Review of A Christmas Wish at Quest Theatre Ensemble

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called A Christmas Wish and the book and lyrics were by Andrew Park, who also was the director, and the music was by Scott C. Lamps. This play was about Dasher (Andrew Behling) from Santa's sleigh team after he died and was put in a taxidermy shop with a Beaver (Vince Lonergan) whose wife had died, a Turkey (Veronica Garza) who didn't like people staring at her breast, the Goat (Kirk Osgood) who cursed the Cubs, a Bear (Kent Joseph) who wanted to run away with a girl bear (Kieran Welsh-Phillips), a Fish (Amy Stricker) that used to be a prostitute, and two pairs of Hooves (Lindsey Spencer and Welsh-Phillips) that didn't have a story. I didn't really understand what was supposed to happen to the characters because I thought the actors were really expressive but the text was really confusing for the audience. And why did it take place in a taxidermy shop? I had some ideas, but none of them really fit with the story. I expected a story about a little girl or little boy who wanted something from Santa for Christmas. It sounds like a really family-friendly thing, but when I saw it I thought it seemed more like an adult thing. It was like a children's play but with a bunch of inappropriate things stuck in. Instead of it being about the happy parts of Christmas, it was about death, sorrow, selfishness, and prostitution.

There was this song about this fish who was a prostitute and how that was her big secret and how sad she was about that. The actress did a good job singing the song, but the thing that I thought wasn't that good about the song is that it was about a fish prostitute and the dancing in the back was a little bit scary I thought because the guy Dancing John (Osgood) peeled off some of his shirt and started rubbing his bare chest in a sexy way while basically drooling. This play was literally called A Christmas Wish but it should have been called A Burlesque Fish.

"At Tom's Shop," was a song which went like this: "At Tom's Shop, feel good tonight, at Tom's feel good toniiiiight." It is catchy, but not in a good way. It is catchy in the way that you want to get it out of your head but you can't. There was another song called "The Most Annoying Song" and it was actually less annoying than some of the other songs.

I thought that the song Jane Doe (Molly LeCaptain) sang about how she was going to sue Walt Disney because she wanted her prince to come was a cool idea for song because it was funny but then also I remembered later in the car what happens to the deer in Bambi. The girl dies. And Jane Doe is a deer and girl, so I would call that a prediction that she is going to die. And the prediction was right. The thing was that it went on a little bit too long. I think that she was a very great singer and I thought that she was very good at singing high-pitched notes and being very interacting with the song.

I liked the actor who played Dasher. I thought that he was really committed to his character and wasn't just saying all the lines. And he sang this rock song about how he was going for the girl and I thought that that was really good. Santa (Kent Joseph) did not want him to get married to Jane Doe because it would mess up the team somehow. When Dasher gets to Santa he sings the song, but the thing is that Santa was acting sexy with the backup ladies and I thought that that was another reason why this shouldn't be called A Christmas Wish because it makes you feel like Santa is completely bad.

My favorite song was the song that the Turkey sang about how everyone is just staring at you like you are just a piece of meat. I liked that a lot because it wasn't about anything inappropriate; it was just about men and how men can sometimes be really annoying. It is about how men can be sexist and how women and turkeys and turkey-women should act against that. I thought the dancing and the singing was really good for this song and it seemed like everybody knew what they were doing and everybody was all together.

People who would like this show are people who like feminist Turkeys, reindeer singing rock songs, and fish prostitutes. But even if you like these things I'm not sure if you will want to go to the show because there are also a lot of strange things that are hard to understand. I don't think it was trying to be a parody. It was just trying to be its own Christmas show, but that is a Christmas show I'm not very excited to go and see.


Photos: Braxton Black