‘Tis the season, to be sure. The time of the year when pop culture moments — from Zuzu’s petals to Kevin Williamson’s bracing scream, from a cue-card declaration of love, actually, to a melancholy little island of misfit toys — comprise a lingua franca.
And so, to crib from Sam the Snowman’s jaunty intro to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”: Do you recall the greatest Christmas action hero of all?
Whether you do or don’t, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts has a treat for you. In Richard Marsh’s solo show “Yippee Ki Yay: The Die Hard Parody,” John McClane gets his due and then some. You may recall that the smirking, wise-cracking character shot a TV star named Bruce Willis out of a cannon and into the canon of 1980s action movies.
Like most parodies, this serio-silly homage gains momentum as it flatters and teases audience familiarity with the source material. (I can’t help but wonder what the one soul who raised her hand when Marsh asked who had never seen “Die Hard” made of it?)
From the time the British writer-performer reenacts the New York cop’s flight from New York to Los Angeles, where his wife has relocated for a corporate job, “Yippee” brims with the nuanced notes gleaned from the kind of repeat viewings that streaming affords.
Oh, did we mention it’s in verse? Besides being a nimble, energetic performer, Marsh is also a slam poetry ace.
Among the characters who Marsh inhabits: Argyle, the peppy limo driver; Al Powell, the LA cop bedeviled by his shooting of a teenager; corporate creep and “snow” man Harry Ellis; and hair-tossing, automatic-weapons-toting Karl. (“I’m Karl,” Marsh declares time and again, with a toss of his imaginary locks and the wanton firing of his Steyr AUG assault rifle.) The sound design (by Ben Hudson) and lighting work (by Robbie Butler) add gunfire bursts and visual flashes to the production’s action-flick gestures.
There’s also a last-minute, airport-bought teddy bear and McClane’s increasingly blood-splattered tank. When Marsh strips down to this T-shirt, we know we’re in the hands of a self-aware nerd and not an action-hero wannabee.
Marsh promises early in the show — briskly paced by director Hal Chambers — that it “will contain spoilers of the World’s Greatest Christmas Movie.” It’s a sly comment that like so many more to come was met with appreciative and knowing laughter. His caveat nods to the ongoing and annual debates as to whether “Die Hard” — set on the night before Christmas — is really a holiday movie.
For those in need, a quick primer. The smirking, off-duty McClane is set on wooing his mate back, if only he can zip his macho quips. He’s not happy that Holly and their daughter have decamped to LA. He’s even less happy when he learns from the company directory that she goes by her maiden name. Meanwhile, a band of sleek and lethal merceries posing as terrorists and led by the impeccably arrogant Hans Gruber (the late, and missed, Alan Rickman) descends on Holly’s workplace, the imposing Nakatomi Plaza tower during the holiday party on Christmas Eve. (That the company asks its employees to work — or play — on Christmas Eve might say something about its corporate values.)
For a spell, the identity of the pesky foil to Gruber’s best-laid plans goes unknown. And then, things get personal.
Marsh’s imitation of Euro-baddie Gruber’s quasi–East German accent is especially irresistible. Marsh (and the show’s voice and accent coach, Alice White) is right to toy with Rickman’s choice of cadence. If the accent is hard to place that’s because it springs from that unreal province Moviedom. (By the way, Gruber is No, 46 on the American Film Institute’s Top 100 Heroes and Villains.)
Of course, “Yippee” is an act of interpretation. So, while his embodiment of John’s machismo and Gruber’s superiority jingle the bells of accuracy for this viewer, his Holly Gennaro is too haughty by half. Bonnie Bedelia’s Holly is more torn, more level-headed and warmer. She’s as emblematic of the shifting gender politics of the late ‘80s as John.
If “Yippee” were merely a clever rehash of “Die Hard,” it might begin to feel like an extended, well-observed comedy sketch. But woven into Marsh’s nimble reenactment of the 1988 hit is another love story. His wife — or rather his character’s, since this is a loosely autobiographical work — arrives on the scene as another die-hard “Die Hard” fan.
We might think of their endearing courtship and mildly vexed marriage as an example of pop culture functioning as a language of love.
IF YOU GO
“Yippee-Ki-Yay: The Die-Hard Parody”: Written and performed by Richard Marsh. Directed by Hal Chambers. At the Garner Galleria, 14th and Curtis streets, through Dec. 23. For tickets and info: denvercenter.com or 303-893-4100.
