The Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia's December On Stage listings make note of four productions of A Christmas Carol (one of which, admittedly, I loved), plus productions of A Christmas Story, Christmas City Follies, Comet, the Fifth Reindeer, The Eight: Reindeer Monologues, The Holiday Goose - A Musical, Holiday Show at the Swing Club, The Nutcracker, O'Henry Christmas, The Santaland Diaries, Tiny Tim's Christmas, and Winter Musicale 2007. In short, the season is saturated with seasonally-appropriate shows.

Want something a little less saccharine? 1812 Productions is happy to oblige with their annual production of This Is the Week That Is: More Political Humor For The Holidays. The holidays are present in the show, sure, but the focus of this ever-changing production (the script changes daily) is current events, not Christmas.

This Is the Week That Is is conceived, written, and directed by 1812's artistic director Jennifer Childs and features some of Philadelphia's most respected comedy talent (Scott Greer, Tony Braithwaite, Dave Jadico, Mary Carpenter, and Steven Wright) as both performers and co-writers. The show is really less a "show" and more an evening of sketch comedy, some scripted and some improvised, with musical numbers thrown in. In order to stay topical, the material changes nightly (although some segments doubtless remain night-to-night), sometimes even referencing news that broke earlier in the day. Highlights of the production the night I attended included a sketch about Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama's secret love affair, a song performed by Michael Nutter (as portrayed by Steven Wright) about his proposed "Stop and Frisk" policy to the tune of "Let's Do the Twist," a video segment about Sudoku that actually proved to be rather pointed commentary about Philadelphia's gun problem, and a segment about the history of protest songs, beginning in the Middle Ages and including an improvised Band Aid-like tribute to the spatula. (The protest song segment wasn't all fun and jokes, though: a medley of Vietnam-era protest songs was well-mixed and impressively performed. Dave Jadico apparently plays about five thousand instruments.)

For the most part, the show had the audience in stitches. That's when it worked best. The insertion of Burr Tillstrom's hand ballet "Berlin Wall," while beautiful and well-performed by Jadico, also seemed incongruous in a night of comedy. Although it originally appeared on That Was the Week That Was, the television show that inspired the 1812 show's name and general concept, it seemed way too heavy compared with the rest of the evening. The last few minutes of the show, during which the cast comes out on stage to sing the Bob Marley classic "Redemption Song" also feels a bit too much. Although the song is ultimately one of hope, it's not, by any means, a comedic song - and in an evening of comedy, you really want your production to end on more of an up-note than a down one. Especially when there are so very many up-notes in your show.

At the end of the day, This Is the Week That Is is a welcome escape from sappy-sweet Holiday theatre: irreverent, hilarious, and topical. Except, that is, for when the show starts to swerve toward the sappy itself. But what's the holiday season without a little cheesiness, anyway?

Dave Jadico, Steven Wright, Tony Braithwaite, Scott Greer, Mary Carpenter appear in 1812 Productions' This Is the Week That Is, running through January 13 at the Adrienne Theatre. Photo by Mark Garvin.