Twelve Steps Before Christmas

Bill Clause, a member of the local performance organization CrossCurrents, didn’t settle on his players for River City Review by holding tense, competitive auditions. Instead, he taught a Communiversity acting class that brought together the cast of these five unrelated sketches.

“These people aren’t part of the normal theater crowd,” Clause says. “The neat thing about Communiversity is, you get to turn someone on to theater. People who are new to it find an enjoyment for it that someone who’s more jaded doesn’t quite experience.”

Clause’s favorite piece among the sketches these actors perform is “Ceremonial,” the story of an old woman named Agnes whose forgetfulness has convinced her that she has Alzheimer’s disease. When Agnes decides that she also has AIDS, Clause says, her friend Maude tries “to bring her back to reality.” Maude asks Agnes when she last had unprotected sex, and Agnes comes up with a response that only a true neurotic could muster: As someone who probably suffers from Alzheimer’s, she can’t be expected to remember.

Another sketch is called “NPA,” which stands for Nose Pickers Anonymous. The idea could easily degenerate into junior-high humor, but Clause says the sketch has been extensively researched. “The language comes straight from an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting,” he explains. “The whole thing’s just a send-up of the average twelve-step program.”

But with the twelve days of Christmas approaching, perhaps now isn’t the best time to make fun of recovery programs. We may need them later.