Barney the Elf As a non-Christian, I have no brief for Christmas. But the Other Theatre Company brings a whole chorusful of gold lamé briefs to this oddly compelling holiday tribute. I say “oddly” because the 90-minute show sure as hell doesn’t follow the usual path to yuletide cheer. Santa Claus has died, to start, leaving behind a widow and one grown son, Junior, who’s expected to follow in dad’s footsteps. But Junior is a jerk, bent on introducing efficiencies at the expense of joy. One of his first acts is to fire Barney, whose exuberance makes his fellow elves entirely too happy. That sends Barney to Chicago, where he meets drag queen Zooey and learns a few things about himself, while we get the best-ever explanation of what makes reindeer fly. The whole ensemble is jolly and deft, but Roy Samra’s Barney is incandescent, especially when singing a surprisingly unironic “O Holy Night.” Dixie Lynn Cartwright’s Zooey is endearingly wry. —Tony Adler
The Customer Is Always Right? Holiday Edition Given this 40-minute offering’s semidutiful premise—a couple people tell horror stories from their days working in customer service, then a team of six improvise around those stories—it’s gratifying to see just how far off the rails these Annoyance improvisers are willing to take things. A tale of creepy solicitation at a Six Flags antique photograph emporium became a demented journey through Butterworld, a Wisconsin amusement park where Roald Dahl pitched a children’s book about a sex giant. A second saga of misguided telemarketing (trying to sell people a spare refrigerator full of meat) somehow turned into five salespeople trying to sell knife sets by pretending to be Jude Law simultaneously. Even with a few hesitant moments, the show zings along delightfully. —Justin Hayford
Rudolph the Red-Hosed Reindeer Hell in a Handbag’s drag-infused holiday extravaganza wouldn’t be celebrating its 20th anniversary if it didn’t change with the times, and after a year of President Trump, writer David Cerda has plenty of fresh material to lampoon. In this year’s Rudolph, Santa (Michael Jack Hampton) is elected president of the North Pole, giving him a new wife, Iwanka (Cerda), and press secretary, Connie Ann Blitzen (Terry McCarthy). Trump gags dominate the first half, but this change also intensifies the theme of intolerance at the core of the production. Rudolph (Graham Thomas Heacock) and Herbie (Kristopher Bottrall) are queer heroes on a journey to self-acceptance, and their obstacles have only gotten bigger this year. Heacock and Bottrall give delightfully cartoonish performances, and while the show feels long at two hours, it provides a steady supply of catty Christmas cheer. —Oliver Sava
