‘Santaland Diaries’ features comic adventures of department store elf

Where's your elf respect, dude?

Onstage, Jamie Morris is wallowing in his character's elf-pity.

Had his dreams turned out dreamier, he tells us, he could have been feted as the new toast of fictional soap town Llanview -- yes, that would be show grande dame Victoria Lord hailing him at a cast party! -- after becoming the hot cast addition to "One Life to Live."

But no. Just an elf. At Christmas. At Macy's. In New York. Fronting for Kris Kringle. Entertaining tykes who could kick you in the shins and hurl on your shoes --that curlicued, elfin green footwear no dignified grown-up would be caught dead in if this wasn't a paying gig.

How humiliating. How bluntly, sardonically, even scathingly hilarious.

How ... Sedaris.

"He's just wickedly funny," says Morris, who channels the author in the one-man monologue, "The Santaland Diaries" this weekend at the Onyx Theatre. "He's twisted, which I love."

Ho-ho-holiday depression is a constant of the season, traceable to multiple sources: loneliness, forced cheerfulness, obligatory family get-togethers with family members you might love but never really liked. One eternal source is the diginity-challenged job of playing Christmas characters in department stores when lack of employment leaves little choice but to don a silly suit and hope no passing friends recognize you inside the skin of a fairy-tale sprite.

Out of such firsthand embarrassment, Sedaris crafted "Santaland." His personal account of the experience wrapped in his singular, sarcastic wit, the piece was first read by Sedaris on National Public Radio in 1992 before it was turned into a stand-up monologue that has become an un-Noel-like staple of the holiday theater scene.

"People can be really heinous in crowds, waiting in line to see Santa," says Christopher Kenney, Morris' partner and director or "Santaland Diaries," who also stars as Edie, the "mistress of sensuality" in "Zumanity" at New York-New York.

"If you live in New York, you think of what it takes to get to Macy's. Subways, walking on 34th Street, the crowded elevators, you are just ready to ... and then somebody happy pops up in your face. It's the elf's job to entertain them, distract them, crowd control and dealing with people."

Brimming with smart-bomb observations of boorish human behavior, "Santaland" is often wince-worthy and sadly cynical behind the laughter (laying false flattery on people all day long, Sedaris' character says, has made him "immune to compliments"), but Kenney says his direction won't go completely dark in executing this blackish comedy.

"You can go with the really jaded side of this, but I think the guy's just in a bad situation, no work, dreams being dashed at the same time," Kenney says. "It can go either way and I don't want to go the real negative way."

Running through his lines at a recent rehearsal under Kenney's guidance, Morris seems attuned to his director's approach. Voice expressing a sense of bewilderment laced with gentle sarcasm, he expounds on his co-elfs acting too big for their green-costumed britches, yet he's somehow understanding, given their shared circumstances. Humiliation being relative, his character does note the degradation visited on streetside pamphleteers he's spotted around town dressed as a camcorder, a taco and a french fry.

"There's a line where he says that most of the elves are show business people -- singers, dancers, actors," says Morris, who also performs as Father Mark in "Tony n' Tina's Wedding" at Plant Hollywood. "But he says a surprising number held real jobs at ad agencies or brokerage firms before a recession hit. Now we're back at another recession, so it's very timely."

Not very PC, however. "I don't know how this will go over, but there's a line where he says, 'Today at noon, a group of retarded people came to visit Santa,' " Kenney says. "Then he describes them as being 'profoundly retarded.' But he has to make it edgy, he has to make us wince, and we won't glaze over that."

Though opening with Morris clad in street clothes and chatting with the audience from a stool onstage, he soon changes into his elf outfit to introduce Santaland, a twinkling set of presents and lights and a Santa throne, or as close a facsimile as can be accommodated on the small Onyx stage.

Yet that stage holds only one actor for the full performance, a fact that somewhat unnerves the veteran actor, who likens the experience to stand-up comedy.

"I haven't had a theater nightmare since college but I'm having a few nightmares now," Morris says. "When you have fellow actors, you can say, 'You know, we're going to get through this.' But here you're solo and vulnerable onstage and no one is around but you and the tech guy. That's the fear. I've been naked onstage and I had no problem with that. This is a whole different kind of naked."

One that requires a unique sort of elf-esteem.

Contact reporter Steve Bornfeld at sbornfeld @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0256.