"X-MAS AT THE JOHNSON'S" splices an adaptation of Christmas at the Ivanov's by the Russian absurdist Aleksandr Vvedenskii with scenes inspired by poems of Vvedenskii's fellow absurdist, Dani'il Kharms. I got so fascinated with the reading material about these two writers posted in the Union Garage hallway that I almost missed the start of the play. Playwrights/adapters Craig Bradshaw and Christopher Persons have done theater history a great service by mounting this production.

Vvedenskii and Kharms were part of a Leningrad literary circle, a sort of Russian Dada, that called themselves OBERIU (from an anagram, in Russian, for "real art"). Formed in l928, they shunned serious "Literature" and chose instead to make absurd art with and for friends. In an introduction to his poems, Kharms warned, "Reader, I am afraid you will not understand my verses." And though Vvedenskii published many stories for children, "most of his literary activity took place," according to the hallway notes, "outside the world of print." OBERIU disbanded in l930. In l941, Vvedenskii died in one of Stalin's gulags, and Kharms, who had been declared insane, died of starvation in a mental hospital.

The show tries to re-create the feeling of an improv evening at home or at an intimate cabaret with OBERIU. As the audience walks in, the actors are on stage doing vocal and physical warm-up exercises, joshing with each other like friends who aren't acting. I never buy this kind of let's-pretend-we're-not-up-here thing, but fortunately it doesn't last long and only occurs a couple of places later in the show.

Enter the MC (Gavin Cummins), who--according to the production notes--represents a Stalinist authority figure. He flies through a speech about what we have come to expect from theater and how this production will subvert that. Several short, odd vignette-type things follow: a string of anecdotes about Hemingway; a story about a guy being killed by a giant tomato; a slippery tale about a mouth full of butter. Some of these are funny, but I kept wondering if they were ever going to come together or segue into the promised Xmas story. They didn't, and that's part of the point. Like the absurdist theater from which it derives, this show is less about presenting a continuous story than about exploring discontinuity, weird juxtapositions, randomness, and ridiculousness. It's about the pleasures and the seriousness of play.

We meet the Johnsons, a family of six children who vary in age from "Peter, one-year-old boy" to "Megan, 82-year-old girl" (played by a deft ensemble comprised of David Nochimson, Missel Leddington, Christine Kolodge, Rebecca Lingafelter, Brad Cook, and Todd Sessoms), when they are all sitting in three bath tubs in the family living room. "Candace, 32-year-old girl" (Kolodge) is the most noticeable of the children because she, though modestly brassiered, is pinching her tits. She is eventually shot through the back of the head by the mightily accented Nurse Schmetterling (Pamala Mijatov). The Johnson parents are played by a pair of dolls hanging down from the ends of sticks, with brilliantly funny vocals by Sessoms and Leddington. Sessoms, particularly, is an incredible actor--great accents, sharp, slippery movements, tremendous variety.

Insofar as there is a story, it's about how this poor family copes with having one of their number's brains splattered through the house during what should be a happy holiday time. Throughout there are references to and parodies of both "serious" and low-brow "literature": Hedda Gabler's guns; The X-Files' cigarette-smoking man; Ionesco's The Chairs; Hogan and Klink from Hogan's Heroes; a Chekhovian samovar; and a grand finale in which, in the best Jacobean style, the stage is completely strewn with dead bodies. I think my personal favorite reference, though, is a variation on the Susan Hayward movie I Want to Live! and the Christmas tree light electrocution scene that ensues. Would that all Christmas shows ended like this.

Funny as it was, though, I wish that some of the scenes had been cut; sometimes it just dragged. A tighter script would allow this very nimble cast to pay an even more fitting homage to this underappreciated part of theater history.