Prior to this show, I had never heard of the composer Jill Gallina, but a quick scan around Amazon.com indicates this creator of children’s musicals tends towards iffy storylines, including “Santa Sings the Blues,” wherein St. Nick becomes a rockabilly singer and preaches to shoppers about the true meaning of Christmas. Whatever. I have no idea what Gallina-penned musical Mark Chrisler and Tim Racine got their hands on for “Christmas: Computerized!!!!!,” but it is a doozy. Something about Father Time buying a computer to better remind Santa that the holidays are coming up. The computer—with its corny, 1950s-era bee-bop-bo-boo sound effects—screws up, and Father Time and his kiddies all have a big laugh. It doesn’t make sense, and in the hands of this ensemble, it isn’t meant to. Like a couple of dudes who smoked too much weed before watching a kiddie Christmas pageant, Chrisler and Racine have devised something like bad sitcom that is sick, but sort of funny, too. Absolutely profane, intentionally cheesy and occasionally dreadful, the late-night show is often a slog, but works best when it samples pre-recorded snippets from Gallina’s musical, which have that great static-and-crackle sound of a record. Elizabeth Landers, in an unexplained but truly hilarious role as the lone female on stage—she encompasses all the clichés of the female mood swing: She’s perky! She’s pissed! She’s randy! She’s bitchy!—executes a horrible pas de deux with Father Time that is priceless in its apathy. (The rest of the cast is a bit shaggy, but Landers is a legitimate comedic presence, part-Lucille Ball, part-Amy Sedaris.) I guarantee this: You will not find a Christmas show like it anywhere else in town. (Nina Metz)
