; he doesn’t always know when to turn them off again or how to deepen them so the comedy sustains itself.

But it clicks along. The acting’s enjoyable. And when Kinder arrives, she’s a most welcome SoCal Scrooge.

*

“Happytime Xmas,” Third Stage, 2811 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank. Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Jan. 26. $10 to $15. (818) 842-4755. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.