Your favorite Hallmark Christmas movie meets Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window meets the Farrelly Brothers at Theatre West in Mark Wilding’s wild-and-wacky, expectations-subverting The Goddamn Couple Down the Hall (Oh… and Merry Christmas), the appetizingly astringent antidote to all the sugar-sweet holiday fare playing around town this time of year.

It’s December 25 and engaged couple Dana Woodruff (Liv Denevi) and Chad Bellows (Cecil Jennings) are about to welcome her parents Jerry and Maureen (Steve Nevil and Jill Remez), her younger sister Sydney (Sam Gregory), and Sydney’s boyfriend Lance (Dave Kumar) to their mid-century-modern Pasadena condo to exchange gifts, partake in the holiday feast Chad is cooking up in the kitchen, and finalize plans for the pricey wedding Jerry and Maureen have agreed to finance for their elder child.

And things would be proceeding relatively smoothly were it not for next-door neighbors Lucinda (Prescilliana Esparolini) and Kenny (Turk Furell), once again noise-polluting Dana and Chad’s apartment with their latest high-decibel, F-bomb-laced altercation.

Not that interior designer Dana and barista Sydney are any less likely to be at each other’s throats today, particularly once younger sis has announced her plan to wed her dumb-but-studly, thrice-divorced 20something father-of-two fiancé the very next day, thereby ensuring that big sis and Chad will need to wait at least another couple of years before Jerry and Maureen can match the $100,000 they’ve promised whichever of their daughters marries first.

Talk about sibling rivalry gone wild, though whatever bad blood there is between Dana and Sydney pales against the growing certainty that there’s been a murder next door, leaving it up to Dana, Chad, Jerry, Maureen, Sydney, and Lance to take matters into their own hands (a la Rear Window’s Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly) to stop a killer from escaping justice, no easy task given that the only help they’re likely to get from the police is that of retirement-age rookie Officer Hoyt (John Combs), who’s been a cop for all of a week now and is still learning the ropes.

Theatre West regulars will recall playwright Wilding from his 2021 winner Our Man In Santiago, a play I called “as laughter-and-suspense-packed as it is filled with unexpected twists,” words that could just as easily describe The Goddamn Couple Down the Hall, albeit minus the CIA.

Just as he did three years ago, director Charlie Mount brings out the comedic best from an all-around terrific cast, one that includes Our Man In Santiago returnees Esparolini and Nevil.

Denevi and Gregory’s onstage sparring will have you convinced that the good-girl, bad-girl sisters have been at their throats for decades with no end in sight, and no fiancés could be more different, or more delightfully played than Jennings’ finicky Chad (he wears driving gloves and would like nothing more than a pocket watch for Christmas) or Kumar’s Lance (not the brightest bulb but soap-star studly as can be).

Nevil and Remez are fabulous too as a couple of well-meaning parents suddenly faced with two six-figure weddings to pay for in a row, Esparolini is a treat as the sexy, slinky, and quite possibly sinister Lucinda, and what can I say about Fruell’s Kenny?

Last but not least, Combs pretty much steals every scene he’s in as Officer Hoyt, a new-to-the-force senior citizen rendered twice as funny as the newbie cop would have been had the role been cast with a fresh-faced 30-year-old as originally written.

Scenic designer Jeff G. Rack’s colorful Pasadena condo, stylishly furnished per Dana’s exacting specifications, has been vibrantly lit by David P. Johnson, whose sound design collaboration with Mount makes creepy, kooky, mysterious, and spooky use of a Tim Burtonesque musical underscoring, with a bunch of character-apt costumes completing the production design mix.

The World Premiere of The Goddamn Couple Down the Hall (Oh… and Merry Christmas) is produced by Garry Kluger and Mount in association with Theatre West and Little Jack Productions.

David Mingrino is stage manager and David Baer is assistant stage manager. Projections are by Johnson. Philip Sokolof is publicist.

Check your local theater listings this time of year and you’ll likely find a whole lot of “same-old same-old,” and no matter how beloved a time-honored Christmas chestnut can be, there’s nothing quite like something fresh and new for the holidays.

As laughter-and-suspense-packed as it is filled with unexpected twists, The Goddamn Couple Down the Hall (Oh… and Merry Christmas) is a tantalizingly tart December treat.

Theatre West, 3333 Cahuenga Blvd. West, Los Angeles.
www.theatrewest.org

–Steven Stanley
November 29, 2024
Photos: Charlie Mount

Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, Mark Wilding, Theatre West