It's been some time since the illustrious Reverend Slappy White (not Red Foxx's old pal), the brazenly Fascist impresario behind Slappy White & his Calvacade of Comic All-Stars, has graced the county with his presence.
The driving force behind the sort-of-annual A Dolt's Only Xma$ Pageant, a no-holds-barred, wildly irreverent take on Christmas in downtown Fullerton that began some 15 years ago, White and his motley crew haven't re-assembled in at least three years.
Until now.
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Sunday night, the not-so-good Rev is teaming up with some of his past theatrical and musical collaborators–as well as some new ones–for Love or a Lack Thereof at the Monkey Wrench Collective in downtown Fullerton.
We caught up with the Rev and picked his admittedly booze-besotted brain in hopes of getting at least one semi-straight answer out of him. Oh, and in the interest of full disclosure, Slappy White is me–at least in this instance. No one can truly own such a primordial presence. He can merely be borrowed from time to time. . . .
OC Weekly (Joel Beers): So what up, Rev? Been a while since you were involved in anything local.
Slappy White: Yeah, you know, jail, rehab, restraining orders, jail again, and a regrettably tragic tryst with a Tibetan Yak kind of put theater on the back burner for a while.
So why now?
Well, as you may slightly be aware of, we've done an anti-Christmas show for years and years, first at the old Tribune Theatre in downtown Fullerton, and then at STAGES. Steven Lamprinos, an old crony of mine from my time with Revolving Door Productions, a Fullerton company that was once described in the LA Times as “Newt Gingrich's worst nightmare,” hit me up about doing something to help out the Monkey Wrench Collective, which yanked its first show of the season and has been dark for two months. Since the date was around Valentine's Day, Steven wanted to do something about love. But since I maintain that love is a concept by which we measure our pain, and because Valentine's Day is the most shamelessly commercial day on the calendar, I wanted to do something about anti-love. So we met in the middle: Love or the Lack Thereof. I'm ecstatic to say that the lack thereof portion won out.
So there's nothing sweet and rosy in this show?
Oh, I'm sure one of our three musicians–Pat Gallagher, Kirk Hofstetter and Slim Raiford–might perform a tune that is kinda lovey-dovey, but the bulk of the show is wonderfully offensive, blindly irreverent and filled with the kind of bile and jaundice that I eat for breakfast.
What kind of material?
Joel Beers has written about theater and other stuff for this infernal rag since its very first issue in, when was that again???