A NORMAN ROCKWELL CHRISTMAS WITH THE DONNERS

Playwright-director Pamela Eberhardt’s quickly paced, but choppily plotted Christmas comedy fleshes out the tenet that there’s nothing like your family to turn your holiday into a hell-i-day. Likable young Nick Donner (Marcus Klemp) has avoided his relatives for the last five years but grudgingly agrees to introduce his new girlfriend, Faye (Jennifer Chandra), to his sprawling clan on Christmas Day. During his increasingly strained interactions with the boorish and embarrassing relatives — including doofy dad Frank (Mark Bell), tightly wound mom Jane (Barbara Benner), resentful brother Ned (Dave Gangler), flamboyantly gay uncle Rick (Michael O’Conner), and venomously embittered family friend Carly (Chris Farah) — Nick quickly recalls every single reason he fled the homestead. When Faye unexpectedly takes the deranged clan’s side against him, Nick casts wistful eyes at his old flame, local bad girl Shawna (Nickie Benner). Eber hardt’s comedy, co-directed by herself and Lonni Silver man, is pleasingly intimate and boasts patches of briskly dispatched, sardonic dialogue. Yet after establishing that the Donners are shrill and cartoonish mon sters, Eberhardt’s attempts to humanize the harpylike horrors through standard "they’re-not-really-so-bad" TV sitcom plot twists feel trite and unconvincing. Eberhardt’s characters are truly at their most interesting when they’re at their most appalling: Bell’s truly dreadful Frank, Benner’s shrill Jane, and Farah’s totally sour Carly are all farcically adroit acting turns. American Renegade Theater, 11136 Magnolia Blvd., N. Hlywd.; Thurs.-Sun., 8 p.m.; thru Dec. 16. (818) 763-1834. (Paul Birchall)