Bob's Holiday Office Party makes its way to the Atwater Village Theatre for its 21st consecutive year of drunken revelry. I must admit that I'd never heard of this long-running show until seeing it, but now I'll be hard-pressed to forget.
Most perennial classics tend to wear out their welcome eventually (how many ways can one put a twist on A Christmas Carol?), so it'd be reasonable to fear that
Bob's would have lost some of its bite over the past two decades. Fortunately, the opposite seems to be the case. The cast (most of which have been coming back to
Bob's year after year) have developed such an arresting, natural chemistry that effortlessly carries the audience through 90+ minutes of insanity. In a time when self-obsessed "raunchy comedy" is breaking box-office records, it's refreshing to see a show so humble and generous in its depravity.
The (admittedly thin) story is classic holiday fare: small-town insurance salesman Bob Finnhead (co-writer and perfect straight man Rob Elk) must decide whether to sell his business and pursue his dreams, or stay with the kooky, lovable, irksome folk he's lived with his whole life. That's it. Refreshingly unpretentious, with a strong focus on distinct, uproarious characters and intoxicating ambience. The lack of story would present a problem in a show less confident in its anarchy. Most scenes are just joke-laden, inconsequential conversations between Bob and fellow residents of Neuterberg, Iowa: the alcoholic Sheriff Joe (co-writer Joe Keyes), twin farmers LaDonna and LaVoris (Maile Flanagan and Melissa Denton), the nogoodnik stoner Marty (Mark Fite), and so on. What must have started as over-the-top caricatures when the show began in the 90s, have since evolved into multi-layered characters. Still over-the-top, sure, but recognizable.
Once the party starts going and the booze starts flowing, the play often breaks out into periods of controlled chaos, with multiple tableaus of off-the-wall hilarity happening simultaneously. It's worth seeing the show multiple times just to make sure you didn't miss anything (and to see both casts, as some roles are played by different actors on different nights). Every single member of the cast I saw is a talented comic actor, putting their skills to use in a way not afforded by more structured shows.
Bob's has a timeless feel to it (apart from some slightly stilted new material about the recent election), so it's easy to see why it keeps coming back. The script was devised through group improvisations, and that easygoing, laid-back charm is mightily apparent. It wouldn't be surprising to learn that some bits of this current iteration are improvised, so natural and full of discovery are the performances. Still, some aspects are starting to show their age. A handful of telegraphed punchlines here and there. Some characters, especially the deep-in-the-closet mayor and local boozy slut, are much quainter now than they must have been back in 1996 (even though they are played with aplomb by David Bauman and the gifted physical comedian Sirena Irwin, respectively).
These small flaws are forgivable when a show is otherwise able to so completely accomplish its goals. I may have to make this a yearly tradition, if only just to see how Bob's Holiday Office Party evolves. That, and it's just very, very funny.
Limited seasonal run! Buy your tickets now!