REVIEW: A Hanukkah Carol or Gelt Trip! The Musical (Round House Theatre)
It came as a big surprise to me when I realized that Hanukkah wasn't actually that major of a holiday in the Jewish calendar. In the great tradition of Jews having so many of them demarcating important events -- freedom from slavery, or the new year -- one about the eight-day longevity of lantern oil from a specific revolt seems a little...inconsequential in comparison. But as Christendom became the talk of the town (...world) it made sense to find something to join in on the festivities, and now we've got "eight crazy nights" of holiday cheer, complete with chocolate coins and fried potatoes. With the Christmas Industrial Complex bringing forth popular holiday tales that are produced all over America, it does seem like despite the boom in Hanukkah interest, there's not been similar ones specific to the Jewish experience -- at least ones that have hit the mainstream. Did you know the DC area is the third-largest center of Jewish culture in the country? With numbers like that it makes one wonder why we have at least two concurrent Christmas Carol's every year, but none outside of that focus. Round House seeks to change this, putting on the ambitious new piece A Hanukkah Carol (or Gelt Trip! The Musical). If it sounds familiar, it's because this was originally a 2023-24 offering that got bumped. And it seems like the excitement was palpable from an audience perspective, too: it extended before it even officially opened. (You love to see it.)
Book/Music
In a world of Carols, how do you make something new that invites Jews and gentile alike? By making....a Carol. Gelt Trip (a hilarious name that should not be the parenthetical one) is a retelling of the Dickens fable, moved into the digital age in New York City. On the first eve of Hanukkah, Chava Kanipshin (ha ha) is a social media influencer struggling to maintain relevance. When her delicate childhood best friend, Barb, moves in as her roommate, she invites her brother to visit from Pittsburgh without Chava's consent; and Chava, known online as Vava, has none of it. To both punish Barb and boost her ratings, Vava orchestrates a hidden camera to record her friend bawling over a video of cute animals — the idea for it to go viral and restore her popularity, somehow — and kicks them to the street to find the brother somewhere else to stay. Cue: the ghosts of Hanukkah past, present, and future.
As the Scrooge of the story, Vava is undoubtedly a cruel person for this. But what doesn't happen is a convincing tale of redemption after the ghosts pay their visits. The Past sets the stage well, with a Bubbe from the age of the Maccabis leading her to an era where Hanukkah was her favorite holiday (and featuring one of the guiltiest pleasure earworms of the holiday season in “A Light in the Dark”). Yet, it loses the cohesion this builds with shaky Present and unintentionally comedic Future segments. Vava is committed to being an unlikeable character, even through her changes; but the show’s acrimony grows deeper with the Tiny Tim facsimile, the “Dickensian Oprhan”, whose presence is long overstayed after an introduction via the catchy "It's A Miracle" opening number. Their narration is pointless, their in-universe goals are nonsensical (what does it mean to beg for "shares" and "likes" on the street? Is this Black Mirror?), and they could be omitted entirely with no consequence. 2/10
Acting
Nobody is taking anything that seriously in Gelt Trip -- which is good, because there's more than enough holiday kitsch to shake a stick at. Chava is introduced as an unlikable, hyper-online Regina George, and that's mostly to par with Samantha Sayah's performance in the role. However, I found that the streak of cynicism doesn't totally go away by the show's conclusion, despite the writing having declared so. There are a smattering of side characters, too, often multi-cast. This ranges from "good" (Kit Krull, Jordan Friend, and other ensemblers) to "huh?" (Steve Routman, playing Vava's dad effectively, plays one of her elementary-aged bullies in the very next scene [decidedly ineffective]). A contentious performance is the Dickensian Oprhan, played with requisite falsettoed Britishism by Katrina Michaels. Some think it's fun, some think it's grating; I'm somewhere in the latter camp. This isn't so much the fault with the performance itself, but more of the character's direction, to the point where I found myself dreading their appearances by the end of the piece. 6/10
Production
The production is not as utilitarian as one has come to expect from Round House. Andrew Cohen's set design, a triple-sliced revolve flanked by ladders, features several niche details in the set pieces, making it feel busy in a positive, lived-in fashion. The frilly costumes by Ivania Stack bring a cheery vibrance, even if I found some of them incongruent with the setting (Vava's feaux-Elle Woods look gives 2000's chic in a weirdly pre-ironic way, distant from how Today's Youth try to pull it off). It's best shown in the Boys 2 Men(sch) number during the Hanukkah Past segment, which also features chuckly Star of David-infused choreography by director Marlo Hunter. There are some good lighting tricks from Max Doolittle too, making use of translucent curtains and environmental set pieces that pleasantly surprise. Minor spoiler: I loved the dig at Ford's Carol in the opening number -- there should be more of that cheekiness in local theatre. 8/10
Viz
The vectorized illustration on the program tells a lot of story in a graphic-novelesque way. Chava is sitting in her window, sternly bored; there's holiday fun happening on the floor below her; and her Bubbe rides Pegasus into the distance behind her, hidden among the sky. The pre-show matches this setting almost exactly, depicting a ruggedly detailed brownstone exterior and matching violet lights to establish a wintery urban nighttime mood. 8/10
Verdict
A Hanukkah Carol is an earnest attempt at bringing a Jew-bilant holiday musical romp into the mainstream, with plenty of production value to back it up; but the material itself could could stand to
