Cincinnati Dealer - December 21, 2005

Reindeer Monologues Titillates Diverse Crowd  

ARNOLD'S - Clear out the bathtub, Vixen, the Monologues are comin' to town!  In a raunchy and racy tell-all performance, The Know Theatre Tribe has caught Santa with his red leggings hanging down around his ankles. 

This reviewer says "kudos" to The Tribe for its brave telling of an age-old tale.  This is a production not for the squeamish.  But if the mental picture of a saggy Mrs. Claus (replete with pasties and a crotch-clinging elf) whooping it up at the North Pole office party makes your bells jingle, then it's time to rush on over to the venerable saloon and take your seat with all the other merry pervs getting their jollies at the expense of a fat old Saint and eight horny, bitter, reindeer. 

"This is a story that needed to be told," Alan P. Kenny, this year's director, told the Dealer.  "And what better way to tell it in the Tri-State than a Springer-style televised gabfest?"

Indeed, the audience connected well with the tales of incest, bestiality, and pedophilia related by the famous hoofed flyers.  The immediacy of the in-your-face confessionals resonated with the hip crowd.

"I'm so over that whole Santa thing," commented Natashia Melan, a copywriter for the Diocese of Covington.  "It's nice to see that whole patriarchal construct come crashing down.  Santa needs to embrace a vegan lifestyle and set those oppressed elves and reindeer free."

Robert Volvo, knitting expert and part-time stockbroker, agreed with Ms. Melan.  "For too long Ms. Claus has been relegated to baking cookies and tending to her hopelessly outdated spouse.  I, for one, was glad to catch a glimpse of the real woman behind the June Cleaveresque persona fed to Western society via the North Pole marketing machine throughout the past two millennia."

Indeed, this thought provoking play forces the viewer to re-examine stereotypes imparted to generations of impressionable children perched upon Mommy or Daddy's knee.  Why the Cult of Rudolph?  Has genetic engineering been used to give the does on the team antlers, or are they transgendered animals?  Where did the elves come from, and are they paid union-scale wages? And is it best for a gay reindeer to carry Louis Vitton or Donna Karan?

If you think Christmas is a time to relax and forget about all that tiresome PC nonsense being bandied about the corporate boardroom by middle-aged white men willing to mouth anything to appease shrill, out-of-touch academicians, think again.  The Eight  Reindeer Monologues gives an insider's appreciation of the institution of Kris Kringle and his helpers that, perhaps unfortunately, you will not soon be able to forget.