A
Tuna Christmas 
by
Jaston Williams, Joe Sears, and Ed Howard
It's the Christmas holidays, times are tough, and emotions are
close to the surface.
Bertha Bumiller's drunken husband hasn't come home, her kids are
troubled, and a Christmas Phantom is destroying yard decorations.
The Smut Snatchers of the new order have discovered obscenities
in Christmas carols; town clerk Dixie Deberry is threatening to turn out the lights on the
Christmas Play because the community playhouse is behind on the light bill.
Vera Carp in her cat's-eye glasses is as self-centered as
ever. And chain-smoking, base-voiced, perpetually angry gun-store owner DiDi Snavely
is wooing customers to her Peace On Earth sale by warning "it's unsafe these
days to ride unarmed in a one-horse sleigh." This is a town of frustrated people. And
in the adept hands of Wininger and Frye, the multiple stories are the stuff of biting
comedy - laced with poignant moments that take one's breath away. Through their antics we
come not only to know the people of Greater Tuna - some of them pretty ridiculous on the
surface - but to recognize their humanity.
We might roar with laughter at housewife Bertha Bumiller
in her lime green polyester pantsuit and indestructible bouffant hairdo, but in another
scene we're touched to the core by her loneliness, vulnerability and basic decency. And
older son Stanley might be a hulking former delinquent, but the affection between
him and elderly bluejay-shooting Aunt Pearl is very real.
Meanwhile radio station OKKK announcers Thurston Wheelis and
Arles Struvie keep everybody abreast of what's going on, broadcasting from a studio
with a tacky aluminum tree decorated with periodically exploding lights.
Does Stanley leave town for a new start? Who is the Christmas
Phantom, And what happens to the romance between Arles and Bertha? It's enough to say that
when the audience leaves the theater, everyone is smiling.
Floyd Wininger and Todd Frye rehearse a scene from A Tuna
Christmas
Click photos to see "snapshots" taken during
rehearsals
This production is made possible by the assistance of the Oklahoma Arts Council, KKEN
Radio, and Hawkins Television and Appliance.
Producer - Gary Templeton
Director - Sharon Burum
Stage Manager - Sharon Harms
Cast - Floyd Wininger and Todd Frye (142 costume changes and the whole community is portrayed
by two very talented actors)
