The Troubies meet The Beatles meet Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye in White (Album) Christmas, the musical parody masters’ latest spoofy holiday treat now playing at Burbank’s Colony Theatre.

Anyone who’s seen A Christmas Carole King, It’s A Stevie Wonderful Christmas, Santa Claus Is Coming To Motown, A Charlie James Brown Christmas, or Little Drummer Bowie (just to name a few of the Troubadour Theater Company’s previous December confections) knows the proven Troubies’ recipe for satirical fun.

Take a well-known tale (in this case the 1954 holiday perennial White Christmas), stir in an iconic recording artist’s Greatest Hits (or in this case, a 1968 double-disc Beatles classic known colloquially as The White Album), and spice up the mix with song-and-dance numbers, wink-wink jokes, topical humor, and adlibs aplenty.

As in holidays past, the more familiar you are with the source materials, the more you’ll relish just how cleverly the Troubies have worked their trademark magic on the mix, though whether you’ve seen White Christmas umpteen times as I have on both screen and stage, or you’re unfamiliar with all but a handful of the songs being given ingeniously tweaked lyrics (my own case with The White Album), or even if you’ve somehow remained entirely ignorant of either, a Troubies show is guaranteed to have you laughing at the jokes and cheering the performances in equal measure.

Rick Batalla and Philip McNiven take over for Bing and Danny as ex-WWII GIs Bob Wallace and Phil Davis, who following their army discharge, go on to achieve show biz success in nightclubs, on the radio, and on TV.

Enter singing-dancing sisters Betty and Judy Haines (Cloie Wyatt Taylor and Suzanne Jolie Narbonne filling Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen’s high heels), who through a series of events too complicated to go into here, end up alongside Bob and Phil at a Vermont winter resort run by none other than the boys’ ex-commander General Waverly (Matt Walker), aided in his retirement gig by his sassy sister (Beth Kennedy as “Martha My Dear”) and his tween granddaughter (Dallys Newton), a dead ringer for Wednesday Addams.

Unfortunately for all of the above, there’s no snow this December up Vermont way, and if the skies remain as sunny and blue as they are now, there’s no way Bob, Phil, and friends will be able to celebrate a White (Album) Christmas this year, though they’ll certainly do their best to cover as many satirized Beatles tracks as possible in each of the production’s two hour-long acts.

Count on the Troubies to insert plenty of pop culture references and to give ad lib masters Walker and Batalla plenty of chances to come up with enough witty quips to make each and every show different from the night before.

Count too on creator-director Walker to elicit the most delectable of performances from each and everyone on stage beginning with his own star turns as the General and more.

Batalla and McNiven are once again in fabulous form, this time round as the next best thing to Bing and Danny, and in case we don’t know which one is which, Bob’s Dopey ears and Phil’s carrot-top mop make that abundantly clear.

Taylor’s curvy, no-nonsense Betty and Narbonne’s luscious, leggy Judy make for a terrific couple of romantic, comedic foils while singing and dancing up a storm (and in Narbonne’s case, doing it tutu-ed and toe-slippered).

John Paul Batista, Isaac Robinson-Smith, and Mike Sulprizio play role after role after role with abundant glee, and deadpan delight Newton reveals herself a hula-hooper par excellence.

As for Kennedy, leave it to the Troubies’ most fearless member to play neckless, big shouldered Martha My Dear to the hilarious hilt, and in a case of saving the best for last … well, I’ll leave it to you to discover just what that is.

Fast-forwarding the action from the Eisenhower 1950s to the flower-power (and more Beatles-appropriate) 1960s gives costume designer Julian Amaro and wig designer Narbonne the chance to evoke Carnaby Street styles to groovy, nostalgic perfection.

As for White (Album) Christmas’s multiple musical numbers, trust guest choreographer Anna Aimee White (and assorted company members) to create Broadway-worthy dance steps as music director Ryan Whyman and his fellow Trouborchestra members Mike Abraham, Carlos Rivera, Kevin Stevens provide expert instrumental backup, with Robert Arturo Ramirez serving up a pitch-perfect sound design mix and assorted amusing effects along the way.

Stage manager Corey Lynn Womack not only makes a guest appearance on stage, she’s come up with the cleverest of props, all of the above lit by “Jack from the Colony.”

White (Album) Christmas is produced by Kennedy, Narbonne, Sulprizio, and Walker. Brenda Ramirez-Kalcoff and Kate Woemer produce for the Colony. Batalla is video editor. Eric Heinly is music supervisor.

I was lucky enough to see the Troubadour Theater Company’s second-ever holiday show, A Stevie Wonder Christmas, way back in 2003, and since then each successive spoof has been a December must-see. White (Album) Christmas, the Troubies’ first foray into Beatlemania, is no exception.

Colony Theatre, 555 North Third Street, Burbank.
www.troubie.com

–Steven Stanley
December 14, 2023
Photos: Colony Theatre

Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, The Colony Theatre, The Troubadour Theater Company