By Eric Bartels
The Portland Tribune
November 28, 2008

Before the world premiere of his seasonal comedy/drama, “Holidazed,” last weekend, Marc Acito said every great Christmas story must have a ghost in it.

He was wrong.

Yes, the energetic production, which opened at Artists Repertory Theatre, has the ghost. But the novelist Acito’s first play, cowritten with veteran Portland screenwriter Cynthia Whitcomb, hardly needs the supernatural to succeed.

The ghost is Mom (Karen Boettcher-Tate), the deceased hippie mother of suburban supermom Julia (Susannah Mars). She appears to Julia regularly, but she tends to get after her daughter to do less, not more.

Like a lot of modern moms, Julia has her hands full with a job, three kids and a husband, Scott (Damon Kupper), whose contribution to the family seems limited to coming home from work every night, and late at that. She manages all this well enough, but the holidays -- Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas -- are when everything tips into madness.

About the only thing keeping Julia sane is her affection for, and the support of, her friends Gabe and Nicholas (ART regulars Michael Mendelson and Todd Van Voris), the vivacious gay couple she’s known since way back when. They come around periodically to keep her loose and remind her that, challenging as raising children might be, some couples never get the chance to try.

The pair also provides a lot of the wit and warmth that animates “Holidazed,” whether they’re playing free-spirited uncles to the kids or vamping it up in Halloween drag.

Van Voris, in particular, steals big chunks of the show, although you may leave hoping you’ve seen the burly actor in a halter dress for the last time. Playing dual roles like several actors in the cast, he is hilarious as Julia’s inebriated mother-in-law in a very funny Thanksgiving dinner scene.

Acito’s high-energy story, originally written as a novel, deepens when we meet Luna (Ana Reiselman), a smart, sardonic street teen who finds a way into Julia’s heart and, in short order, her home. Husband Scott isn’t exactly taken with the arrangement, less so when his youngest son gets in trouble at school for calling the devil a god, something he’d learned from Luna, a practicing pagan.

In time, Scott has his way, and Luna and her young sidekick Padre (Colton Lasater) go back to the street. But when a series of misadventures turns Christmas Eve into the worst day of Julia’s life, Luna reappears, and with help from the dead Mom, both find their way home.

The story speeds a little too quickly toward its conclusion and lands with less force that it might, however, for a couple reasons. While the play makes a clear point about for the workload Julia shoulders, we don’t really see her husband as terribly selfish or uninvolved, leaving some dramatic tension untapped

And Mars, who is a much better fit here than in last season’s “Rabbit Hole,” still seems to play, rather than feel, some of the deeper moments.

Earlier on, it feels like the playwrights could slow down a bit, too. Acito is a confident and tirelessly funny writer, but parts of the script want every line to be a one-liner. Still, Acito and Whitcomb have crafted a satisfying, quick-paced romp with authentic depth, a good deal of it provided by Reiselman in a breakout performance as the damaged but determined Luna.

Ghosts or no, this impressive production comes out of its wrapping with a lot of the stuff classics are made of.