[ Metro Santa Cruz | MetroActive Central | Archives ]

Art Beat

Xmas Camp

By Sarah Phelan

You gotta love Central Coast Theatre Works for bringing us Times Square Angel just in the nick (ho! ho!) of time. Talk about angelic intervention! This talented troupe's campy sendup of seasonal syrup delivers us from suicidal tendencies brought on by shopping stress and nonstop Christmas carols.

Brian Spencer plays Albert, a perfectly flawed angel, who offers all us less-than-angelic beings a ray of hope that heaven doesn't have to be eternal Enya or some kinda jingle-bell hell. Albert's got attitude. In my book, any angel that complains about celestial clambakes deserves to go to heaven.

But God doesn't agree. Disappointed with Albert's constant insubordination and infernal talkback, He sends him down to Earth on a probationary wild goose chase. The wild goose in question is Irish O'Flanagan, once a street urchin with a heart of gold (Alison Matulich). After five soul-destroying years in a zipper factory, a ruthless adult Irish (the charismatic Deborah Bolt) is no longer making zippers. She's busy pullin' 'em down for big bucks in a burlesque show, where she discards clothes and chums with equal abandon.

You won't see more than you oughtta in this family show, but parents, beware: Please take your little angels to the bathroom before this nonstop production.

---

Times Square Angel plays Friday and Saturday (8pm) and Sunday (6:30pm--closing show), at Actor's Theatre, 1001 Center St., Santa Cruz. Tickets: $12/general, $10/kids and seniors.


---

[ Metro Santa Cruz | MetroActive Central | Archives ]