Sleighing At Dating
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the dating scene is a rocky road full of awkward small talk, ghosting, and the unanswered question, “which one of us is paying for this?” Whether this brings back memories from a time you were single, or you’re swiping through Hinge profiles nightly, The Twelve Dates of Christmas — a heartfelt one-woman comedy about dating misadventures coming to the Rosenthal Shelterhouse stage — will bring humor and heart to your holiday season.
After seeing her fiancé kissing another woman on the televised Thanksgiving Day Parade, our newly single heroine Mary stumbles through the dating world. Her often comically absurd dating misadventures take her through a year’s worth of holidays and milestones, until the following Christmas arrives and an unexpected encounter opens her heart.
Mary’s search for love is not the first story of its kind and certainly will not be the last.
The romantic comedy genre is most often associated with film, but its roots can be traced back to Shakespeare plays like Much Ado About Nothing and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As the genre evolved, rom-coms began to reflect that era’s societal fears or audiences’ desires. In 1934, It Happened One Night assured audiences that money can’t buy everything and offered a dose of optimism through the story of a runaway heiress and cynical journalist. In 2020, Palm Springs, which features two wedding guests trapped in a time loop together, became popular with audiences watching from home who also felt trapped in a different way. Nowadays, you’re more likely to get your rom-com fix on TV with shows like Nobody Wants This and Off Campus. One thing is clear — rom-coms and love stories are a mainstay of modern storytelling.
“Finding love, especially romantic love, drives so much of our behavior,” said The Twelve Dates of Christmas Director Laura Kepley. “And that quest makes for great stories!”
What sets Mary’s story apart from stereotypical holiday love stories is playwright Ginna Hoben’s frank and punchy script, based on a series of semi-autobiographical events. In some ways, The Twelve Dates of Christmas almost has all the makings of a rom-com with holiday flair like Bridget Jones’ Diary or You’ve Got Mail — a relatable but hilarious heroine, meddling family members, etc. But this play is decidedly not a rom-com. Instead, it trades the genre’s tropes of meet-cutes and serendipitous reunions for a self-aware and authentic exploration of the dating world.
Typically, rom-coms focus on the journey of a couple falling in love, but the one-woman format of this show keeps the spotlight on Mary’s journey — not just through the dating world but also through her career in a sort of late-coming-of-age. As a character, Mary is delightfully well-rounded, which makes her the perfect narrator to give depth to this flirty holiday romp. She’s easy to root for, so the play is enjoyable whether you can commiserate with her and her dating horror stories or haven’t been in the dating scene recently.
As a one-woman play, the script requires the actress playing Mary to also play all of Mary’s quirky family members, her ex, all her dates, and more — a challenging but rewarding feat unique to one-person plays. In this instance, the reward is the connection it creates between Mary and the audience. From the first moments of the show, it feels less like a performance and more like hearing a story from a close friend.
“A one-person play is storytelling at its most elemental and intimate,” Kepley said. “In a solo play there is a special electricity between the actor and the audience that is palpable and unlike any other experience in the theatre.”
If you’re sick of your good-intentioned family members sending you information on local matchmakers, seeing The Twelve Dates of Christmas at the Playhouse won’t help you find someone to bring home for the holidays, but it can give you a healthy dose of optimism. The show’s sometimes-cynical look on love may not offer audiences a perfect Hollywood happy ending, but it still provides a sense of hope and good times ahead, like all heartfelt holiday stories should. For the audience, this hope may seem more earned because of Mary’s likeability, the script’s honesty, and the intimacy of a one-woman show.
As seen through Mary’s journey, dating often seems like a hopeless cause, good for nothing but a funny story to tell. But the fact that we keep looking for love, and keep telling stories about finding love, is proof that we believe in love. And isn’t love what the holiday season is all about?