Home for Hanukkah with Bubbe: An Interactive Holidays Experience

"Home for Hanukkah with Bubbe: An Interactive Holiday Experience" is a Bubbe-safe improv show that celebrates the truly surreal experience it can be to spend the holidays with family. In this case the holiday is Hanukkah and the family is Bubbe (grandmother), played by Meg Grunewald, Zayde (grandfather), played by Cynthia Kmak.

Bubbe and Zayde share their favorite Hanukkah memories with the audience, who are seated at party tables covered in blue tablecloths, and are provided with dreidels, Hanukkah gelt and stale pretzels to munch on. The Hanukkah open house is populated by their family and special visits from friends, and featured stories, songs and softball jokes about Jews and how Christians are obsessed with Christmas.

Two grandchildren are in attendance; one unmarried disappointment and one younger grandchild who is about to find out her parents are getting a divorce, as well as Zayde's younger brother Uncle Sal.

Bubbe and Zayde explain which holiday is their favorite (Zayde likes Purim and I have agree with him), how to play Dreidel, and how Hanukkah came to be. The family sings songs in a style chosen by the audience, open presents, have a rap battle and general futz around and have a good time.

As HHDs go, Hanukkah is not particularly important to Jews but rather held up by Christians as "Jewish Christmas" because of the presents. The explanation of the origins of Hanukkah was muddled and cut short to "the Maccabees..." We know they did something. We know it involved oil. I don't think an improv show is the right place to do a mini history lesson, but the Maccabees bit fell particularly short.

Deaf and confused Uncle Sal interrupting with jokes about whatever the topic of discussion ("Did you hear the one about friends?") was always amusing and the songs composed on the stop about ridiculous topics were witty and well done.

Because the show is improv, it is dependent on the creativity of the audience for some of its bits. Bubbe and Zayde want to keep it clean and fun so the suggestions of STDs and Trump as presents no one wants to get were shot down and replaced with a taxes and paper cuts. When the fill-in-the-blank audience hook is too leading, people yell out expected or uninteresting suggestions. The improv team would have done better to reject a few of those, though it can be hard to keep the momentum going. The "yes, and..." theory of improv can only stand so much of that. Only an hour long, with bar service provided, the show is a nice jaunt into a fun space for the holidays.

"Home for Hanukkah with Bubbe: An Interactive Holiday Experience" runs through December 21 at CSZ Theater Chicago, 929 W Belmont Ave., Chicago, IL, 60657. For tickets or information, visit cszchicago.com.