By Elissa Barnard - The Chronicle Herald

Popular comedy fast becoming Christmas tradition

Bette MacDonald wishes you the "condiments of the season" in a remount of her popular show Tis the Season 2.

First created last year with husband and fellow comic artist Maynard Morrison and pianist-arranger Ralph Dillon, Tis the Season was such a hit the couple has tweaked it, expanded its tour and added second shows in Halifax and at Glace Bay’s Savoy Theatre.

It’s amazing and heart-warming to experience the easy rapport between MacDonald and her audience, an audience that first came to cherish her in the Cape Breton Summertime revues, as well as the rapport between her and Morrison as they josh on stage before singing songs including Baby, It’s Cold Outside.

Tis the Season 2 repeats and expands on some of last year’s gems with the appearance of Mary Morrison as the Virgin Mary in St. Theresa’s Christmas pageant and Martin MacKinnon’s outlandish stories about Christmas past including the time he befriended the Christmas turkey.

The show, which received a standing ovation at its sold-out Monday performance at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium, begins in a bar with MacDonald’s character Wayne, the dumb, hard-drinking ne’er do well who fancies himself a ladies man and whose sheer force of ego is breathtaking. He cheerfully mangles the language, "condiments of the season" being his line.

After last year’s spectacular failed Christmas engagement to Darlene, this year finds him hating the holidays because he’s alone and he’s been forced to do community service — read Christmas stories to kids at the library — after sparking up a Coleman stove to do hot knives in a Sydney hardware store.

After he spies Darlene in the bar with another, more eligible man, the Wayner hatches a plan to win her back. The gap between the real and the ideal in Wayne’s world is wonderful.

MacDonald quickly transforms herself from the swaggering swiller into a frazzled, slipper-wearing housewife cooking Christmas dinner for her rich sister and brother-in-law, arriving from Toronto to visit dear old Dad, a fixture on the couch whose glass mistakenly keeps getting topped up. It’s easy and fun to relate to this barely exaggerated picture of a couple’s Christmas stress and steaming frustration.

MacDonald has been blessed or cursed by her creation of Mary "good, dear, good" Morrison, and you can feel the audience’s expectation to see Mary build through the first act until the appearance of Morrison’s squeamish priest signals her arrival.

The father announces to the pageant players (the audience) that Regina has had to relinquish her role as the Virgin Mary after getting sick at her call centre’s Christmas party. Mary Morrison has volunteered to appear and the nervous, pious priest is very worried that he and his play are about to be overwhelmed.

The middle-paged Mary Morrison’s irreverence, sexual innuendo and hard, practical approach to the Virgin Mary’s predicament at being "24 months" pregnant without a decent room are hilarious in the face of the panicky priest trying to steer her on course.

Fans of the boozy, sultry Beulah Claxton won’t be disappointed this year, especially by her attempt to sing the Hawaiian carol Mele Kalikimaka. Wearing her white feather- trimmed, red concoction from last year, Claxton is appearing at the Sydney Airport Lounge along with her Blue Sapphire gin bottle and her attempt to seduce the men in the audience’s front row.

Like the first act, the second builds to the climax of Mary Morrison’s appearance as the Virgin Mary with a gigantic baby bump that she moves when necessary. The show has a sweet ending. As Mary wishes the priest a Merry Christmas the priest says with a sigh "and God bless us, everyone."

Tis the Season, a warm-hearted show with a wonderful spill of language, original holiday song and delightful comic timing, is becoming a Christmas tradition as it winds up its run this weekend in Glace Bay on Saturday at the Savoy Theatre.

Copyright © 2008 The Halifax Herald Limited. All rights Reserved.