Arnold’s Bar and Grill, Cincinnati’s oldest tavern, is the cozy and congenial setting for Cincinnati Shakespeare Company’s rendition of Every Christmas Story Ever Told. But if you’re looking for a traditional holiday entertainment, be forewarned: This performance has more in common with wild and crazy sketch comedy than it does with a performance of a full-length Christmas play. The play doesn’t actually include every Christmas story ever told, just the most generic ones (besides Dickens’ story of Scrooge, there are versions of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer,” “Frosty the Snowman,” and “A Charlie Brown Christmas”). But playwrights Michael Carleton, John Fitzgerald and Jim Alvarez manage to pack a lot of humor into the lines, redoubled by director Jeremy Dubin’s gift for devising hilarious physical comedy and the actors’ ability to carry this off seamlessly. 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Through Dec. 30.
Get details and buy tickets here.
This article appears in Dec 17-23, 2008.