Hope flames out for the Webers

An institution in San Francisco for the last decade or so, “Christmas With the Webers” can now be experienced by local audiences at the Acme Comedy Theatre. A largely improvisational show about a dysfunctional family’s cluelessly tacky holiday celebration, “Webers” features plenty of low humor, high spirits and unmitigated camp, including full-on drag turns in the female roles.

Audience members ring for admittance and enter directly into the Webers’ living room -- a kitschy habitat replete with garish red walls and plenty of glittery garlands. A cardboard fireplace, which will later feature in the thinner-than-cardboard plot, is an appropriately ugly focal point.

Dan O’Connor plays Naomi Weber, the bossy matriarch of the clan, who empties bottomless snifters of Christmas spirits like a shipwreck victim bailing out the boat. John X. Heart is Phillip A. Weber, a good-hearted loser who was cheated out of his lucrative invention, the Weber Grill, by a conniving brother.

Stephen Kearin is appropriately indefatigable as the Webers’ spoiled daughter, Sally Sue, a hyperactive moppet who seems to be suffering from terminal restless legs syndrome. And Cory Rouse, memorable for his turn as Frodo in the hilarious recent production of “Fellowship!,” plays Bradley, the resident outcast, who was abandoned at the Webers’ place some 10 years ago and now calls the coat closet his home.

The action is mainly fluff and banter, with rousing party games like Marshmallow Golf and a hilarious slide show detailing the Webers’ decline from prosperity to poverty. High jinks aside, things are looking pretty grim for the Webers this Christmas -- until the miraculous intervention of none other than the Almighty Himself.

No director is credited, but this freewheeling, surprisingly family-friendly romp would defy conventional staging. However, the creators should reconsider the unnecessary intermission break, which needlessly attenuates the proceedings.

*

“Christmas With the Webers,” Acme Comedy Theatre, 135 N. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles. 8 tonight, 2 p.m. Saturday, 8 p.m. Wednesday through next Friday. Ends next Friday. $20. (323) 525-0202. www.acmecomedy.com. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.