Preview: $!@* Christmas (But Gently and With Love)!

Already filled beyond capacity (or comfort) with the so-called holiday spirit? A new production, written by Katie Rubin, might make for the perfect antidote.

Rubin is a solo show performer whose traveled the country for more than eight years. Many of her shows have been presented at Capital Stage and on December 18, she opens her latest play, $!@* Christmas (But Gently and With Love)! for one night only.

The show is irreverent, Rubin stresses, and pokes fun at the entire notion of the holiday season, religion and tradition.

“Then it does a 180 and comes back in a sweet way,” she says.

The story revolves around a cranky grandmother who hates the holidays mostly because she is really angry at her daughter. The elderly woman is countered by her granddaughter, who is full of hope and positivity and youthful innocence. The young girl may be some kind of wizard as well, because she works a sort of magic on the grandmother.

Expect plenty of surprises throughout the one-hour show—including profanity, substance abuse and, even, vomiting. Just some basic anti-holiday fun, Rubin says.

And, she adds, the story is personal, too, exploring her own journey with the obligations and stresses of the holiday and how she has come to, finally, make peace with them.