Theater-goers who saw the musical comedy “Don’t Hug Me” when it opened three years ago to rave reviews in Los Angeles will be tickled to know that a sequel is now on the boards, bringing the same zany fun and frolicking musical routines to audiences like the original -but with a new burst of seasonal color livening up the old Minnesota tavern setting.

By Judith Gabriel Vinje

As the playbill proclaims, “It’s ‘Fargo’ meets ‘A Christmas Carol,’ without the wood chipper or the Cratchits.”

And judging from the response from the Los Angeles audience at the October 13th world premier of “A Don’t Hug Me Christmas Carol,” fans are already looking for more. It’s the kind of musical theater that is complete with a lovable set of characters, a story full of surprises, and a laugh a minute.

You don’t have to be a Norskie or a Midwesterner to get the humor. The characters on stage have fun with “Yah, sure, you betcha,” and “Nidelven,” and some polkas emanate from the bar radio, but this is definitely not another Ole and Lena joke. There’s no denying that the play catches many aspects of the Midwestern Norwegian American personality -including that certain sense of reserve and social distance that playwright Phil Olson has dealt with in all his plays.

Tall and quiet in person, but quick to smile, Olson, a Minnesota native who is “Norwegian on both sides,” actually plays the lead in the new play, set to run until December 31st at the Lonny Chapman Repertory Theatre in the NoHo Arts District of North Hollywood of Los Angeles. The run includes a special matinee performance for Sons of Norway members December 2nd. “A Don’t Hug Me Christmas Carol” -a “holiday love story with singin’ and stuff” -is set in a small northern Minnesota bar in the fictitious town of Bunyan Bay. The comfy rural tavern isbedecked with fishing gear, Minnesota license plates, miniature Norwegian flags, mounted moose heads, a light-bedecked tree- as well as karaoke, the music-blaring gadget that is very prominent in the unfolding of the story.

It’s Christmas Eve, and cantankerous bar owner Gunner Johnson gets in an argument with his wife, Clara, and pro- claims that he’s skipping Christmas this year. He storms out of the bar and goes snowmobiling across the lake, but he falls through the ice and ends up in a coma. In his comatose state he dreams that he returns to the bar, where he’s visited by world famous crooner, Sven Yorgensen, who plays the ghost of Christmas past, present, and future. Sven escorts Gunner on a journey similar to the one Scrooge was taken on in Charles Dickens’ classic tale, “AChristmas Carol.”

The play bursts to life with 17 original song routines, with music written by the playwright’s brother, Paul Olson, who in “real life” is chief of nephrology at the Allina Medical Center in Minneapolis. The songs are all crowd-pleasers. Some of the musical numbers are: “It’s Christmas Time so Water the Tree,” “The Christmas Cheese Polka,” and “I Love You More Than Football.” The musical numbers aptly showcase the talents of the characters, from Gunner, the bar owner, played in this production by Olson; Gunner’s wife Clara, a former Winter Carnival queen, played by Therese Lentz; Bernice Lundstrom, the pretty waitress, exuberantly played by Minnesota-raised Scandinavian- American actress Emily Trempe; her former fiance, Kanute Gunderson, played by Mark Atha; and Sven Yorgenson, played by Chris Winfield. The play was directed by Sean Mulcahy, with choreography by Stan Mazin, and produced by Stefanie Ibanez and Doug Engalla.

Midwestern audiences won’thave to wait long to see the play, it opens in November in four Midwest locations: St. Cloud, Minnesota; Hudson, Wisconsin; Batavia, Illinois; and New Rockford, North Dakota. Based on the success of the original “Don’t Hug Me” production, three of the cities booked the new musical before it was even written, according to Olson, noting that “this is unprecedented for live theater.” In the meantime, the originnal “Don’t Hug Me” is being staged throughout the U.S., with an off-off-off Broadway opening set for the New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch, New Jersey, on December 9th and runs through December 31st.

“Don’t Hug Me” opened in Los Angeles in November 2003 to rave reviews and sold out houses, and has been booked in 35 cities around the country since it opened. It won four Artistic Director Achievement Awards in Los Angeles, as well as other top honors. The musical then went to Minneapolis where it ran for nine months. Olson had earlier success with his “Crappie Talk,” also set in a Minnesota bar; and the more socially complex “A Nice Family Gathering,” about a Norwegian-American who loved his wife so much, “he almost told her.” Both received several awards in playwriting festivals and competitions, “One theme I carry over in each one of my plays is the ’emotionally conservative’ nature of Scandinavians,” Olson said. He writes about the awkwardness of hugging, or of having to express emotion. But he is quick to add that he had a great upbringing, and that his parents were “the most wonderful people in the world.”

He grew up in Edina, Minnesota, his father’s grandparents came over from Norway and homesteaded a farm north of Fargo, North Dakota. His mother’s grandparents also came over from Norway and ended up in Virginia, Minnesota; the iron range. Olson deals with it in a loving a nd comedic fashion. And no matter from Where members of his audiences hail they find the themes strike a familiar chord. “I think the themes are very universal, I’ve heard that quite a lot. So even though the setting is a Scandinavian town in Minnesota, people in California can relate to, say, their parents not being able to say, ‘I love you,’ or not hugging you.” In Los Angeles, he works as a stock broker by day. Besides his award- winning plays, Olson has also written several screenplays, and is hoping to see his Scandinavian musical comedy creation made into a motion picture.