There are two reasons to see the Alley’s The Night Shift Before Christmas (if you must).
Foremost is the tour-de-force performance from Briana J. Resa, one of Houston’s shining artists. In this one-woman show she plays all the ghosts that haunt this woe-be-gone waitress on Christmas Eve at a sleazy burger joint in Houston called Happy Burger.
The fragrant scent of a frying burger should be the second. In the very first scene Margot is accosted by an irate drive-thru customer about the shoddy service promised by “your 90 nifty minutes guarantee” or your money back. The garbled furious voice (played with delectable outrage by another Houston favorite, Orlando Arriaga, later, a very grumpy animatronic tabletop Santa) demands his burger now! In an exasperated comedic rush, Margot slams down the burger on the grill along with the two halves of the bun, drops the onion rings into the fryer, flips the patty, gets the bag ready, scrapes up the burger and plops it on the grilled roll, seasons it, dollops on the special sauce and condiments, wraps the burger in paper, dumps the onion rings into the bag, and tosses it out the window. All under 90 seconds. Her Lucy routine gets a hearty round of applause. We’re immediately on her side.
Then the play takes over. I don’t know what happened between last year’s production and this one, but there’s no wafting tantalizing odor of grilled meat through the Neuhaus Theatre. It used to penetrate the play and make a lingering impression. We knew where we were. It was like a fast-food Proust madeleine. Is this year’s grill not hot enough? Has the patty been frozen and not thawed out before the show? If you’ve seen this play before, the scent was half the show. Now it’s a distant memory, much like this third incarnation.
It’s Christmas Eve, and Margot works alone, somewhat pleased to be here than anywhere else. Harried and stressed by the belligerent customers outside the twinkling lights of the fast-food window – the super-realistic set design by Kevin Rigdon is as appropriate and tacky as you might remember from the last two productions – Margot works to forget. She’s lonely, whiny, and seems to have lost all Christmas good will and cheer. Not to fear. In Issac Gómez’ tepid reincarnation of Charles Dickens’ immortal A Christmas Carol (brilliantly playing upstairs in the Hubbard Theatre), Margot is possessed by spirits from her past, present, and future to secure her reclamation. This is all very hazy and not expounded with much wit or charm.
There’s been more tinkering to this play than is necessary. Motivations have gone out the window like Margot’s under-cooked burger.
The apparitions are fine, if not particularly notable, except the first, a Christmas Past version to set Margot straight. It’s her old co-worker Jackie who died when hit by a train: “Look right, look left, look alive,” is her advice. Feisty, dropping f-bombs, smoking weed, Jackie leads her to some sort of recognition that Margot’s life is more than flipping burgers. With fingernails for days and loaded with jewelry right out of Walmart, she inhabits Margot’s body as the two commiserate over Margot’s fate. It’s the only character that slightly resembles anyone out of Dickens. Slightly.
The others who appear and take over her body are Cowboy Clyde, who died in the snow and Margot did nothing but call 911 and then disappear. She couldn’t be bothered. He dances the two-step with her. Why is anyone’s guess. He scolds her about Rico, the homeless man outside who she always chases away from the entrance; a cousin Gustavo/Gracie (I think, although I mostly admit I zoned out a few times because this play really goes nowhere) who was bullied mercifully until he got his chance to don drag and find himself. In a candle tiara and glittering silver gown, amid a cascade of chandeliers, he/she sings Gómez’ plaintive carol “Christmas, Just Like” while Margot reads from a picture book about his life. Really, this goes nowhere, nor does it add anything to Margot’s ultimate transformation.
Everybody says “She is coming” in the most ominous manner. We know who “she” is from the play’s first moments. It’s Mom. Lo and behold, who shows up in sweater and glasses, dripping Hallmark sentiments about “finding your roots” and other sappy messages in a letter she wrote to her daughter, but Margot never went over to her house to retrieve it before she died. Like hours-old onion rings under the heat lamp, this play is limp and somewhat soggy.
Suddenly, Margot finds a $100 bill in the sweater and gives it to homeless Rico, closes the joint prematurely, and walks out to attend a family party. Has she found her way out of this nothing job? She did in previous versions, but not here. Too much tinkering. The first version, called What-a Christmas (2023) answered these questions with a bit more finesse – and even a welcomed singing visitation from Selena.
