Krampus Klaws Is Coming to Town

A three-act immersive theater production with shadow puppetry, simulated stained glass illustrations, and audience interaction, for an audience of about sixty. Krampus discovers that morality is not black and white, that bad kids are sometimes good kids in bad circumstances, and by the end he has found a new role to play. Meanwhile Gryla, an Icelandic giantess bound beneath the earth for a thousand years by spells of air, water, and fire, feels those bonds weakening.

During intermissions, costumed troupe members pulled small groups aside to visit the spirits of water, air, and fire in elaborately presented smaller spaces. Each encounter yielded a token to keep hidden: a rubber fireball, a kazoo, a small water pistol. In the final act those tokens became weapons, and the audience helped Krampus turn against Gryla.

As one review put it, it felt cathartic and almost ritualistic, without any of the self-seriousness that things too often have this time of year, and it was specifically designed to be immune to digital virality.