A TEXAS-SIZED CHRISTMAS MELTDOWN

This is pure, sugar-spun, deep-fried, glitter-smothered Texas Trashmas —
and honey, sometimes that’s exactly what the doctor ordered.

If your idea of Christmas cheer involves snowflakes, Victorian carolers, or anything resembling culture, turn back now, sugar. Desert TheatreWorks has hauled a flaming holiday fruitcake onto the stage, delivering a holiday spectacle loud enough to wake Baby Jesus himself. A Doublewide, Texas Christmas barrels across the stage like a pickup with two flat tires and a possum in the glove box, and somehow, bless their hearts, that’s exactly why it works. This the third or fourth trailer park show I’ve seen with oddball Southern characters, groaner puns and double entendres, but Doublewide is truly funny, especially in the crazy second act, which had me howling; it’s tastier than Spam and mayonnaise on Wonder Bread.

From the moment the lights come up on Doublewide — a trailer park with dreams bigger than its plumbing — you know you’re in for a night of pure, unfiltered foolishness. The fine residents of Doublewide want to incorporate as an official Texas municipality, which is adorable considering half the residents can’t incorporate Velveeta into macaroni without a struggle. But among other craziness, the paperwork keeps disappearing and the locals decide to lure new residents by whipping up a TV news story so deranged it could only be produced in a zip code where mullets still thrive. Along the way we meet raccoons, a sweet potato that looks human, and a Christmas dinner that makes the Last Supper look like a silent meditation retreat. And honey, those angry raccoons. I don’t want to give away too much, but let’s just say those critters are the most emotionally stable characters in the play. Will there be a happily ever after?

This is the kind of play where if a joke doesn’t land, don’t worry — there’ll be another one in three seconds, probably involving bodily functions, far-left Oregonians, or somebody’s cousin’s ex-uncle’s pain-in-the-neck daughters-in-law. Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten, collectively known as Jones Hope Wooten, have written dozens of these comedies, with classics such as Buddy Bro Bubba Dude, and even revisited the Doublewide, Texas gang in Honky Tonk Hissy Fit. I’m not saying the play is thin, but I’ve seen sturdier writing on the backs of Waffle House receipts. Fortunately, director Stan Jenson, who I know personally from a few chili cookoffs (and who usually haunts the stage rather than the director’s chair), throws in enough delightful sight gags to qualify this show for hazard pay.

Thank the Lord for actors willing to fling themselves into the madness. These folks deliver with the conviction of a televangelist selling dehydrated soup for the end-times. Several of DTW’s comedy warhorses show up here: Tanner Lieser, who returns to the desert with the enthusiasm of a man who escaped once and didn’t learn; the always hilarious Bonnie Link, who swoops in like she just lost a fistfight with a jukebox; and Jana Baumann, whose villainous Patsy cackles like she’s Margaret Hamilton’s greener cousin auditioning to haunt a corn maze.

Newer cast members jump into the trailer-trash tornado with admirable abandon: Sharon Boucher, in her second DTW show, as Ethel; Judy Ewing Wilkinson as Georgia Dean Rudd; Margo Blessing as Lark Barken; Mark Frank, a Second City alum that the desert is fortunate to have gained, as Haywood Sloggett; and Valerie McClure, who, as the long-suffering Joveeta, delivers the kind of deadpan energy that suggests she’s been trapped in Doublewide since the Nixon administration.

Aaron Hadley, making his stage debut as Norwayne “Baby” Crumpler, performs physical comedy with the unhinged confidence of someone who has never once questioned a life choice. If the theatre ever explodes, it’ll be because he chewed through the electrical cables. A star is born, whether he likes it or not.

Adding to the atmosphere, Lance Phillips has built a set with 1960s-era wood-paneling, perfect for a double-wide that’s held together by hope, duct tape, and whatever the raccoons didn’t steal (I briefly smelled Aqua Net and despair). Vanity Holston’s lighting keeps the whole madhouse glowing like a neon beer sign at a VFW hall. Geo Medina‘s costumes are a riot, a glorious parade of clashing patterns, Texan stereotypes, and every loud fabric the Goodwill wouldn’t take, although Joveeta’s outfits are so surprisingly classy you half expect her to stand up and announce she’s moving to Austin where people know the difference between chevron print and the Lord’s wrath. And Medina’s props are funnier than a golf cart DUI on El Paseo; I won’t spoil it — you deserve the shock.

I do have one teensy bone to pick on the sound side. Tanner Lieser’s sound design (with Miguel Arballo running the board) is solid overall, but somebody forgot to give Lark’s baby even a whisper of life. Not a cry, not a coo, not so much as a grumpy fart — nothing. That doll was quieter than a televangelist’s tax records, even when Lark was bouncing around like she’d strapped herself to a tumble dryer. In a show this wild, the silence stuck out, but Lord love ’em, it’s the tiniest nit in an evening full of glorious chaos.

In the end, A Doublewide, Texas Christmas is exactly what it promises: goofy, rowdy, proudly lowbrow fun. And like cotton candy at a rodeo, it’s fluffy, sticky, a little stupid, and absolutely delicious. Between a mask of insane raccoons and a yam that looks like it’s about to run for public office, it’s impossible not to laugh. If you’re looking for holiday sophistication, you’re in the wrong zip code — but if you want a good time with a side of Lone Star lunacy, Doublewide’s got you covered.

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photos courtesy of DTW

A Doublewide, Texas Christmas
Desert TheatreWorks
Indio Performing Arts Center, 45175 Fargo St.
Thurs–Sat at 7:30; Sun at 2; additional holiday performances vary
ends on December 28, 2025
for tickets ($46.50), call 760.980.1455 or visit DTW

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