Merry Fucking Christmas

San Francisco delights in the observation of anti-holidays -- the burning of love letters on Valentine’s Day, the allocution of Native American maltreatment on Thanksgiving, and, most especially and gleefully, the abject humiliation of Crumpet the Elf at Christmastime. Since 1992, when David Sedaris first showed up on NPR to read from his Santaland Diaries, the biographical essay has become something of a Bay Area yuletide tradition. While sugarplum faries dance in the hearts of the heartland, San Franciscans have gathered together in living rooms and barrooms to chortle at the dark underpinnings of Santa’s Village at Macy’s. Because nothing says Christmas like scraping menstrual blood out of elf knickers, especially if it’s said in the voice of a sardonic, queer elf from North Carolina. For the seventh year in a row, that voice is conjured onstage by Santaland Diaries’ David Sinaiko or John Michael Beck, depending on the night. While there is not a lot of action in this one-man stage adaptation (barring flirtations with Snowball), one hardly needs stage direction and hidden wires to bring real life to Sedaris’ “Vomit Corner.” Learn how to sign “Santa has a tumor in his head the size of an olive.”
Dec. 23-Jan. 4, 8 p.m., 2008