Resa is amazingly good at all these instantaneous transformations: suddenly Jackie is there with her fingernails (where did they come from?) and blue hair streaks; Cowboy Clyde appears with a Stetson; the cousin who used to be Selena in his/her scene sports that glittering gown from nowhere; and mom’s sweater suddenly appears. It’s wonderful theater prestidigitation, and Resa covers all the bases and gives her all to a play that doesn’t deserve her.
An unusually perceptive actor, an audience favorite with her charm and stage presence (she was nominated for Best Actress in our 2020 Houston Theater Awards in the dramatic one-woman Empanada Loca), Resa needs a play that is up to her standards. A lukewarm burger grilled live on stage doesn’t do her justice, or us, either.
The Night Shift Before Christmas continues through December 28 at 7 p.m Wednesdays through Saturdays; Monday December 22 and Tuesday December 23; 1:30 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays at Alley Theatre, 615 Texas. For more information, call 713-220-5700 or visit alleytheatre.org. $93-$56.
A Most Joyous Holiday Present
For its third holiday review, Paul Hope Cabarets foregoes the Great American Songbook and returns to the Great Christmas Songbook with Christmas Flora and Fauna. So far this season there’s no better way to put you in the Christmas mood: faith, goodness, nostalgia, and the finest performances.
Hope loves a theme, and this year’s centers around songs and carols that feature Christmas “plants and animals.” Some are traditional, some are rare, all are gems, gorgeously sung by his septet of Broadway babies singing their collective hearts out (theater pro Hope joins in the chorus). It moves you in strange and wonderful ways. Sacred and profane, silly and dramatic.
Of course, that’s the focus of Hope’s productions at Ovations Night Club. Like a night out at an iconic Manhattan venue like Cafe Carlyle, 54 Below, or Joe’s Pub (but without the food yet plenty to imbibe), his revues showcase the best Houston talent performing the best of Broadway. History, dish, and intimate surroundings bring you up close and personal to iconic composers and lyricists like Rodgers and Hart, Frank Loesser, Cy Coleman, Harnick and Bock, Dorothy Fields, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, you name them and Hope has or will cover them.
That’s the same procedure with his holiday shows, be it We Need a Little Christmas (the first holiday show as combo Broadway and traditional carols), Silver Angels (carols about bells and angels), or this year’s program that covers birds, sheep, fir trees, mistletoe, Elvis, Czechoslovakian lullabies, English roundelays, to perennial favorites like “Deck the Halls” and “Away in a Manger.” It’s a marvelous melange, always surprising, and gorgeously performed.
Listen to the almost erotic rendition by angelic soprano Lauren Salazar of the old German folk carol “O Christmas Tree,” or the blending of chasm-deep baritone Richard Paul Fink with the Apollonian tenor Pantelis Karastamatis on “Little Drummer Boy.” (You won’t even remember the Crosby/Bowie version.) Or how about a rollicking and rolling “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” by new company member Michael Chiavone, a Main Street Theater for Youth mainstay.
Whitney Zangerine, described offhandedly by Hope as “our seductive enchantress,” proves the point with an alluring rendition of “Away in a Manger” or a softly hypnotic cover of Barbara Mandrell’s “It Must Have Been the Mistletoe.” Laura Smolik’s ethereal soprano flies high with the lullaby, 15th-century-inspired “Cherry Tree Carol” and a powerfully clean and clear “The Holly and the Ivy.” Powerhouse Tamara Siler doesn’t disappoint with a jazzy “Holly Jolly Christmas” or a dramatic telling of Stevie Wonder’s “One Little Christmas Tree.”
Hope knows his Christmas carol history as well as his Broadway backstage anecdotes. We learn about the myth of how the robin got his red breast or why the nightingale sings so sweetly. The entire evening is a delectable romp through Norse and German myth, religion, and just plain fun. Inspiring everybody is the stylish piano accompaniment by music director Lucy Hargis. The intimate venue of Ovations is the perfect spot for these informative shows. The singers are the best in town, the host is the most personable around, and the audience is always thoroughly enthralled.
If you need a lift for Yuletide, Christmas Flora and Fauna is the bracing, cleansing snowfall we all need in Houston.
Christmas Flora and Fauna continues at 7:30 p.m. Mondays, December 15 and 22 at Paul Hope Cabarets at Ovations Night Club, 2536 Times Boulevard. For more information, call, 713-522-9801 or visit paulhopecabarets.org. $25-$40.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.