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When all you need for Christmas is "Tuna."
Published: 12/23/2011 5:27 PM
Last Modified: 12/23/2011 5:27 PM

Most people have their holiday favorites when it comes to movies and TV shows – “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “White Christmas,” “A Christmas Story,” “Elf,” any of a number of versions of “A Christmas Carol.”

We throw a slightly different fuel into the cathode-ray tube equivalent of a fireplace at chez Watts. For us, the holiday just isn’t complete until we’ve spent the day in Tuna, Texas.

This little town – supposed the third smallest in the Lone Star State – is the invention of Bartlesville native Joe Sears and Jaston Williams, who first dreamed up the place for a skit the actors were to perform at a party.

Later on, with the help of director Ed Howard, they expanded the skit into the play “Greater Tuna,” with Sears and Williams portraying about 20 different characters – young and old, male and female.

The trio has written three other plays – all using the same two-actor format – of which “A Tuna Christmas” is the second and, for my money, the best of the bunch.

I first saw the play in 1999, when Sears and Williams performed at the Tulsa PAC, and immediately bought the video (taped during a live performance at a Texas theater). And we’ve watched annually during the holidays ever since.

The Tuna plays seem like gimmicks – two actors, multiple roles, lots of costume changes – but what keeps them from being gimmicks is the fact that Sears and Williams make these somewhat outrageous characters completely human, and believable.

And for all the satiric swipes at small-town foibles and a broad range of narrow-minded thinking, “A Tuna Christmas” is a truly warm-hearted tale – one in which just about everyone, in some way or another, gets exactly what he or she wants for Christmas.



Reader Comments 2 Total
Dr. Strangelove (last year)
I've seen them several times and never really got it. I can't imagine watching them on video.
dannysgirl (last year)
Doc, you're kidding, right? I'm not particularly into comedy, but I could see these shows over and over and over. It's the funniest thing I've ever seen - but only when Williams and Sears are playing the roles. Anybody else is just not worth it. I was at the performance in Texas when they taped the video. Not sure it if is still there or not, but they also had their own theatre in Dallas and the plays ran continuously.

One time they partnered with the Vocal Majority, a gay men's chorus group in Dallas, who, in their own right are phenomenal. The Tuna show they did was a riot!!!
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ARTS

James D. Watts Jr. has lived in Oklahoma for most his life, even though he still has people saying to him, "Don't sound like you're from around these parts." A University of Oklahoma Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Watts has received the Governor Arts Award, Harwelden Award and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Beth Macklin Award for his writing. Before coming to the Tulsa World, Watts worked for the Tulsa Tribune.

Contact him at (918) 581-8478.

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